Presidencies and councils: Meetings and conferences
The community public service consists of 480 presidencies of four presidents each (partnered male (A), partnered female (B), single male (C), and single female (D). Of the 480 presidencies, 24 are operational agency presidencies, 12 are regulatory agency presidencies, and 12 are trustee agency presidencies. Another 288 are village presidencies, 72 are district presidencies, 24 are records and knowledge presidencies, while 48 are business development presidencies.
| Presidency | Description | Presidencies | presidents | forms a council |
| Village presidency | Three village presidencies for each of 96 villages, serving the three agencies in the Village Bureau | 288 | 1,152 | Yes, Village council |
| District presidency | three district presidencies for each of 24 districts, serving the three agencies in the District Bureau | 72 | 288 | Yes, District council |
| Operational agency presidency | One presidency for each of 24 agencies, in charge of daily agency operations | 24 | 96 | Yes, agency council and bureau council |
| Trustee agency presidency | One presidency for two agencies (e.g. 1/13, or 2/14), represents community interests in agencies | 12 | 48 | Yes, agency council, and trustee council (demographic) |
| Regulatory agency presidency | One presidency for two agencies, (e.g. 1/13, or 3/15), serves agencies in three functions of regulatory bureau – IP, Legal, & Audit | 12 | 48 | Yes, agency council, and regulatory council (demographic) |
| Knowledge and Records presidency | One presidency per agency/ district, facilitates access to services of the bureau – accounting, publishing, and metrics (D. QHSE) | 24 | 96 | No |
| Business Development presidency | Two presidencies per agency/ district, facilitate access to services of the bureau – business planning, marketing, and underwriting | 48 | 192 | No |
| 480 | 1,920 |
Besides these presidencies, there are 960 branch presidencies, with each presidency being composed of the four captains. Each of these captains serves one of the units or floors of the 4-story apartment building.
Beyond the community, there are other presidencies too, whose main objective is to ease collaboration between communities and manage shared interests. Area presidencies serve a total of 250 communities. In each community, the area presidency sets up the initial trustee council, which is then self-replicating.
A world area presidency serves a world area which consists of 40 areas, or 10,000 communities. World area presidencies set up the first area presidencies. They also foster cooperation between communities, such as helping coordinate projects that are initiated by councils of 50, but which involve several NewVistas. Area presidencies also help in coordination where possible. World area presidencies also play an important role in engaging with external parties on the NewVistas communities’ behalf, including political leadership.
50 communities form a NewVista. Each of the three agency presidencies (trustee, operational, and regulatory) belongs to a council of 50. There are 72 councils of 50 spearheading cooperation between the 50 communities, with 24 councils being formed by trustee presidencies, another 24 by operational presidencies, and another 24 by regulatory presidencies.
Presidencies operations
All presidencies, regardless of their relationships with other presidencies, have no hierarchical seniority over any other. For instance, a village presidency serving in the residential and mediation function is not subordinate to the operational agency presidency of the Residential and Mediation Agency, even though the agency presidency provides the overall operational policy direction.
Instead, each president has clearly demarcated responsibilities, and a well-marked office. These qualities reflect the command given to public servants, to “stand in their place,” and to “do their duty.”1
Henri Fayol’s 14 principles of management are still well-regarded as essential in any organization’s operations. Fayol’s 14 principles include unity of direction, a clear chain of command from top to bottom (scalar chain), and unity of command.2
The community public service has no scalar chain, nor does it have some people who command others. However, it retains a strong unity of direction, strong teamwork (espirit de corps), and discipline. It achieves these qualities by resorting to other measures as detailed below.3
Besides each president having a clear set of duties which they are meant to accomplish, they all belong to a presidency of four. The presidency is primary check-and-balance mechanism where each president is held accountable, and where teamwork is fostered.
Councils
Agency (operational, trustee, and regulatory), village, and district presidencies additionally belong to councils which provide extra check and balance mechanisms for them. Teamwork is further cultivated in councils, which also serve as an additional check for individual president.
While village and district presidencies only belong to one council, agency operational presidencies belong to two councils (bureau and agency). Trustee and regulatory presidencies belong to four councils – they sit in two agency councils (because they serve two agencies), in their own demographic council, and an overall council of 12 presidencies.
