GCE44 General Council 45 Planning Report for March 2025

The GC45 Planning Committee met in-person in Calgary in December 2024 with the goal of drafting a complete version of the GC45 schedule and assessing the needs of each sub-committee to complete its role in the new year. Though holding this in-person meeting ate into our budget, all involved felt the expense was worthwhile as we faced many complications in drafting the schedule.

The new unified General Council website (generalcouncil.ca) has launched, and registration has opened for commissioners. Newsletters are also being sent to commissioners with information they require as we approach the launch date. We anticipate a few more proposals to arrive to us, and possibly another candidate for Moderator.
We are attempting to be restrained in our spending, though we have found our tech expenses were on the high end of our projections. Therefore, unbudgeted expenses are now being declined by Cheryl-Ann and myself. The Planning Committee has no urgent difficulties to address at this point, and with God’s grace, all will go according to our plan in the remaining six months.

Business Committee
The Way Forward Committee is now finalized. We are working with Regional Council Executive Ministers to identify within their commissioners those who would possess the skills to serve as table group hosts, discussion group facilitators, and notetakers. There is some concern about receiving proposals and reports in a timely manner to accommodate French translation. Our current work is focussing on creating orientations to our 3-phase business process, Holy Manners, and parliamentary procedure.

Worship Committee
The logo has been finalized. Design of the space in Calgary will centralize on the image of the Holy Spirit being poured out inspired by the narrative in Acts from which the theme is derived. From the Acts text we have identified five sub-themes, one for each day in Calgary: Elders (connecting this to the centennial), Youth, People of all sexualities and gender expressions, Dreamers and Planners, Prophets. Connections have been made with musicians from the Stoney Nakota nation who will participate in our worship time.

Equity Team
The Equity Team is now fully constituted. We are working on an equity orientation for commissioners in addition to the business orientations.

Youth Forum
Youth Forum delegates are being named within their Regional Councils. Our goal continues to be 100 participants in Youth Forum, with half of these participants being people of colour. In addition to planning Youth Forum the youth animators are also serving on each of the sub-committees and have made excellent contributions to that work. A children’s program is being developed for the children of commissioners ages 6 to 12.

Local Arrangements
Our current concern is filling volunteer roles during our time in Calgary, we have had a good initial uptake, but we require another push within Chinook Winds to fill out the remaining spots. Calgary Tourism has been very helpful for the arrangement for local exposure trips for commissioners both before and after the in-person gathering in Calgary, specifically to Banff National Park. Commissioners will book and pay for these themselves, though we will prepare a special program for our visiting global partners. We are continuing to make the necessary preparations for the installation of the next Moderator at Knox United Church the evening of August 11, specifically our audio/visual needs.

Recommendations
I’ll thank you in advance for the timely preparation of General Council Executive’s report to GC45 for translation purposes. I would, humbly, suggest once the General Council elects a new Moderator and new membership to the General Council Executive, that the GCE’s report be re-visited by the newly constituted executive in your first meeting so that all your good work maintains continuation with the Executive’s new membership.
 

For the GC46 Planning committee, I would recommend from the start a plan to have two in-person planning meetings. I think it would be very challenging to complete the work we did in Calgary in December 2024 if we were to meet online only.