In response to a question by a reporter, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said New York City’s relatively high cost of living could be turned to The Episcopal Church’s advantage by reassigning staff to areas of the country where the cost of living is lower, and perhaps leasing more floor space at its Manhattan headquarters, prime real estate near the United Nations.

I bet they could also save a bundle by having the Executive Council hootenanny in, say, Akron instead of Quito, Ecuador.  But it is harder to burnish one’s multiculti rep in Akron.

How much of this deficit is due to 815 being party to several lawsuits?

Remember, all litigation will do is transfer the wealth of the Episcopal Church to trial lawyers.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

#1 It might be cheaper still to use vitural conferencing for the meeting.  Rent 24 high resolution webcams and let each person participate via the internet.  You could probably pay for each person’s high speed access and provide a decent computer for the cost of travel and hotel expenses and meals for the meetings.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

‘Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles supported the regional satellite office concept. This will enable headquarters to extend its reach beyond Wall Street, he said during debate in the closing plenary on Sunday.’
First of all, as any good New Yorker knows, the lower east side is NOT Wall St.
Ignoring that however, it amuses me that TEC cannot seem to capture attendance and membership without a 24 month lag, yet we can project budgets ahead 12 months.  Yet there is a causal relationship between membership and financial health.

Phil Snyder - The idea of web cams and broadband access is a good idea, until David Booth Beers logs on in just his boxers. 

Sorry for ruining your week by putting that image in your mind…

#5 - that image is no worse than the image of me in my boxers on a video conference call.

YBIC,
Phil Snyder

How’s pecusa doing on finances this year?

Gee, somehow all the included are not apparently INCLUSIVE of ECUSA/TEC as far as giving is concerned.  Do we have a major disconnect here?

Golly, we have a deficit but “Quito has always been on my let’s visit list, so let’s raise the carbon footprint by air travel”.  (They could perhaps save expenses by flying down and walking back, but my experience is that one way tickets really don’t save much dinero.)

Whiz, shuffling the monies doesn’t make the DEFICIT go away.  But Democrats have always had that sort of math facility historically, and I suppose the EC is just holding up their end of the plank.

Golly, gee, whiz!  Maybe something’s wrong with the ECUSA/TEC!

dwstroudmd, #8., you may recall the last balanced budget during the Clinton administration.  Ain’t he a democrat ?- maybe we need some more of that math these days.  Actually I like sending the Executive Council to Ecuador one way.  Let’s confiscate their shoes, too.

I’ve said it before. I believe that moving the whole shebang out of 815 to a city in Kansas or Missouri with good air connections would benefit the budget, rid the National Office of a lot of useless people that can be replaced by hardworking, solid believers among the mid-westerners….and start +KJS and David Beers reading some intelligent newspapers.

TEC, move away from NYC, open the windows, and let fresh air in.

PS.  Webcamming might save on travel money, but the same old clueless crowd would still think they are big shots deserving extra special pay for living in the New York area along with lots of costly perks.

“By ye fruits….”

Somehow I missed this Executive Council Resolution the first time - it rebukes the HoB and announces, it would seem, an intention to overturn B033.

RESOLUTION TEXT

Resolved, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, meeting in
Dearborn, Michigan, expresses its appreciation to the House of
Bishops for undertaking the monumental task of trying to clarify the
conflict between the canons of the Episcopal Church and the demands
raised by the Dar E [sic] Salaam communiqué, and be it further

Resolved, the Executive Council affirms with the House of Bishops the
essential and renewed study of human sexuality as noted in the
“listening process” of the Lambeth Conference of 1998, and be it
further

Resolved, that the House of Bishops’ statement exacerbated feelings
of exclusion felt by many of the lesbian and gay members of our
church by defining Resolution B033 from the 75th General Convention
to include lesbian and gay people, and be it further

Resolved, that by calling particular attention to the application of
B033 to lesbian and gay person [sic], it may inappropriately suggest
that an additional qualification for the episcopacy has been imposed
beyond those contained in the constitutions and canons of the church,
and be it further

Resolved, that while B033 focuses on the consent process for bishops,
the broader impact is to discourage the full participation by
lesbians and gay persons in the life of the church and enshrine
discrimination in the policies of the Episcopal Church, and be it
further

Resolved, that the Executive Council acknowledge with regret the
additional pain and estrangement inflicted on lesbian and gay members
of the church, and we pledge to work toward a time when our church
will fully respect the dignity of every human being in all aspects of
the life of our church.