Meetings
Meetings in presidencies, councils, and quarterly conferences are another important element in achieving these principles in a non-hierarchal organization structure.4 Meetings ensure that all presidencies, regardless of how diverse their roles are, are all in sync with each other, and with the community’s interests.
Meetings are carefully scheduled, using the Plat of Zion and other revelations for guidance, as well as the practical needs of communities, and modern breakthroughs in information technology and transport.
Village presidencies and councils
In a NewVistas community, a village is formed by 10 branches. Branches are based in a 4-story apartment building, and consist of four units, each with an average of 25 (and a maximum of 30) participants. With a branch having approximately 100 people, a village is home to around 1,000 participants, all of whom live in apartment buildings next to each other on the same street.
Village presidencies serve these participants, facilitating their access to services offered by agencies in the Village Bureau, that are crucial to their social and business endeavors, and which require extensive interaction with community agencies and public servants.
There are three village presidencies, each serving one agency in the Village Bureau – residential and Mediation, Commercial, and Enterprise Assets. Since each presidency has four presidents, there are 12 village presidents. They form a village council, which acts as an additional check and balance for individual presidents and their presidencies.
| Village council | ||||
| Function | Demographic | |||
| Residential and Mediation | A | B | C | D |
| Commercial | A | B | C | D |
| Enterprise Assets | A | B | C | D |
Village presidencies serve the community on a part-time basis, and are at their offices from Monday to Thursday, from 8:00 – 8:45 AM. This enables them to serve their community and still have ample time to transition ot their daily business. Their offices are on the third and fifth floors of their district building – there are four villages in a district, so the district building has offices for four villages’ village presidents, in addition to other public servants’. After their use to serve clients and have meetings, these offices are converted to other uses, including hotel rooms, offices, and classrooms.
Village presidencies meet as a presidency every Thursday from 9:00 – 9:45 AM. Each meeting is presided by one of the presidents and clerked by another in rotation. Clerking follows presiding, so that after presiding a meeeting, the president has a chance to review the minutes of their meeting.
On the first Thursday of a month, the partnered male president (A) presides, assisted in taking minutes by the single female president (B). The partnered female president presides on the second week, with the partnered male president (A) taking minutes. On the third week, the single male president (C) presides, while the partnered female president takes minutes. On the final week (4), the single female president (D) presides, with the single male president (C) taking minutes.
Presidency meetings are held in the office of the presiding president. On the fourth Thursday of the month, after presidency meetings, all village presidencies in a village, which make up the village council, meet from 10:00 – 10:45 AM. With 12 members, every president has a chance to preside at the meeting.
The partnered male president serving in the Residential and Mediation Agency presides the first meeting, in January, while the single female president in the agency 3, who presided the last meeting in December, clerks. In summary, the presiding and minute-taking schedule is as follows:
| Month | Presiding | Clerking |
| January | Partnered male, agency 1 | Single female, agency 1 |
| February | Partnered female, agency 1 | Partnered male, agency 1 |
| March | Single male, agency 1 | Partnered female, agency 1 |
| April | Single female, agency 1 | Single male, agency 1 |
| May | Partnered male, agency 2 | Single female, agency 1 |
| June | Partnered female, agency 2 | Partnered male, agency 2 |
| July | Single male, agency 2 | Partnered female, agency 2 |
| August | Single female, agency 2 | Single male, agency 2 |
| September | Partnered male, agency 3 | Single female, agency 2 |
| October | Partnered female, agency 3 | Partnered male, agency 3 |
| November | Single male, agency 3 | Partnered female, agency 3 |
| December | Single female, agency 3 | Single male, agency 3 |
As an additional check – and – balance tool, the village council is involved in deliberations on issues that have more significance for a village than an individual presidency.5
District presidencies and councils
Four villages, each with around 1,000 participants, make up a district. A district, therefore, has 4,000 participants. In the physical campus, the layout of a district is as follows:
The smaller numbers (1 – 10) are branches (village buildings, with a podium commercial floor and four residential stories). Next, there are numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, which are the villages.
A district is served by three district presidencies, each of which carries out the functions of one agency in the District Bureau. Therefore, there is a district presidency for Health and Nutrition (agency 4), Life Planning (agency 5), and Sports, Arts, and Leisure (agency 6).
