Suffrage and the Church

I haven't been a priest for an awfully long time, and I have only been an incumbent for a very short time - but in the years I have existed within parish structures, I have been convinced of the cause of the gentle degradation of that noble body - the parochial church council.

I wrote a while ago about how, here, we will do things a little differently when the next session of the PCC begins. That was not all I believed needed adjustment for the Council to be effective in its work. The other factor, I believe, surrounds the right that the members of the electoral roll possess but rarely ever have a real chance to use - their vote. 

I am not talking of the pack animal arm-in-air type voting. I am referring to a meaningful election where everyone gets a chance to make a difference. The degradation of the valency of the parish council surrounds the following process:

• The PCC is overworked with the minutiae of parish life
• It becomes an unattractive proposition 
• Insufficient people stand for the vacancies at the next session
• To make up numbers arms are twisted
• Just enough people stand for election for the vacancies to be filled
• They get elected en bloc and very much en passant
• No-one remembered who was on the PCC if you ask them after the fact
• The PCC becomes detached from parish life
• ...and a cycle of insufficient nominations for vacancies perpetuates
• Start at the top

My feeling is that an election where, unfortunately, people may lose and not be elected is vital to the health of a PCC and in many ways to the parish. The reasons for this are simple - the people who have the vote are then caused to use it, and become an active part of the process rather than a passive member of the crowd. They get to exercise their responsibilities under that suffrage too. We had an election yesterday here, and yes, people were not elected. I bet that those who were at the meeting will be able to name the new PCC though - and that is a start in itself. 

When I was young (in my teens), the PCC of which I was a member was routinely formed in a contested election. It was, perhaps not by chance, a time of great growth in that parish. Oddly, growth seemed to diminish as the PCC seemed to stop being elected. This may be chance, but there is also a chance that it wasn't. Perhaps winning in an election was an attractive prize (it certainly felt good as a 17 year old), and maybe that sense of satisfaction was enough to get the parish 'heart' pumping - but whatever it was, it seemed to make a very considerable difference. 

Killing the Old PCC

Kum Ba Ya, M'lud

Fret not, I am not about to emerge as the next headline after One Direction have moved aside. I have not strolled into church with my Ouzi Nine Millimeetah and popped caps into asses. No, none of that.

But ... the Old Order is no more. A new dawn breaks over Whitton.

Those of you familiar with the Parochial Church Council as an entity will know that it is a gathering of the willing who gather periodically to be talked at, either by the Vicar or else the Treasurer, or else the wind-bag who always has an argument for every occasion. They are normally constituted by the faithful and willing who, when they are elected are bright-eyes and fluffy-tailed. By the end of their tenure, they are The Haunted - characterised my sallow-eyes and rictus grin. They will have given up many hours of useful life and devoted it to sitting in and among the Windbags (see above), then dutifully getting on with the task in hand - or put another way, everything that needs doing around the place. 

The level of work covered is very distinctive at such meetings. The wattage of the bulb for use over the Decani choir stalls, so that Old Mrs Miggins cataract isn't scorched; the pile gauge and weight of the carpet sample for the littlies to sit on so that their fragile derrieres are not assaulted by the curvature of medieval stone; the correct  brand of nasty powered-coffee for use after parish events with and without liturgy; the colour of the door knob to the parish office up the stairs that no-one can climb without crampons and a rope; oh, and the pre-payment and accrual basis of the accounts in the fiscal year to date (that only a graduate accountant can fathom). Get the idea?

Well, things they are a-changing. I have never enjoyed sit-in-circles PCCs where every minute detail of every irrelevancy is discussed to the Nth degree (by three people while the remaining fourteen lose the will to live). There is much to be learned by the models established by many school Governing Bodies. 

From now on, the members of my next PCC will all belong to a committee. There will be six committees that range across all of parish life (comms, finance, pastoral, hall, buildings and fabric, children and young people). They needn't run those committees, but be critical friends and communicators (in both directions of that). They will submit reports prior to PCC meetings so that we can read them and come armed to fewer meetings, not more. There will be no such person as a PCC member who does not exist on a committee. What would be the point? In the end, it won't be the onerous duty of a dozen or so press-ganged people to run the entire show; with smaller groups working in this way, half the parish will share the fun.