UPDATE 8/25: The ballots are in! Thank you to all who voted for participating in the vote regarding the bylaws revisions. Church membership voted overwhelmingly in favor of the changes to the bylaws – fifty-four members voted in total: fifty voted in favor of the revisions; three did not approve of the revisions; and one person elected to abstain. The new bylaws are now in effect. Thanks again to the Bylaws Team: Dan Tallacksen, Jeff Cebulski, Seung-Bok “Bogie” Cha and Tandy Malinak for their extraordinary and faithful service to our church. It’s our belief that the bylaws are a “living” document, intended to serve the church – and not to be a burden, so while the work for this stage is complete, there is still a little more work to be done. These will be revisited sometime in the future, but we’re also sensing a need to move into learning how we can be a missional church, being intentional about serving our neighbors well during these historic times. More on this soon!
You’ll find a copy of our new bylaws here.
UPDATE 7/23: Here are the questions and answers from the second Q&A. If you have further questions regarding the bylaws, please submit them to elders@firstfree.com
The Bylaw Committee and the Elders are proposing a few other changes to the initial proposal sent to you in June based on your comments and feedback. To make it easy for your review, you may find only changed pages document to the June draft HERE, a full blacklined document to the June draft HERE, or a clean copy of the proposed BylawsHERE.
To summarize, the changes relate to a) increasing the minimum quorum for church business from 10% to 25%; b) providing further clarity on bringing motions to the congregation; c) providing additional clarity on ballot requirements; and, d) a restriction that prohibit the Senior Pastor from being elected as the Chair or the Secretary.
Please look out for a link to a poll to be sent out this Sunday to church members. This is to gauge whether or not people feel adequately informed to vote on the proposed Bylaws. If affirmed in the majority, the vote on the Bylaws would open August 16th at noon and close on August 19th at noon. Please check your email Sunday afternoon!
UPDATE 7/14: Here are the questions and answers from the first Q&A
ORIGINAL POST 7/9: After many hours of conversation, debate and editing, our bylaw committee is proposing final changes to First Free’s Bylaws and Constitution started nearly 3 years ago. This completes the “modernization” of the main document which govern First Free. To understand these changes best, we recommend you:
- read through the following “Significant Changes from January 2017 Amended Version”, and;
- then read through either the attached blackline comparison version or simply review the proposed final version.