Proposed Bylaws 2025 Commentary and Explanatory Notes

[ DOWNLOAD PROPOSED 2025 BYLAWS HERE ]

Where something is substantially unchanged, apart generally from some language such as Board of Directors becoming Governing Council, no commentary will be made. Where significant change to old provisions or an entirely new provision has been added, explanatory commentary will be added here. Sections highlighted in yellow are matters which may need further significant discussion.

Article II.2: This section uses a combination of the language of the agreed upon CP Structures document from January 2025 with some minor updates and editing to make it fit for purpose.

Article III: Following model bylaws for the state of Texas as well as considering the bylaws of Anglican Communion Partners, Canada, Inc, this section seeks to adopt basic criteria for membership.

III.1.a and b – Members become members upon filling out an application form which they would provide name, contact information, canonical residency/residency and ordination status, or any other information that might be useful for us to know in our membership directory.

III.1.c – This is new, but it seems like it would be valuable to include. Anglican Communion Partners, Canada, Inc. requires that you be a member of the Anglican Church of Canada and assent to the Montreal Declaration of Anglican Essentials (its pre-cursor organization). A basic summary of what we believe the historic faith and order of the Church to entail. It is rooted heavily in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral with some slight tweaks: (i) has some language from the declaration of conformity in Article VIII of the Constitution of the Episcopal Church. (ii) the word ‘historic’ is added to connect with Article II of our bylaws and the purposes of Communion Partners. (iii) ‘as generally necessary for salvation is added, along with the second section on the sacramental rites of the memorialized prayer book as being sufficient statements of sacramental doctrines of the Church is added as a way of being honest about our views on same-sex marriage without having to have an explicit clause anywhere saying we oppose it. (iv) expands the Lambeth-Quadrilateral’s statement on the historic episcopate locally adapted to reference the preface of the ordinal of the 1979 Prayer Book instead (BCP 510) for a greater statement of the wholeness of the ordained ministry as a gift from God and the episcopacy in particular as guardians of the historic faith and focus of unity.

III.2 - Establishes the revised two-fold membership model as the distinction of bishops is made elsewhere in Article VI.

IV.1 - Identifies that the Board of Directors will be called the Governing Council.

IV.2 - Sets the number of Councilors at 12 to 17. This is based on how many ex officio there are. This anticipates: Chair, Vice Chair, Registrar (Secretary), Bursar (Treasurer), 3 chairs of the standing committee, Episcopal Guardian, Dean of Chapters, and the chairs of the Communications, Conference, and Vocations subcommittees. That’s twelve members (two of which at least must be bishops) plus up to 5 more councilors without portfolio. Normally we would probably want to keep it a bit smaller, but this feels appropriate for an organization about our size and scope.

IV.4 – This implements the proposals discussed in January. The chair is directly elected, and we’ll do it with a requirement of a majority and multiple rounds of voting. For councilors we’ll do one ballot, each person votes for as many candidates as they desire up to however many people there are spots for, and then we tally the votes. If two or more candidates are tied for last place, it will be determined by lot. The registrar, or another member if the registrar is standing for re-election, runs the election with assistants as scrutineers. None of whom may be standing for election. This section provides that anyone who is a full member can stand, and you can stand for re-election as the current bylaws permit.

IV.6 – Implements the January document’s description of the roles. Note again that the Vice Chair role is a bishop ex officio unless the chair is already a bishop. This ensures a guaranteed minimum of  two bishops on the governing council at all times, though it seems likely that more would be elected or appointed.

IV.7 – Implements the January document, mainly that officers are nominated by the Chair and confirmed by vote of the Council. The Chair can fill vacancies, and people can resign of their own accord or be removed by a 2/3 majority vote of the Council.

IV.8 – Covers the three basic meetings. The Organization meeting intended to happen at the January gathering shortly after the Annual Meeting, the regular quarterly meetings, and Special meetings, which can be called under the same procedures as the current bylaws.

IV.8(d) - provides that the minutes of these meetings can be approved by email, so that this can be done immediately after the meeting takes place, and you don’t have to try remembering three months later if the minutes are accurate. 

V deals with new material for meetings of members, the annual or special meetings. Note that the annual meeting is IN PERSON only. IE show up at the conference if you want to vote. The reason for this is it adds a significant logistical hurdle to the meeting if we are required by our bylaws to provide for hybrid participation. This does not apply to a special meeting of members, nor does it apply to the board meetings which would generally be anticipated to be online. 

V.4 - Quorum for annual meetings and special meetings is set at 25 Members rather than a per-centage rather than the previous norm of 50%. I am concerned about meeting attendance and the necessity of doing business, especially if we’re using percentages of membership as we may end up with people registering to be members who never intend to attend meetings. 

VI – Implements the Bishops’ Council as a council of advice to Communion Partners with the ability to make its own statements on behalf of the bishops, and to work within CP to exercise their episcopal charism, as well as to cultivate relationships with other bishops, dioceses, and organizations.

VII – Implements the Subcommittees and allows the Governing Council to establish more under such terms as they want, those additional subcommittees will not have their chairs become ex officio members of the Governing Council.

VIII – Implements the Standing Committees (ministries of CP). 

VIII.2(b) there is a question of whether the Chair of the Standing Committee on Faith and Order or the Governing Council should have the final say on approval of position papers produced by the Standing Committee on Faith and Order.

IX – Implements regional chapters. Dean of Chapters confirms regional wardens after consulting with the local members. The warden appoints a chaplain. They all serve at the pleasure of the person who appointed them, though not to be removed without cause or consent.

X – Sticks into one Article some of the administrative things from the bylaws. X.5 says the members can amend the bylaws by simple majority with the exception of the purpose statement in II.2 or the statement of faith in III.1(c) which requires a 2/3 majority.

Revisions:

First version: 20250804 – initial draft.

Second Version: 20250805 – edits to the statement of faith III.1(c) and the language of II.2(c), and also cleaned up VIII.2(b) to say that they produce papers and articles subject to approval of the chair. That is their job to make them. The GC’s role would be to potentially direct strategically that Faith and Order produce them, but does need to trust subordinates to actually get them done right, and also to ensure co-ordination with the Communications people when it comes to publication. This is no different than the resource people working with the communications people to maintain the website resource database.

Third Version: 20250807 – restored the question of whether or not VIII.2(b) needs approval of the chair of the standing committee on Faith and Order, with authority to do so delegated from the Governing Council, or if the Governing Council itself should have the final say on any form of publication of such position papers.

Fourth Version: 20250903 – After review by Mr. Tracy Pounder, Bp. Sumner’s lawyer who assisted in the incorporation of Communion Partners, the two changes suggested were to preserve the use of Robert’s Rules for all meetings of the Board and Corporation, and to adjust Quorum for the Annual and Special Meetings. The original value from the 2022 Bylaws was 50%, which I had dropped to 15% in this drafting with a question of perhaps setting an absolute value of 50 members. Mr. Pounders suggested 25, noting that this was an acceptable practice for organizations with extremely large memberships and low attendance which regularly still had several hundred persons in attendance at their annual meeting. This would ensure not needing bylaw amendments to conduct business.