Annual Meeting
Sunday February 2, 2025 - 9 a.m. | Sanctuary
Please join us for the Annual Meeting of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. We’ll come together to celebrate the past year and to look forward to the future.
During the meeting, we will hear updates about the life and ministry of our Parish as well as our financial health. We will celebrate the leaders who have guided our parish over these past few years. We will also elect leaders to serve on our vestry (board). We will be electing 3 new leaders for 3 - year terms. Learn more about our candidates below.
Meet Our Vestry Candidates
Tom Bechard
Tom and his wife Jill have been members of St. Barnabas since January 2024. Feeling such a warm and supportive St. B family, Tom could not say no when asked to join the Vestry.
Tom has worked with Procter & Gamble for 34 years, and currently manages P&G sales for North America Personal Healthcare and feels vestry is a way he can share his gifts with St. Barnabas. During his time with P&G Tom and Jill have moved six times. They have two grown children, and reside in Montgomery. Tom and Jill grew up in Kansas City and are proud Kansas Jayhawk graduates.
Mev Hammond
My parents and siblings started to attend St. Barnabas in Sycamore High School. I was still living in North Carolina, but all my Christmas Eves were spent singing Silent Night at midnight looking out at a green field with goats and a donkey (and occasionally falling snow). When my job transferred me to Cincinnati in 1992, I officially joined St. B in the “new” building, sang in the choir, and was in the altar guild, but I only lived here for a couple of years before I was transferred again. When I moved back to Cincinnati in 2013, I returned home to St. B. and have been here ever since.
St. Barnabas is my church home. The people here are my extended family. I love being among passionate people who share their God-given gifts and how their passions evolve and grow and their ministries with them. The more I know about what St. Barnabas is doing in our community, the more I love it. Being a part of the Vestry allows me to participate much more closely and to learn from and help those who are doing so much. I want to be a part of the love and care that is so widely shared here and to contribute with my gifts, as well. I’ve been Vestry secretary for about 2.5 years and a Diocesan delegate to Convention for several years. And it turns out I’m fascinated by the governance of the church and diocese – who knew??
Sarah Flohre
I joined St. Barnabas in 2019 with my husband Jason and son, Virgil (now 6) when we relocated to Ohio from the DC area. We live in Deerfield with our dog Gabby, and two house panthers (Salem and Playful). I love how St. Barnabas has loved us without exception, from virtual Godly Play to recently having to ask if there was some place we could store a sick cat during First Communion (there was!). I am grateful for the opportunity to join vestry to make sure everyone who comes to St. Barnabas feels as loved and included as we do.
Mary Sells - Vestry Secretary
Vestry has also appointed Mary Sells to serve as our next secretary.
Mary Sells joined St. Barnabas as a new member and was confirmed as a new Episcopalian in 2023. She was born and raised in suburban Cincinnati, then moved around the country for her career in sales and marketing before returning to the area in 2022. Along a winding faith journey from cradle Catholicism to evangelical youth in high school, to a lapse of organized religion for many years, she became an active participant in various Catholic parishes. While living in Miami Beach for many years, she was able to take and complete a three-year course in spiritual companionship at St. Thomas University and became a practitioner of holy listening. She also started a Bible study at two churches using The Wired Word service as curriculum and has served on their board since 2015. Now retired, she enjoys traveling, the arts, reading and embroidery. She is also an excellent note-taker!