Chapter 12 » 12.09

Eldership and oversight

Appointment of elders and overseers

When asked to consider nomination for this service to the meeting, Friends should do so prayerfully and in the knowledge that the task will be entrusted to them for a period only. No one should be reluctant to pass on the responsibility to others when one triennial appointment comes to an end.

Once the area meeting has made the appointments, the area meeting clerk shall immediately notify every Friend appointed and shall convene the first meetings of elders and of overseers respectively unless the area meeting has adopted other procedures for so doing. At the first meeting of each group a clerk or convener shall be appointed, unless the area meeting has already appointed one.

The area meeting clerk shall transmit to each constituent meeting and to the Recording Clerk the names of elders and overseers appointed for the next triennial period, and of their respective clerks or conveners, as soon as possible after their appointment.

An area meeting may release individual elders or overseers from service, and may make interim appointments, at any time during the triennial period. All such changes are to be notified to each constituent meeting and to the Recording Clerk. It is important that the area meeting make known to its members the method by which it wishes to receive nominations for such interim appointments. It may, for example, wish them to be brought forward by its standing nominations committee, or it may prefer to receive nominations from the existing area meeting elders and overseers or from the local meeting most directly concerned.

A Friend whose membership is transferred from the area meeting that made the appointment shall cease upon transfer to be an elder or overseer.

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