A plea — please come to an upcoming Easter Vestry meeting! These are very important, especially this year. 

Dates: 

Kilmallock — Sunday, 30 August (that is this Sunday!), at 11.00am

Adare / Croom / Kilpeacon — Wednesday, 2 September (next week!), at 7.30pm at St. Nicholas, Adare. 

Both services will be in the midst of a worship service, to abide by Covid-19 restrictions. 

Easter Vestry is essentially the Annual General Meeting of the congregation. It is always important, but especially so this year. Every three years (that means this year), we must elect a few special positions: 

- Four Parish Nominators (If the position of Rector becomes vacant, the Parish Nominators are the ones who choose a replacement to nominate to the Bishop.)

- Four Diocesan Synod representatives (The Diocesan Synod is like the Annual General Meeting of the Diocese. It was supposed to happen in June, but obviously didn’t. Diocesan Synod then elects from among its members those to represent the Diocese at the General Synod of the Church of Ireland. I’m not sure the Diocesan Synod will meet this year, but elections to General Synod will still have to take place, perhaps by post.)

In order to be fair, for each of these, we elect one person from Kilmallock and three from Adare / Croom / Kilpeacon. 

We will also recommission our Parish Readers. This is new this year, to happen every three years. These are the people trained and commissioned to lead worship in the absence of the Rector. The recommissioning will happen at the meeting in Adare. 

In addition, we must elect the following, as usual: 

- People’s Churchwarden

- People’s Glebewarden 

- Members of the Select Vestry

The Rector will also choose a Rector’s Churchwarden for each congregation, and a Rector’s Glebewarden for Kilmallock and a Rector’s Glebewarden for Adare / Croom / Kilpeacon. 

The Glebewardens for A/C/K look after the Adare Rectory, which is the Rector’s residence, and the Kilmallock Glebewardens look after the Kilmallock Rectory, which is leased. 

We also must approve the accounts for each congregation from 2019. 

And we approve the census (the count of members for each congregation). 

It sounds like a lot, but it can actually go fairly quickly, if everyone is prepared. 

So, is you are a member of one of our parishes, please come to one of these meetings!