The three presidencies, each with four presidents, also form the district’s council. The 12–member council is important in assessing and ratifying decisions made by individual presidencies in a district, which could have far reaching implications on the district or the wider community.
The 96 villages in a community are organized into 24 districts, with four villages each. Therefore, there are 24 district councils, each organized as follows:
| District council | ||||
| Function | Demographic | |||
| Health and Nutrition (4) | A | B | C | D |
| Life Planning (5) | A | B | C | D |
| Sports, Arts & Leisure (6) | A | B | C | D |
District presidencies serve the community on a part-time basis, being in their offices from 8:00 – 8:45 every Monday to Thursday. Their offices are located on the Northern side of the first floor of each district building. The layout of their offices on the floor is as follows:
After discharging their duty for the 45 minutes, district presidencies’ offices can be reconfigured to other uses, including classrooms, or offices. On Thursdays, each district presidency, like all other presidencies in the community, has a meeting. The meeting is held after the presidents’ normal service to participants. The meeting is held in the presiding president’s office. Since there are four meetings in a month, every president has a chance to preside and another to take minutes. The first Thursday’s meeting is presided by the partnered male president (A), with the single female president (B) taking minutes. In summary, meetings are presided and clerked as follows:
| Day | Presiding | clerking |
| First Thursday | Partnered male | Single female |
| Second Thursday | Partnered female | Partnered male |
| Third Thursday | Single male | Partnered female |
| Fourth Thursday | Single female | Single male |
On the fourth Thursday of the month, after the individual district presidencies meet from 9:00 – 9:45 AM, the three presidencies meet as a district council. The meeting takes place from 10:00 – 10:45 AM.
Council meetings are held in the presiding president’s office, plus the adjacent office, which usually belongs to the clerking president, apart from January, when the offices of the presiding and the clerking presidents’ offices are not next to each other.
The district council reviews the decisions and performance of individual presidencies in the preceding month, as well as the following month’s outlook. District presidencies have much in common and therefore need the council meetings to coordinate their activities.
Each of the 12 presidents has a chance to preside one meeting, and clerk at the next. The presiding and clerking at council meetings is ordered as shown in the table below:
| Month | Presiding | Clerking |
| January | Partnered male, agency 4 | Single female, agency 6 |
| February | Partnered female, agency 4 | Partnered male, agency 4 |
| March | Single male, agency 4 | Partnered female, agency 4 |
| April | Single female, agency 4 | Single male, agency 4 |
| May | Partnered male, agency 5 | Single female, agency 4 |
| June | Partnered female, agency 5 | Partnered male, agency 5 |
| July | Single male, agency 5 | Partnered female, agency 5 |
| August | Single female, agency 5 | Single male, agency 5 |
| September | Partnered male, agency 6 | Single female, agency 5 |
| October | Partnered female, agency 6 | Partnered male, agency 6 |
| November | Single male, agency 6 | Partnered female, agency 6 |
| December | Single female, agency 6 | Single male, agency 6 |
Agency presidencies and councils
There are 24 agencies in the community, each with a specific set of roles to play as part of NewVistas’ economic and social system. The 24 agencies are organized into eight bureaus of three agencies each.
In the laws of the jurisdiction where a NewVistas community operates, an agency is a legal person. It has a legal identity and has the capacity to act in legal terms – it can enter contracts, sue, or be sued, separately from other agencies.6 Within the community, each agency is an autonomous legal entity, with a clearly defined set of responsibilities and rights.
Each agency is served by three presidencies.7 The trustee agency presidency is legally responsible for the agency. Therefore, it enters into any contracts on behalf of the agency and performs the agency’s executive roles. In this capacity too, the trustee presidency takes the lead in formulating the agency’s strategy and budget.
Agencies’ strategies are informed by various public servants and participants’ interaction with the agency and its automated system. Trustees, often with the assistance of hired contractors, glean the data they receive through these channels and set, scrap, or amend strategy. They then present their ideas to the agency council during weekly council meetings, where they are discussed, and approved, amended further, or rejected.
Operational agency presidencies implement the trustee agency presidencies’ strategy. They facilitate various projects that are needed to achieve strategic aims and are in constant interaction with trustees to help achieve these goals. In the course of their service, operational presidencies can recommend changes in course, supplementary budgets, and any other significant changes to what the trustee presidencies have set.
