St. Paul's Vestry

St. Paul's Vestry 

St. Paul's Vestry members serve 3 year terms.  Elections are held January each year at the annual meeting.  

The most recent Annual Meeting and election were held Sunday, January 15, 2012. Below are the current vestry members and term end:

Class of 2013:  Lane Ceric, Trudy Hsu, Maura Lane

Class of 2014:  Annette Blue, Sheila Fischer, Leah Hall

Class of 2015:  Charles Doyle, Mary Wells, TBA

Vestry Officers: 

• Lane Ceric, Senior Warden 
  
• Maura Lane, Junior Warden
  
• Sheila Fischer, Secretary
  
• Tom McGarrell, Treasurer

Many thanks to recently retired vestry members Claudette Ford and Phil Merrick.

Vestry Minutes

St. Paul's Vestry minutes are posted online at http://www.stpaulsoakland.org/vestryminutes

The Responsibilities of a Vestry

The work of the vestry has two faces, leadership and management. While leadership and management are different, they are complementary and essential. They differ in focus and tools/activities.

As managers, the vestry strives to achieve stability, predictability, order and efficiency; these are necessary, worthy and daunting goals. Good vestries are willing to deal with conflicts and take some risks to achieve these difficult goals. Management include such tasks as:

• Budgeting
• Establishing and enforcing policies and procedures
• Establishing action plans
• Maintaining property

As leaders, the vestry strives for purposeful change when such change is important to the mission. Leaders don't seek risk but will take those risks inherent in moving the organization forward.  Leadership includes tasks such as:

• Discerning a vision for the future
• Articulating and communicating the vision
• Generating enthusiasm and "buy-in" from the congregation
• Setting the tone for leadership that encourages other leaders in the congregation to grow and flourish.

Purposeful change always entails some "creative destruction," some unfreezing of established patterns, including those established patterns that support stability, predictability, etc. There is artful, creative tension between leadership and management.

Members of the vestry are legal agents in the congregation who, with the clergy, provide leadership. God creates the Church, and invites you to participate in the process. The invitation is for the clergy and vestry, with the Holy Spirit, to co-create a vision responding to God's call and plan of action for the congregation. The vestry is called into a process that includes prayer, silence, watching, listening, open and honest dialogue and thoughtful decision-making. The vestry, with the clergy, is called to articulate and champion the vision of the future.

For more on the role of the vestry, the clergy and the laity visit the Vital Practices website of the Episcopal Church Foundation. (This information was taken from The Vestry Resource Guide 2007).