Just as it is not advisable that you allow the members of the preservation society/steering committee you will establish to help you save your parish and/or church to be elected, it is equally the case that it is not advisable that you allow major decisions regarding the process of saving your parish and/or church to be made by majority vote. While I firmly believe in representative government, the lack of room for error when it comes to saving a parish and/or church from closure and the need to do exactly what is required to stop the closure from occurring in many cases prevent multiple courses of action from being correct. The fact that many situations when challenging the closure of a parish and/or church can only be resolved through one absolutely correct decision being made necessitates one person to have absolute decision making authority, so that a mistake does not lead to the total failure of the cause.

     Given that you are reading this article, and that you will be taking the steps necessary to establish your preservation society/steering committee, it is the case that you should be the person with whom the buck stops, i.e. the person who has the ultimate authority with regard to strategic and tactical decision making. This is not to say that as head of the effort you will be vested with unquestioned authority in all matters; it is simply the case that you, or anyone else you choose to actually lead the effort to save your parish and/or church from closure (if you are not leading this cause yourself, you should be absolutely certain the person who is has read this article, understands its contents and agrees with them,) will have the authority to chart the course of action taken by your group with regard to planning and executing the challenge to the closure. Steering committees in their best form act as bodies which can help carry out the actions that the leader decides based on sound judgement must be taken to prevent the closure from either coming to pass or being upheld on appeal. They thus act more as 4 to 8 extra pairs of hands, arms and legs for the leader than they do as decision making bodies. It is of course the case that all members of a steering committee should be able to give their input as to the course of action the leader proposes to take or is actually taking, but they should not be able to challenge or change this course of action mid-stream, as such could doom an effort to challenge a closure, assuming the leader is acting based on the information contained within this article.