Operational agency presidencies play a key role in formulating the agency’s strategy and budget. This is because the data they collect in the course of their service is instrumental in guiding the trustees. The trustees also consult the operational presidencies to ensure that the strategies they set are workable, and the budget lines aligned. Therefore, each presidency acts as a check and countermeasure to the other.
Regulatory agency presidencies help the operational agency presidencies to implement the agency’s strategy and policies. The regulatory agencies do this by offering legal opinions on operations, as well as audit and oversight. The regulatory presidency additionally monitors the agency’s system to ensure it is compliant with various legal, audit, and other guidelines.
In other words, a regulatory agency presidency ensures that operational agency presidency operates within the strategic guidelines and policies formulated by the trustee agency presidency.
Regulatory agency presidencies also help trustees in their service by running their strategies and budgets through audit processes. Trustees and operational agency presidencies supply data and insights on the actual workings of agencies, helping the regulatory agencies develop sound legal and oversight mechanisms for the agencies they serve.
Regulatory and trustee agency presidencies serve two agencies: one in the Financial and Human Capital Department (1 – 12), and another in the Regulatory and Process Department (13 – 24). On Monday and Wednesday, trustees serve an agency in the Financial and human Capital Department, while regulatory agency presidencies serve an agency in the Regulatory and Process Department. On Tuesday and Thursday, the presidencies swap offices.
In a typical week, the trustees and regulatory presidencies serve their agencies as summarized in the table below.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | |||
| Agency 1 | TP1 | RP1 | TP1 | RP1 | Agency 13 | RP1 | TP1 | RP1 | TP1 | |
| Agency 2 | TP2 | RP2 | TP2 | RP2 | Agency 14 | RP2 | TP2 | RP2 | TP2 | |
| Agency 3 | TP3 | RP3 | TP3 | RP3 | Agency 15 | RP3 | TP3 | RP3 | TP3 | |
| Agency 4 | TP4 | RP4 | TP4 | RP4 | Agency 16 | RP4 | TP4 | RP4 | TP4 | |
| Agency 5 | TP5 | RP5 | TP5 | RP5 | Agency 17 | RP5 | TP5 | RP5 | TP5 | |
| Agency 6 | TP6 | RP6 | TP6 | RP6 | Agency 18 | RP6 | TP6 | RP6 | TP6 | |
| Agency 7 | TP7 | RP7 | TP7 | RP7 | Agency 19 | RP7 | TP7 | RP7 | TP7 | |
| Agency 8 | TP8 | RP8 | TP8 | RP8 | Agency 20 | RP8 | TP8 | RP8 | TP8 | |
| Agency 9 | TP9 | RP9 | TP9 | RP9 | Agency 21 | RP9 | TP9 | RP9 | TP9 | |
| Agency 10 | TP10 | RP10 | TP10 | RP10 | Agency 22 | RP10 | TP10 | RP10 | TP10 | |
| Agency 11 | TP11 | RP11 | TP11 | RP11 | Agency 23 | RP11 | TP11 | RP11 | TP11 | |
| Agency 12 | TP12 | RP12 | TP12 | RP12 | Agency 24 | RP12 | TP12 | RP12 | TP12 |
TP – Trustee agency presidency
RP – Regulatory agency presidency
In many instances, a trustee or regulatory presidency may have diametrically different roles. For instance, the trustee presidency for Health and Nutrition also serves the Accounting Agency. To ensure optimal performance, some presidents in a presidency are equipped to handle one agency, and the others another, comparing their notes and consulting during their meetings and normal service.
Operational, trustee, and regulatory agency presidents work full-time, and are therefore expected to have delegated most or all their active business operations. They have permanent, dedicated offices.
As full-time public servants, agency presidents serve the community four hours a day for four days a week – Monday to Thursday. Arriving at their offices at 10:00 AM, apart from Thursday, when they arrive an hour earlier to attend their weekly presidency meeting, they leave at 4, since they also have a 2 – hour lunch break.
As the timetable above indicates, trustee and regulatory presidencies share offices, with each presidency occupying the office on two alternate days in a week.
The agency presidencies are on the first floor. For the first 12 agencies, the Trustee/ regulatory presidencies’ offices are in the East of the building, while for the second 12 agencies (13 – 24), the offices are in the West. This illustration presents district building 1’s offices.
