[Magdalen] Leaving...

[Jim Guthrie]

24 out of 1,000 gives you a shot.

I remember the first year's annual meeting, when a new (less than two 
years but more than one) member  who was busy organizing prayer groups 
and Adult Ed in the absence of any clergy but supply. "You can't do 
those things. That's the Rector's Job!" was the rep on her -- and the 
elderly ladies of the Vestry decided she wasn;t eligible because she 
hadn't pledged a full year. She left for greener pastures after that.

We had another member who would volunteer for everything and then not 
follow-through, which was fine with the wardens, because doing anything 
might have diminished their power.

Vestry size in New York is governed by the New York State Religious 
Corporation Law. IIRC, It must be an odd number (including Wardens) 
between 7 and 15 and set in stone by the by-laws, which must be 
registered with the Secretary of State's office (through the country 
clerk). I wrote by-laws that allowed any number by two vestry votes at 
least six months ahead of the annual meeting. We got no flack from the 
state -- or what some of us called "The Religious Corporation Police" -- 
the latter group always threatening to raid us and send us all to jail, 
according to the elderly wardens when I first arrived. If anyone is 
interested, the NYS RCL has subsections for a variety of denominations.

When we moved to Brooklyn, The ASA at Christ Church was around 20. There 
were 15 on the vestry. And the only reason we got younger people on the 
vestry was actuarial realities. With the exception of our Wardens,  were 
long-time widows of long-time vestry members. The Junior Warden had been 
a member of several parishes -- at least two of which had Rectors who 
directly or indirectly pushed her off on another parish. She disappeared 
into the land of shut-ins after falling and breaking her hip climbing 
down the steps from the lectern after reading a lesson one Sunday morning.

The Senior Warden was a never-married teacher who had taught third 
graders in the NYC Public School for 50-odd years. She was virulently 
anti-Catholic, and as I've related before saw to it that our Eucharistic 
Vestments became parts of quilts at the Lutheran Home. She had run the 
Sunday School since the 1940s. After teaching in third graders all those 
years, she spoke to everyone she met like they were a third-grader.

Members of the parish cut her lots of slack, but when one speaks to an 
African American Bishop or and African American Archdeacon -- men of 
some no little accomplishment like they're third graders, they take a 
very different view of what that means -- which led to us suffering five 
years of supply priests.

The 15-member vestry's dysfunction  was illustrated by them hiring 
low-bidder handymen to do projects around the parish that either never 
got done or made matters worse than they had been. We spent three entire 
vestry meetings discussing whether to pull the $60/month payphone  (that 
might have had 75 cents worth of use in a typical month).  The Diocese 
had asked churches improve accessibility -- so they spent a huge amount 
of money constructing an accessible bathroom -- in an in-accessible 
basement (fixing up the one on the first floor would "ruin everything"). 
And this was the tail end of a long saga, which included years of 
self-dealing by vestrymen (the parish owned six houses in the area plus 
a large summer camp on Staten Island -- all sold for far less than 
market value with the vestry members collecting commissions and any 
proceeds going into the operating fund so stewardship had long become 
incidental.

Finally we were called into a Diocesan/Archdeaconry meeting where they 
were going to tell the ladies that it was over- - the parish would be 
closed. After their introductory remarks, I hijacked the meeting, 
telling the bishop and the Archdeacon to pay no attention to the ladies 
-- and my friend Tom and I presented what could/would actually happen 
going forward, ignoring the Wardens and Vestry.

And we proceeded to just go ahead and do what we needed to do -- me on 
finance and operations, and Tom on rebuilding the physical plant, And 
telling the ladies of the vestry what we were doing (after the fact) 
avoided their interference.

Between the continuing march of time and the lack of interest due to 
lack of control, we soon had an entirely new vestry and not long after 
that, a P-I-C.

Sometimes, you just have to take matters  into your own hands to make it 
work.

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie