UUFM Board Meeting – March 14, 2012

Present: Ken Moore (chair), Phil Newman, Lynn Hughes, Barb Roush, Alene Jacobs, Marcia Blevins

Absent: Barbara Valentine

Meeting called to order at 6:40 pm at Phil’s house

Minutes from previous meeting: With no objections, Ken accepted the minutes as submitted.

Treasurer’s Report: Board members had received this report previously. Our bank balance is $22,314.83; and, the available cash is $12,724.03. With no objections, Ken accepted these figures.

Committee Reports:

Worship Committee – the Board reviewed the report sent by Patricia Faye. Extended discussion of the idea of having 6 people to confidentially rate UUFM speakers. Ken will keep in touch with this committee to see how the procedure works. Phil commented that there has been a continual conversation about how our speakers affect potential memberships; however, he concluded that he feels things are progressing well – that a good acceptance seems to be developing for our current speakers.

Membership Committee – the Board reviewed the extended report sent by Bernie McGinnis. Maintaining a UUFM telephone now seems to be unnecessary; we should discontinue this idea. Regarding the website: Alene will send Bernie a copy of the website as it stands at this time. Seating in the back: we need to set up extra chairs from the “locked room”. Ken will call Madeline about chair set up procedure. Barbara Roush will have her boys place the “reserved for late comers” signs on the chairs in the rear, before the service begins. Someone from the Membership Committee will remove the signs when it is appropriate. Alene will deal with the new name tag rack – where it goes, etc.

Phil reported that he and Bernie had met to discuss having UUFM committee representatives meet quarterly to discuss increasing membership. Phil said that, for now, he accepted Bernie’s opinion that the Membership Committee has things in hand, and getting all the committee people together would be a waste of time.

Phil suggested that UUFM purchase a laptop to be kept by the secretary, so all the reports and budgets and church business could be stored in one place. Alene suggested that maybe this information could be kept on our website. She will talk to Barbara Valentine about this idea.

Phil wondered if we could create a questionnaire for visiting speakers to fill out regarding their reaction to our services and how we run things. Ken will speak to Madeline about this.

Brief discussion about greeting new people as they come to our services. Though we do this, what more could we do? More talk about church growth. Alene posed the question: Do we want people to come back regularly; or, do we need them to be members, primariliy?

Business Meeting Preparation:

Barbara Roush discussed the annual budget which will be presented at the Business Meeting. One of the new issues is the cost of renting the Senior Center – it will cost about $1000 more a year – partly due to fee raises, and partly, to our needing additional hours.

Ken reviewed what the agenda will be; he will re-send (by e-mail) all the appropriate documents to all UUFM members before Sunday’s meeting.

Nominating Committee:

Barbara Valentine has contacted Greg Valentine and Vickie Wilbanks; they have agreed to be on the Nominating Committee. Efforts will be made to continue to reach Judy Spinner to see if she is interested. Alternate members are Pam Bergen and Nancy Braun.

Pledge Drive:

Eric Gabrielsen will deal with this on April 1st and 15^th. Ken will also help on April 1^st.

Covenant Process:

Ken has yet to contact Janine Larson about our planned Covenant building meetings. (She has been slow to respond to his messages, so far.) Discussion followed as to how we should proceed. Phil suggested one idea from the recent meeting in Oregon City. He described a church group which was in the midst of redoing their Mission Statement. That group asked for input from the congregation as a first step. We could do this; ask for input. Phil also suggested that we could form a group of people who would be interested in doing Vision/Mission/Covenant work. This would not have to involve the Board, unless members wished to participate. The Board could set the time frame for getting the work completed.

Ken feels that getting an expert from “out of town” might inject new ideas, and would be a good way to start. Phil thought that Rev. Deborah Holder, who spoke at the Oregon City meeting, could be a great help as we start this process. Ken will also call Rick (Salem church) in case Janine can’t assist us; perhaps he would be willing to facilitate an initial meeting, or so, for us.

The discussion concluded with a plan for a series of workshops. Publication of these workshops would begin well ahead of the first meeting. The first workshop would be led by a skilled facilitator. A possible starting day was set for Saturday morning, May 12; though this date may change.

Meeting Adjourned at 8:10 pm.

Next Meeting will be Wed., April 25 at Alene’s house at 6:30 pm.