ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 10.30am: Sunday 21 January

Our AGM will be held as part of our 10.30am in person services (both Balerno & Livingston).

Our church constitution requires that 25% of all who are eligible, must attend the AGM for it to be considered a valid meeting in the eyes of our charity regulator, OSCR. This means we absolutely need at least 130 church members aged 16 and over to be present at one of our 10.30am in person services (particularly as our morning services are no longer live streamed).

What will be covered at the AGM?
We will be covering our usual formal business which includes affirming the reappointment of:

Brodie Petrie as the People’s Warden
Francis Cummings as the Lay Representative to the Diocese
Alison Wilson as the Alternate Lay Representative to the Diocese

You will also be invited to affirm the appointment of two new Vestry Members [photos below]:

Julia Sloan
Derek Thomson

Julia and Derek have been nominated by the Vestry to succeed Lisa Fawcett and Rik Smith as they reach the end of their terms of service. You can see the full Vestry membership, and find out more about their role, on this link https://stmungos.org/vestry.

As is customary, further background information about Julia and Derek are set out below:

Julia has been part of St Mungos for over 30 years. She leads the evangelism & outreach prayer cell and is a counsellor in the wellness centre. Julia works for a global professional services firm where she has held roles including UK Head of Communications & Engagement and Managing Consultant, working with UK Government and corporate clients. She is currently Associate Director, Partner Matters which involves working with the UK Board and senior Partner team on everything from one-to-one coaching and team development, to writing ethics strategies, succession planning and performance assessment. Julia is on the board of trustees for the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity.

Derek, his wife Lara and their two daughters joined St Mungo’s in 2006. Derek spent over 20 years in Financial Services before establishing a leadership consulting & coaching business in 2007, combining this with working part time for St Mungo’s as Operations Director between 2008 & 2012. He returned to our staff team full time as Executive Director between 2015 & 2021. His charity trustee experience includes two periods as our Vestry Secretary (2010-12 & 2015-21) and 5 years on Edinburgh Leisure’s Board. Now back running the consulting business along with Lara, Derek serves on the church tech and ministry teams.

After the retirement of our auditor last year, the Vestry appointed Thomson Cooper as our interim auditor in June 2023. Thomson Cooper are a local accounting and audit firm with expertise in charity and church accounts. They have recently completed their first audit of our accounts, and at the AGM, we are inviting you to affirm their appointment as our auditor and to reappoint them for the 2024 audit.

How will we affirm these nominations?
We will be using paper affirmation forms for those attending the services in person [and hope to also have a form available for completing online via a QR code too, as another option]. Now that our services are no longer live streamed, only those attending the AGM in person are eligible to vote. Exactly how we do this will be explained at the AGM itself but rest assured your participation will be confidential.

What else will be covered at the AGM?
This year, Ollie will be sharing his Vision talk as part of the AGM in Balerno on 21 January, with Livingston receiving the Vision talk in person on 28 January.

A copy of the Annual Vestry Report and the AGM agenda, will be sent to you next week [week beginning 15 January].

Thank you in advance for your support.

Wendy Brown
Vestry Secretary