Dear Fathers and faithful of our Archdiocese,

Greetings to you and all yours in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,

This letter comes to you after the meeting of the Board of Trustees during which, among other issues, it was resolved that a General Assembly Meeting representing all of our parishes will convene in 2007 in Melbourne to elect  new Board Members. A summary of what was resolved follows:

(i) The General Assembly will comprise delegates from the Parishes of the Archdiocese. Each parish is entitled to be represented by the Priest, and the presidents of the four ecclesiastical organizations, where present (namely Council, Youth, Ladies and Sunday School). If a parish has an assistant priest or deacon, they will also be part of the delegates.  Delegate and proxy forms have been circulated previously.

(ii) The General Assembly will elect the members of the Board of Trustees, and also hear reports from the current Board of trustees. The General Assembly will be responsible for electing 20 members to the Board of Trustees, and 10 members will be appointed by the Metropolitan.

(iii) All eligible delegates are entitled to send proxies, provided the parish Priest endorses the proxy. A Priest is entitled to send a proxy when endorsed by the Metropolitan.  Proxy forms for those delegates unable to attend, must be received by the secretary or at the office of the Archdiocese by 19^th February, 2007.

(iv) Nominations are also open for delegates to the Board of Trustees.  The Secretary, of the Board of Trustees, must receive all nominations for the Board of Trustees by Friday, 2nd March, 2007. Nominations will also be accepted from the floor prior to the commencement of elections.

(v) Selection criteria is as follows: To be nominated the person must be (a) A good standing member of the parish (participates in the spiritual church life); (b) Have met his/her financial obligations to the parish; and (c) Have the approval of the parish priest in addition to a nominator and seconder. Furthermore, the person must be English literate, not have a criminal record, and must not be a bankrupt.

(vi) The Nominees (having previously accepted the nomination) must be present at the Annual General Meeting, where they will be allowed to address the assembly for no more than 2 minutes (questions are not permitted). The elected members must stay on for the induction service on Sunday, following the meeting.

(vii) The returning officer of the Annual General Meeting will be the Vicar General.

(viii) The term of the Board of Trustees will be for 2 years.

I hope and implore all of our clergy to start working on this issue immediately in order to prepare the ground for this important event. I expect that the process of selecting nominees will begin immediately.

The meeting of the General Assembly will take place at St Paul, Dandenong on Saturday 3rd March, 2007. The induction will occur on Sunday 4^th March during the morning service at St Paul, Dandenong.

N.B. We advise our interstate attendees to contact Miss Yvette Jammal-Wassaf for any arrangements they might need. Yvette can be contacted on 0418 649 3760r via email on

Yours in His service

+Paul

Metropolitan Archbishop Paul
Primate of Australia and New Zealand