The next ASA Annual General Meeting will be held at Convention on the afternoon of Friday December 10. We will be working hard to ensure that it is streamlined and enjoyable.
One of the things that needs to be done is electing Executive officers for 2011. If you are interested in being involved with supporting and facilitating tertiary ministry across Australia, get in contact with us. Being on the ASA Executive is an excellent way to build and refine leadership skills that translate into many other areas of life.
We are required to announce the agenda for our AGM in advance:
- Opening remarks and devotional
- Reports
- Local Communities/Regions
- President’s
- Treasurer’s
- Constitutional amendments
- Proposal to develop Advisory Board
- Election of new officers
- President
- Vice-president
- Treasurer
- Secretary
The proposed Constitutional amendments are intended to make this document more relevant, and have been developed from the discussions of the Sustain ASA Retreat. Apart from a few cosmetic fixes, and some deletions of articles that have not been practised for many years, the updates reflect the following main ideas:
- We are proposing to change the language from “Societies” to “Communities” throughout the document. This reflects the language in our well-written Mission Statement, and also opens the way for ASA to engage with a wide variety of Tertiary Student Ministries that are happening around Australia. These activities and experiments (such as on-campus church plants, tertiary-focussed local churches, semi-formal student societies, etc) are changing the face of tertiary ministry, and ASA needs to recognise them and remain relevant to them. Traditional Local Societies are still a good thing, but will probably only ever thrive in the few largest cities. By changing our constitutional language to “Communities”, ASA is positioning itself to remain at the pinnacle and cutting edge of Tertiary Ministry in Australia.
- We are proposing to relax the requirement that ASA Executive members be current students. The amendment expands the acceptable status to “within 5 years of being a student”. This change grows out of the recognition that ASA struggles to maintain consistency with the traditionally high rate of leadership turnover.
- We are proposing to remove a number of Executive positions from the Constitutional list. Such portfolios can still be held when the Executive chooses to function in that way, but recent experience has indicated that it is often just as easy to “contract” certain jobs (like web-design or even Yr 12 packs) to people who may not want or need to sit on regular Executive meetings. We also recognise that it is often more valuable to have students involved in leading Local Societies or Chapters or other on-the-ground ministries.
- We are proposing to add a list of general functions that the Executive exists for. These grow out of a list of reasons for having ASA at all. This list was created by on-the-ground local tertiary ministry representatives at our Sustain ASA weekend, and is included in the St Albans Declaration. Including this in the Constitution helps provide direction and affirm the functions of ASA.
A copy of the ASA Constitution outlining all of the proposed amendments is can be downloaded and read in detail.
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