Annual Conference Report
The Nominating Committee has been hard at work since October of 2021. They met virtually in November to help onboard new committee members and develop strategies for the upcoming nominations process. They drafted a Values for Serving document that helped shape the language used in the Nominating Committee videos that were posted in January and February of 2022. They updated position descriptions, included a new one for General Conference delegates as well as helped right size the number of board/committee positions needed for a board/committee to serve effectively. Most notably, the number of positions on the BOA and MEG board were reduced from that of previous years.
Last year in our standing rules we made the change that we no longer needed to take nominations from the floor of annual conference and instead the Nominating Committee would do the vetting of people whose names were presented by the conference members and then submit the names to the BOA for approval before putting those names on the ballot. This also prevents the Nominating Committee from nominating themselves since they did solicit names from the conference through the online nominations process. In February, the newly updated Nominations Page went out to all elders and delegates with an invitation to start nominating gifted lay and clergy for conference boards, committees and for General Conference delegates. The Nom Comm also made it a point to call all lead pastors, Spanish speaking pastors and other leaders in order to ensure that they were aware of the deadline to nominate. The Nom Comm would like to prioritize in person communication and video communication in Spanish for our Hispanic pastors and leaders next year as we still had a hard time getting enough nominations from our Hispanic churches. When the application window closed, we had a total of 70 responses, some were made up of duplicate names. Of those nominated, 59% were men and 41% women, 64% elder and 36% lay, 19% of nominees were from Santa Barbara, 11% from Rancho Cucamonga and 11% from Riverside, 30% were Caucasian, 10% African American, 6% Latino and some Asian American, Native American and other. 69% of responses were for General Conference delegates, 31% for MEG, 23% for BOA, 16% for MAC, 13% for Nom Comm and 9% for the Finance Committee.
The Nominating Committee also interviews and vets all candidates to determine who will move forward in the nominations process, making sure that all nominees agree to proceed with the nomination, are qualified for the board or committee that they were nominated for and are aware that their name may not appear on the final ballot due to the number of vacancies available and due to our priorities of having good balance, representation and diversity across all of our boards and committees. The Nom Comm met in April for their first in person meeting to bring their recommendations to the team and finalize the list of names that appeared on the ballot. Then an email went out to all elders and delegates with the instructions to officially vote. The Nom Comm also helped identify leaders who have served 2 back to back terms and who are no longer eligible to continue serving on that current board or committee. We want to thank all board/committee members who will be ending their terms this year and who will conclude their service at AC22. I have also served 2 back to back terms on the Nominating Committee and will end my service this year after AC22 as chair for the Nominating Committee. It’s been a joy and an honor to serve the conference in this way and I am so proud of the hard work that the Nominating Committee has put forth this past year.
Respectfully submitted by Soo Ji Alvarez
