Deja Vu

The Treasurer of Churches Together in Hornington & District sent an email to the executive saying he was, as usual, about to send out the requests for subscriptions to church treasurers (not to the ministers, as they just lose the letters). We discussed this at the executive meeting - how we didn't know what the individual rates for each church were (they're not equal), and how we thought that they must surely be itemised somewhere (perhaps in the financial report to the AGM in October?) but that none of us could lay hands on them at the moment; and how we might let the figures pass without discussion or amendment this year, but really get a grip on the matter and review them next year. I pointed out that that's what we said last year, and, I'm sure, the year before that.

Why do we keep being caught out by this cycle? Is the inertia within organisations such as Churches Together (at least this branch, but it fits in with my experience of others too) a result of the people running it necessarily not having much spare mental energy to devote to thinking about it, the majority of their attention being focused elsewhere; or does it reflect the same cognitive lacuna that results in so many of us being faintly surprised when it's cold in the winter or hot in the summer? And why does so much of what one does feel vaguely like this?