Dear BPCWAians, The Annual Congregational Meeting (ACM) is an important event in the church calendar, and members should mark this in their calendars and attend the meeting. Today, members will collect the Annual Congregational Report and the Agenda for our ACM which will be held later this month on the 16th. The respective fellowship and ministry reports are provided to give all members an update of what has been done over the past year and how you can support these activities. Do remember that these write ups are to inform you of the church’s activities in the past year and also to update you on what are some of the ministries’ focus so that you will come and attend them. Importantly, these reports also highlight the challenges that you can support in prayer. As such, all members must take the time to read through them. You will also notice that there is an item in the agenda of the ACM proposing to make amendments to our church’s Constitution. What are these changes and why are we proposing an amendment?

Trusteeship is no longer essential as an Incorporated Association. The matter of trusteeship was brought up during the last ACM (see ACM minutes, page 9). The purpose of this change is to ensure that there will be no necessity to transfer any church funds or properties into personal accounts of the trustee and to continue to ensure that no one can make decisions on church properties and possessions on their own. Trustees are individuals appointed to act on behalf of the church in event of acquisition (Article 20.1) of property. Associations can be incorporated, or unincorporated. An unincorporated association is not a separate legal entity. It is simply a group of people who come together to pursue a common purpose. Since unincorporated associations cannot make contracts, own land, or hold assets, trustees are appointed to hold assets for the unincorporated association. Hence, trustees are people who are thoroughly familiar with the association’s matters and closely involved in the ongoing running of the association. This is because they must have an up to date knowledge of the association in order to act in the relevant interest of the association.

BPCWA was registered as an incorporated association on the 22nd July 1986. As an incorporated association, this means that BPCWA is a legal entity (like a “person”) that can buy and hold assets on its own without needing it to be held under an individual’s (ie, trustee’s) name. This means that all of the church’s properties and assets are under BPCWA’s name, not a church member’s name. And this has been the case since then. So as a legal entity, the guiding principles for buying and holding property will be determined by the Articles of our Constitution. As an incorporated association, there is no necessity for BPCWA to have this function performed by individuals acting as trustees. Hence, it is our recommendation that the section on trustees (Article 20) be removed from our constitution as it is better for BPCWA itself (as a legal “person”) to administer our own property, rather than to have trustees act on our behalf in such matters.

In a later clause in our current Constitution, in event of dissolution, remaining funds of the Church are actually “given or transferred to the trustees” (Article 27.2) to manage. Since these trustees are individuals, it means that these charity funds are managed in the trustees’ individual accounts until a final use for these funds is determined. Even with the best of intents, such a transfer lends itself to the risk of mixing charity and personal money together. Since we are an incorporated association, this is an unnecessary movement of funds and also lends itself to risks. In fact, this is a good reason why unincorporated associations often eventually move to be incorporated wherever possible. As an incorporated association, we believe that the best governance would be for the funds to continue to be kept under BPCWA’s name without the need for physical transfer of the funds to the personal accounts of trustees. This is the advantage of incorporated associations which makes trustees not essential. For incorporated associations, the management committee, which in our case will be the Board of Elders and Session, will be responsible to the association members. No funds or properties will ever need to be transferred to any of their personal accounts. Hence, our proposal is for these funds to be distributed by the Board of Elders (instead of the trustees) by removing trustees from our constitution. Please note that even for these changes, how the Board of Elders of BPCWA will distribute these funds (which will be out from BPCWA’s account, not their individual accounts) will be still be determined at a Congregational Meeting. As mentioned earlier, the final situation of this change is that no one can decide as they wish, and that there will be no necessity for funds to move out of BPCWA’s account in any situation.

BPCWA’s management committee is appointed by the vote of our members every 3 years. The vote is a sign that the members trust these men to make decisions on their behalf. This must include a trust of them administrating the church and its possessions. That is why, for incorporated associations, it is critical that only men of good character and honesty are voted into the management committee. As members, you have control over this and must follow Biblical principles in voting, and not simply vote for them because of your relationships and friendships with them. While the Session is voted in triennially, this is not the case with trustees. There is no triennial election of trustees where members have control over their staying as trustees or not. You do not need trustees to watch over the management committee because you, as a member, are directly observing them and their actions and decisions every week and have direct voting rights, should any fail in their role according to Biblical and constitutional expectations of them.

Compliance with new government regulations. In addition to the above, we are proposing 4 amendments to our Constitution to comply with the Associations Incorporation Act 2015. 1) AddBPCWA’sFinancialYear.There is now a requirement to state “the day in each year on which the financial year of the incorporated association commences”. For many years, it has been BPCWA’s practice to begin our financial year on the 1st of July every year. Now that there is a need to state it in our Constitution, we are simply formalising the process by adding this statement. This change has no impact on our existing financial processes. 2) State when the ACMwill be held. While there was a statement in our constitution as to when the ACM would be held, the month was actually blank. Five of our Annual Congregational Meetings over the recent past seven years have been held in September. Hence, we are proposing that future ACM’s will be held in September. As far as viable, we do not hold ACM’s during school holidays, as we wish to have a date that is convenient for most, if not all, members to attend since it is expected for members to do so. Even in the secular world, Annual Meetings are deemed to be important events. I hope that as church members, each of us will feel the same way and make our best efforts to be present at every Annual Congregational Meeting. 3 & 4) Voting forConstitution amendments. The Act requires a three-quarter majority vote before changes can be made to the Constitution. Since our current Constitution requires only a two-third majority, there is a need for us to change this, so that we are compliant with governmental requirements. This affects two Articles, namely 19.9 and 25.2, of our Constitution.

Since the Incorporations Act is already in force, all the above changes will only be passed if three-quarters of eligible members vote for these changes. We have discussed these revisions over several Session meetings, and we believe that they are changes that are in the interest of BPCWA and hope that every member will understand why these Constitutional amendments are being proposed.

Rom 13:1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

Yours in our Lord’s service

Pastor