On Thursday, every presidency holds a meeting from 9:00 – 9:45AM. The meetings are held at the office of the president who is presiding. In the four weeks of a month, every president gets a chance to preside, and another chance to clerk (take minutes).
Every Thursday, after presidency meetings, various agency and council meetings take place. From 10:00 – 10:45 AM, agency council meetings for agencies 1 – 12 take place. After a 15–minute break, agency council meetings for agencies 13–24 take place, running from 10:00 AM to 10:45 AM.
During these meetings, the council reviews the individual presidencies’ activities during the week. Every quarter, each president has a chance to preside the meeting, and another to take minutes. Trustee agency presidents preside for the first month, followed by operational presidents, and for the third month, the regulatory agency presidents.
| Week | Presiding | Clerking |
| Week 1 | Partnered male, trustee presidency | Single female, regulatory presidency |
| Week 2 | Partnered female, trustee presidency | Partnered male, trustee presidency |
| Week 3 | Single male, trustee presidency | Partnered female, trustee presidency |
| Week 4 | Single female, trustee presidency | Single male, trustee presidency |
| Week 5 | Partnered male, operational president | Single female, trustee presidency |
| Week 6 | Partnered female, operational presidency | Partnered male, operational president |
| Week 7 | Single male, operational presidency | Partnered female, operational presidency |
| Week 8 | Single female, operational presidency | Single male, operational presidency |
| Week 9 | Partnered male, regulatory presidency | Single female, operational presidency |
| Week 10 | Partnered female, regulatory presidency | Partnered male, regulatory presidency |
| Week 11 | Single male, regulatory presidency | Partnered female, regulatory presidency |
| Week 12 | Single female, regulatory presidency | Single male, regulatory presidency |
Operational agency presidencies also belong to bureau councils, alongside other operational agency presidencies in their bureau. For instance, the Village Bureau Council consists of the operational presidencies serving the Residential & Mediation, Commercial, and Enterprise Assets agencies.
Bureau councils have a slightly different mandate to that of agency councils. While agency councils are more designed to provide a robust check and balance mechanism, bureau councils are more collaborative, with agencies coming together to coordinate common goals.
For instance, agencies in the Village Bureau have a shared interest in launching participants on their social and economic success, facilitating their settling in – orientation and housing, and business – hiring assets, and helping them establish a business. The bureau council in this case will help individual presidencies draw up policies that complement other agencies’ overall strategy.
On the fourth Thursday, while agency council meetings happen for agencies in the Financial and Human Capital Department, bureau meetings for those in the Regulatory and Process Department also take place.
As with other council meetings these meetings take place in the presiding president’s office, joined with the adjacent office to create enough room for 12 people.
Therefore, in the hour after presidency meetings throughout the community, the council meetings take place as follows:
| Time | Council | Venue |
| 10 – 10:45 AM | Agencies 1 – 12 agency councils | Presiding president’s office + adjacent office |
| Bureaus 5 – 8 (agencies 13 – 24) bureau councils | Presiding president’s office + adjacent office | |
| Village councils 1 – 96) | Presiding president’s office + adjacent office | |
| District councils | Presiding president’s office + adjacent office |
The second round of council meetings takes place from 11 – 11:45 AM, after a 15-minute break after the first meetings. Trustees and regulatory presidencies, who have just come out of agency councils for agencies 1 – 12 now proceed to another agency council meeting, this time for agencies 13 – 24, which are in the Regulatory and Process Department.
At the same time, bureaus 1 – 4 – containing agencies 1 to 12 – have their bureau council meetings. Presiding at bureau council meetings for bureaus 1 – 4 is ordered in the same way as bureau council meetings for bureaus 5 – 8, while agency councils’ meetings presiding for agencies 13 – 24 is identical to 1 – 12.
| Time | Council | Venue |
| 11 – 11:45AM | Bureaus 1 – 4 (agencies 1 – 12) bureau councils | Presiding president’s office + adjacent office |
| Agencies 13 – 24 councils | Presiding president’s office + adjacent office |
The third and final round of meetings takes place from 12 – 12:45 PM, after another 15-minute break.
There are four trustee councils, and four regulatory councils, each with 12 members from the same demographic group, so that there is a council for partnered males, another for partnered females, a third for single males, and a fourth for single males.
