The Governing Council met last November in Chicago and adopted a framework for a new chapter-based form of governance of CPSP. By consensus, forty-five of our leaders, most of them conveners representing their chapters, accepted the proposed bylaws that were developed by my colleague David Baker and me at the request of the Governing Council when it met in Virginia Beach in March 2014.
The members of the Governing Council also delegated to the working group referred to as the Operations Team, which is led by me, short-term authority to act in its behalf as well as some additional work. We were asked to review, decide upon and make certain modifications to the bylaws and then to implement the governance plan by our Plenary in March.
My colleagues and I have taken up this charge and a finalized the text of the bylaws. We have selected one of our members, Cynthia Olson, to act as interim Administrator, a position that is defined in the newly adopted bylaws. We are about to begin the processes of selecting representatives for the Chapter of Chapters and the Chapter of Diplomates. All chapter conveners, as identified in the CPSP directory, will be contacted by email and by a member of our team to assure that the selection process for the Chapters is underway. We will also be contacting all diplomates to select their representative to serve the Diplomates. We expect these processes to be done expeditiously but responsibly.
Our new governance will be representative and the process of selection transparent. We have every reason to be hopeful that the spirit of the Covenant will pervade the process and that the results will include greater commitment to one another, to collaboration between chapters, and to seeking and promoting the highest standards of our pastoral care community. We are confident that the necessary governance groundwork will be finished in time to seat the new Governing Council by its scheduled meeting in March, following the 25th anniversary Plenary.
The Operations Team
David Roth
Orville Brown
Ed Luckett
Cynthia Olson
Ed Pehanich
Ruth Zollinger
David Roth, Convener
CPSP Operation Tean
drdavidroth@gmail.com