Church for the Inspection of the Archives

From the first General Synod of the Canadian Reformed Churches, the Synod Homewood in
1954, General Synods have expressed the desirability of maintaining the records of their
meetings, the decisions made and all the supporting documents used as rationale for making the
decisions. This is in line with the requirements of keeping archives as expressed in Church Order
Article 43. In order to consistently preserve and maintain the materials from general synods and
from committees appointed to serve general synods, General Synod appoints a church
responsible for collecting and preserving the material in an archive. For continuity, the
Burlington-Ebenezer Canadian Reformed Church is the designated Archive Church and is to be
re-appointed by each General Synod.
The Archive Church shall adhere to the following mandate adopted by General Synod:
A. The Archive Church shall appoint a person to be the Archivist, who is responsible for
the work of collecting and maintaining the archives.
B. The Archive Church shall provide a suitable secure place for keeping the archives, and
shall supply filing cabinets and whatever other items are required. Costs are to be
reimbursed from the General Fund.
C. The Archive Church shall submit a report on the condition and activity of the archives
to each General Synod six months prior to convocation.
D. The Archive Church shall, within three months of the end of each General Synod, send
a letter to each committee requesting that they submit for the archives any materials
more than ten years old, and which they no longer need for their duties as committees of
General Synod. The materials submitted are left to the discretion of the committees,
which may decide to keep their own archives to facilitate their duties.
E. The archives of General Synod shall contain the following materials in hard copy
pertaining to General Synods:
- One copy of the acts of each General Synod;
- One copy of all the reports of the committees of General Synod and their subcommittees;
- One copy of all correspondence regarding the calling of General Synod sent by the
church responsible for calling General Synod;
- One copy of the credentials of the delegates to General Synod;
- One signed copy of all the correspondence to and from each General Synod filed in
binders, particular to each General Synod, and in the order of the agenda of the
General Synod;
- One copy of all material from the committees and their sub-committees, including
meeting minutes, correspondence, and documents; and
- One copy of each annual yearbook of the Canadian and American Reformed
Churches.
The materials shall be properly catalogued in an index to facilitate reference.
F. Non-confidential documents of the General Synod archives may be obtained as
photocopies at the expense of the person requesting them.
G. The archives shall be made available for inspection by the delegates from the church
appointed by the previous General Synod to inspect the archives and submit a report to
the next General Synod.