Agenda Volume 3 - Methodist Conference

59. Memorials to the Conference
(paragraph E3), so that an extension to
invitation can be finalised at ‘a Circuit
Meeting to be held no earlier than six weeks
after the start of the process’ rather than
at the ‘September Circuit Meeting’, as at
present. While we recognise that the wide
consultation required for Superintendents
seeking extensions may require longer
than six weeks in large Circuits, the change
would have the effect in most cases of
reducing the length of what at the moment
can seem unnecessarily protracted.
Furthermore, and for similar reasons, we
can see no real reason for the provision
in guideline E13, which allows objections
to be raised as late as the Circuit Meeting
itself. Having given the members of the
Circuit Meeting written notice of the
request for extension and the result of the
Invitation Committee’s deliberations, and
having been invited to inform the Chair of
the Meeting of any substantive objections,
we do not see any reason for such a
request being repeated at the beginning of
the Circuit Meeting itself.
The very fact of this may be sufficient to
prevent some presbyters and deacons
seeking an extension to their appointment
even when such an extension would be
beneficial both to the presbyter or deacon
concerned and to the Circuit itself.
We ask for this provision to be removed
from the process.
Reply
The Conference is grateful to the Norwich
Circuit Meeting for raising this subject, and
assures the Circuit that it believes that the
invitation process should be completed
efficiently and as sensitively as possible.
This is why section E6 of the Guide refers
to the consultation being completed in
three weeks. The Stationing Committee
reviews the Guide annually in the light of
the previous year’s experience. This year’s
Guide, which has been re-named the Code
of Practice, has given particular attention
to the invitation process, which we hope
Circuits will find helpful.
Circuits are reminded in the Guide that
20 September is the date by which Circuit
Meetings must have taken place. It is the
latest date which will allow the Connexional
Team to prepare the appropriate information
for the stationing process to commence.
Standing Order 545(2) requires that the
Circuit Meeting addresses the invitation
in the ‘fifth year of the minister’s service’.
The Conference is sympathetic to the views
expressed in the memorial, and welcomes
all comments that can assist in improving
the invitation process. To this end the Stationing
Committee has appointed a working
group to investigate the suggestions made
by the Circuit in collaboration with the Law
and Polity Committee, and to consider how
best procedures may be modified in order to
improve the invitation process. The Conference
directs the Stationing Committee to
report the outcomes of this work in its
annual report to the Conference of 2013.
M5
Reinvitation of ministers
The Falmouth and Gwennap (12/3) Circuit
Meeting (Present: 47. Voting: unanimous)
notes that the current Connexional Good
Practice Guidelines for all involved in
772 Conference Agenda 2012