New London — While not as popular as "The Nutcracker" at The Garde, the Community Carol Sing at Mystic Seaport or the Niantic Light Parade, the annual meeting at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital has long been a fixture of the season in southeastern Connecticut.

But the meeting, which took place during the first two weeks of December for as long as anyone can remember, isn’t happening this year. Or ever again — at least not in that format. Because L+M became part of the larger Yale-New Haven Health network in September, the way community members will be involved has changed.

“It’s the evolution of the existing governance within the Yale-New Haven Health system,” Vincent Petrini, spokesman for Yale-New Haven, said Tuesday.

During the annual meetings, L+M corporators — about 200 regular “members of the corporation,” 46 honorary members and 13 ex-officio members — heard reports from hospital leaders about new initiatives during the past year and plans for the future, as well as year-end financial performance numbers.

This year, year-end financial data will be released in L+M’s annual report, which is expected to be available in January, L+M spokesman Mike O’Farrell said.

While joining the Yale-New Haven network has meant the elimination of the annual meeting at L+M, a similar affiliation at the region’s other hospital had a different effect. At The William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, its annual meetings, which took place in late November, were closed to the media until it joined the Hartford HealthCare network. Since 2013, Backus has held open annual meetings, most recently on Nov. 16.

The L+M annual meeting was one of two meetings a year for its corporators, basically serving as a platform for select members of the community to learn what’s going on in the hospital and share input with the board of directors and hospital administrators.

“You don’t have any power, but you can stand up and speak your mind, and that’s important,” said Dr. Robert Linden of Niantic, an L+M corporator for the last 12 to 15 years.

The corporators, who served for five-year terms, did have one major responsibility: electing new members and officers of the board of directors. Now, the new L+M board of trustees will nominate its own new members, but they will be elected by the Yale-New Haven Health System board, Petrini said.

"We are fully committed to ensuring the long-term success and viability of Lawrence + Memorial and we understand that community representation continues to be critical to that success," he said. "There's never been a situation in which a local nominee has been rejected."

About two weeks ago, corporators received a letter from William Stanley, L+M’s vice president of development and community relations, informing them that there will no longer be corporators or an annual meeting. Instead, active corporators are being invited to join one of two Community Hospital Councils, one for L+M and one for The Westerly Hospital, part of the L+M Healthcare system.

Petrini said the councils will meet twice a year, with the first meeting tentatively scheduled for this summer. There also will be a meeting for the general public in the first half of 2017 to provide an update on the affiliation, he said. The various meetings are among requirements made by the state Department of Public Health when it approved the affiliation.

“We’re trying to be very open and transparent,” Petrini said. “We want to respect the legacy of the community hospital.”

While the community councils, he said, will have no formal voting power, members will be invited to give feedback.

In his letter, Stanley said members of the councils will “serve as talent pools from which new Board members can be selected.”

“Like corporators,” he wrote, “you’ll be asked to continue serving as the eyes, ears and voices of L+M in our community. We will still seek your support and your engagement, and hope you’ll continue to be a community conduit for your hospital.”

Linden, for one, said he wants to stay involved as a member of the new council.

New London resident Tracee Reiser, also a longtime corporator, said she wants to clarify the role of the community councils before making a decision about whether she’ll continue to be involved.

The annual meeting, she said, was a beneficial forum for corporators, especially for learning about the financial condition of L+M.

“I hope it will be replaced with something similar,” she said. “I like hearing a presentation on the financial information, not just seeing numbers on a page.”

Going forward, Reiser said she has mixed feelings about the affiliation. She is hopeful that L+M and its patients can benefit from being part of a larger system, but she is concerned that connections between the local community and the hospital could be diminished as a result.

“I want to be optimistic that it will develop in ways that are beneficial to the people and not just the corporation,” she said.

j.benson@theday.com