Decision Number 10

Eligibility of Member of Annual Conference Board of Lay Activities to Membership on Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance

Digest

Members of an Annual Conference Board of Lay Activities, being a Board that asks for appropriations from the Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance, are ineligible for membership on the Commission, under the provisions of Paragraph 1224, and Paragraph 1228, Discipline 1944.

Statement of Facts

In the Wyoming Annual Conference at its 1941 Session nominations were presented which disclosed that a District Lay Leader had also been nominated as a member of the Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance. The Conference Lay Leader then presented a Request for a Ruling by the presiding Bishop E. G. Richardson, which Request and the Ruling thereon were entered on the Journal and appear on page 12 of the Wyoming Annual Conference Year Book 1941, which Request and Ruling are as follows:

REQUEST FOR RULING

Question-Paragraph 832 of the 1940 Discipline provides for the Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance. As the membership on said Commission, it provides as follows: "No member or employee of any Conference or Connectional Board shall be eligible." Does this provision render the District Lay Leaders and Associate Lay Leaders ineligible for membership on the Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance?

RULING OF THE BISHOP

The Bishop replied as follows: "It does not. The ineligible provisionapplies only to Conference or Connectional Boards."

Decision

In accordance with Paragraph 40 of the Discipline this Episcopal decision is now before us. The determination of the issue requires the definition and application of what is meant in Paragraph 832 of the 1940 Discipline by the terms "Conference Boards," and membership thereon.

Paragraph 1224 of the 1940 Discipline under the heading "Annual Conference Boards" provides:

There shall be in every Annual Conference a Conference Board of Lay Activities, composed of the Conference Lay Leader who shall be Chairman of the Board, the District Lay Leader and the two Associate District Lay Leaders from each District, and the District Superintendents.

Paragraph 1228 provides further as to Annual Conference Board of Lay Activities as follows:

The Board shall estimate annually the amount necessary for the support of the work and report the amount to the Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance for the consideration and recommendation to the Annual Conference. It is evident that the purpose of the restriction as to membership on the Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance was to eliminate members and officers of other Boards who would be asking appropriations from the Finance Commission.

Judged by this standard, it is clear from reading of the above Paragraphs that the Board of Lay Activities set up in the Annual Conference is a "Conference Board" under the meaning of Paragraph 832, and that District Lay Leaders and Associate Lay Leaders are members thereof and as such are ineligible for membership on the Annual Conference Commission on World Service and Finance.

It necessarily follows that the presiding Bishop's decision was in error and must now be and hereby is reversed.