Trustee councils meet in buildings 1 – 12, depending on the presiding president’s office. Presiding is ordered so that the four presidents who belong to the trustee presidency which serves agencies 1 and 13 preside their respective councils, followed in February by those serving agencies 2 and 14, and so on until December, served by the presidency serving agencies 12 and 24.
The four councils meet in the presiding presidency’s district building’s assembly hall, which is subdivided into smaller rooms for the council’s needs.
Regulatory councils meet in buildings 13 – 24, depending on the presiding presidency’s location. The presidency serving agencies 1and 13 is the first to preside over the four councils in January, using building 13’s assembly hall that is configured for the four meetings.
| 12:00 – 12:45 PM | Trustee councils (demographic councils of 12) | presiding presidency’s building, using assembly halls. Trustees use buildings 1 – 12 |
| Regulatory councils (demographic councils of 12) | Presiding presidency’s building, using assembly halls. Regulatory councils use buildings 13 – 24 |
In addition to the demographic councils, trustees and regulatory presidencies meet every quarter before the quarterly conference. The meetings take place on Saturday and are important for aligning their positions before the operational agency presidencies present in the quarterly conference on Sunday.
Presiding at these council meetings is decided by lottery, with whichever presidency is selected not being considered for the next three meetings. The lottery happens at the end oof the meeting, to determining which presidency will be responsible for facilitating and presiding over the next meeting.
Full trustee council meetings are held in district building 5, while regulatory council meetings are held in district building 17. The councils use one assembly hall, repurposed to fit in the 48 presidents.
Intercommunity councils
Councils of 50
50 communities, usually united by geography, and, in other instances, social ties or any other relevant characteristics, come together to form a NewVista. The communities in a NewVista share several common interests and challenges. They might be in the same political environment, face similar economic, security, or infrastructural challenges, or have especially strong cultural ties.
The NewVistas system is organized as detailed in the table below:
| Unit | Branch | Village | District | 1 NewVistas community | 1 NewVista | 1 Area | 1 World Area | Whole World | |
| Consists of: | ˜24 (10 LPs + dependents) | 4 units | 10 branches | 4 villages | 24 districts | 50 communities | 5 NewVistas | 40 areas | 12 world areas |
| Total participants | ˜ 24 | ˜ 96 | ˜ 1,000 | ˜ 4,000 | ˜ 100,000 | ˜5,000,000 | ˜25,000,000 | ˜1,000,000,000 | ˜ 12,000,000,000 |
| Total branches | – | 1 | 10 | 40 | 960 | 48,000 | 240,000 | 9,600,000 | 115,200,000 |
| Total villages | – | 1 | 4 | 96 | 4,800 | 24,000 | 960,000 | 11,520,000 | |
| Total districts | – | – | – | 1 | 24 | 1,200 | 6,000 | 240,000 | 2,880,000 |
| Total communities | – | – | – | – | 1 | 50 | 250 | 10,000 | 120,000 |
| Total NewVistas | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 5 | 200 | 2,400 |
| Total areas | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 40 | 480 |
| Total world areas | – | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 12 |
Notes on table:
The figures for participants above are approximate. Every apartment floor holds a maximum of 30 people. In many cases, some limited partners will have more or less than 2 dependents, meaning that a unit may have as few as 15 members, and sometimes approach 30. Visitors and guests in apartments are not counted officially. However, since they will be a regular feature, a branch will easily have more than 100 people in some instances, and in others, less.
The collaboration that these ties demand is channeled through councils of 50. A council of 50 is formed by the 50 communities’ agency presidencies. Trustee agency presidencies form their own fifty councils of 50, as do operational and regulatory presidencies. Therefore, each community, which has 72 agency presidencies (three for each of the 24 agencies) belongs to 72 councils of 50.
For instance, all operational agency presidencies serving agency 1 form an operational Residential and Mediation Operational Council of 50. The trustee agency presidencies likewise form a Residential and Mediation Trustee Council of 50, while regulatory agency presidencies form a Residential and Mediation Regulatory Council of 50.
