Right…so I keep meeting people who have a collection of bad Annual General Meeting Experiences playing on the tape loop we call “memory”. They range from enduring boring report after boring report (doable if there’s also food involved) to terrifying displays of power brokering and intimidation (no amount of good food can compensate for these). Sadly, many of these memories were generated in the context of church communities bickering over all sorts of things, ranging from matters of true import to the utterly ridiculous. That’s already enough to make most folks inclined to believe that AGM actually stands for “aggressive godless mayhem” (not my best work, but I didn’t get any suggestions so…), and we haven’t even talked yet about how long these things sometimes drag on (aggravatingly grinding minutia, perhaps?).

Enough with the bad press, already! I’m here to tell you our upcoming AGM (this Sunday – details below) will be brief, to the point, and free of political maneuvering dressed up as messages from god (not a typo).

We have an AGM because it’s required by the CRA for us to function as a not for profit operating as a registered charity. We are also required to have something called a “membership”, which can feel like a weird concept in the context of The Table. Often, in religious settings, membership is a kind of “in group / out group” sorting device, required in order to hold certain organizational positions higher up the righteousness food chain. Since that’s not the way we function at The Table, the only thing you get to do as a member that you can’t do otherwise is…(wait for it!)…vote at the AGM.