Brevity the Soul of Bureaucracy

On Sunday we had our Annual Parochial Church Meeting, always an event people anticipate eagerly ... In theory it marks the lowest tier of the structures of the Church of England. In theory, too, there are in fact two meetings: the meeting of the Vestry which elects churchwardens and in which technically anyone in the parish can vote, and the APCM proper which does all the rest - elect members of the church council, receive accounts, and hold the officers of the church to account. I also take it as an opportunity to deliver a bit of a review of the last year and to look forward to the next, which can be fun to do. 

To say everyone sat in silence would be an exaggeration as there were murmurs of appreciation and assent now and again, but we managed to get through the whole exercise in less than forty minutes. I am not sure whether this is more because people are happy with the way things are in the church or whether they're simply cowed. Some of my colleagues are now competing to see how short their meetings can be.