Each NewVista has 72 councils of 50. There are 24 operational councils, 24 trustee councils, and 24 regulatory councils. Each council consists of 50 presidencies of four and therefore has 200 members.
| type of council | Formed by | Number of councils |
| Trustee council of 50 | trustee agency presidencies | 24 |
| Operational council of 50 | Operational agency presidencies | 24 |
| Regulatory council of 50 | Regulatory agency presidencies | 24 |
Each council of 50 holds a meeting in the week after the quarterly conference. The council members discuss common projects’ progress and new ones that need to be initiated. Crucially, a new presiding presidency is selected. The presiding presidency is responsible for facilitating the meetings, setting up and monitoring committees, and acting as a liaison between different presidencies/ communities and relevant committees.
At the end of the council of 50 meeting, the council runs a lottery to select the next presiding presidency. All presidencies are in the draw of the lottery, including the exiting presidency. However, any presidency whose president has been presided before is rejected if they are selected.
The presidency embarks on setting up committees to implement the council’s decisions in the soon-to-be concluded meeting. In addition, the outgoing presidency hands over any unfinished projects and committees to the incoming presidency. All council of 50 meetings run from Monday to Thursday. They are held in the community tthat the presiding presidency belongs to.
Some issues may need more than the three months during which a presiding presidency presides. Their terms will run until they finish their job, or at the pleasure of the council. The presiding presidency may also recommend the breaking-up of a committee, which is passed if adopted by a majority of the council.
Councill of 50 committees may organize other meetings on shorter notice to better coordinate their activities. These meetings take place virtually, at the duration that the committee’s chair decides in consultations with committee members.
Word area councils
Each world area, with 1 billion people, is served by world area presidency of 4. There are expected to be 12 world areas when the NewVistas system is adopted across the world, meaning there will be 12 World area presidencies.
Each world area presidency meets every Thursday like other presidencies. The meetings take place virtually, due to geographical challenges.
World area presidencies form a world area council of 12 presidencies. The council meet quarterly, at the same time as councils of 50. Th meetings is focused on common projects, as well as ensuring a coherent overall strategy for the system. Presiding presidents, who are selected through a lottery system along the same lines as the councils of 50, coordinate with other presiding presidents to forge a common front for the whole NewVistas system worldwide.
Presidencies without councils
Some presidencies, due to the nature of their duties, do not form councils. However, their presidencies still meet weekly, as other presidencies. In the case of area presidencies, the meetings take place virtually. These presidencies are summarized below:
| Presidency | responsibilities |
| Branch presidency | Recruits participants, and serves them at the unit/ branch |
| Knowledge and Records presidency | Implements decisions of operational presidencies of agencies in the Knowledge and Records Bureau |
| Business Development presidency | Implements decisions of operational presidencies of agencies in the Business Development Bureau |
| Area presidency | Select trustees who then go on to set up other presidencies in a community |
Quarterly conferences
There are no council meetings on the thirteenth week. Instead, various presidencies prepare to attend or present at the quarterly conference. The conference is held on Sunday
There are four parallel conferences, each for the presidents representing a particular demographic. All 1,920 community public servants attend these conferences. Participants, including captains, can listen in online.
During the conferences, agency presidents make 12-14–minute presentations. After every three presentations, done by the three presidents serving the agencies in a bureau, there is a 15–minute break. The program also allows for a 2–hour lunch and a 2–hour dinner.
The conference runs for 12 hours, including the breaks, lunch, and dinner. To allow for a more dynamic presentation format, and to remove any implication of hierarchy between the two departments – Human and Financial Capital (agencies 1 – 12) and Process and Property (agencies 13 – 24), agencies from each department use an alternating arrangement so that when 3 agencies from the first department make a presentation in one hour, 3 agencies from the second department take the next hour.
From his or her assigned chair, each public servant can stand, and with the help of a mule, be raised above others to be seen easily by all present. The elliptical arch in each assembly hall’s ceiling, which helps reflect sound to all in the room, also enables all to be heard easily with a normal microphone.
In most organizational conferences, the 24 agency presidents will probably do all of the talking, so they are seated in podiums at both ends of the assembly hall. One set of 12 podiums represents the Human and Financial Capital Department, and the other set represents the Process and Property Department. These podiums are tiered not to signify hierarchy but simply so each agency president can better be seen and heard.
An assembly hall is specifically designed for those sitting in the body area to face either set of podiums; to enable this, transforming technology allows seats on the floor to easily switch direction. The seating arrangement affirms that equal attention must be paid to the duties and responsibilities of both main departments and that one department does not preside over the other.