UUFM Board meeting October 8, 2012

Present: Alene Jacobs, Lynn Hughes (Secretary), Barb Roush (Treasurer), Brian DeMarco (Vice-Chair), Phil Newman (past Chair), Nakota Ashstarte.

Absent: Genevieve Woodard

Convened 6:40pm with Brian acting in Ken’s stead.

Minutes from September 8th, 2012: are accepted as corrected with no objections.

Treasurers report: Bank Balance $9,295.57. Available cash $7,175.26.

Barb reported on her purchase of Laser Printer and toner. Checks were ordered for Laser printing.

Phoebe will be asked to deliver the check for quarterly donations to Give a Little charity.

Committee Reports: provided by each committee liason.

Membership, report by Alene. They would like to add 3 or 4 new members to the committee. Bernie is ready to retire as Chair. Members Susan, Marcia, Nancy. Board agreed that increasing membership is crucial to our strategic planning and building up this committee should have priority.

Care and Concerns, report by Nakota. They would like to be sure attention is called to anyone who needs help or attention. They wonder if we have suggestions on how this can be done so as to not miss anyone. They would like to consider doing some type of log to track who needed help and what was done to help. Brian suggested a committeee member set up a spread sheet or 3 ring notebook even to accomplish this. They are trying to be visible at coffee hour and already wear a purple heart on their name tags to signify they are on the committee. It was suggested they have a purple request sheet on the back table for people to fill out for any needs they may have.

Worship, report by Brian. PatriciaFaye is planning on resigning soon. They ask that the Childrens story be limited to 7 minutes. Jolynn would like to start a youth choir. They also suggested we use the Youth as greeters.

6:55 Let the minutes note that the Chair, Ken Moore is now present and assuming Chair duties.

Social Action, Lynn reported. Committee has been very busy working with Unidos in volunteering at citizenship classes, volunteering time and $100.00 to bring the exhibit on “Borderless Stories” to the Mac Public Library and seeking to initiate dialog between local law enforcement and ICE on immigration issues. They’ve also organized two “move to amend” discussion groups, volunteered at YCAP and the Soup Kitchen and are preparing to share all their activities at the UUFM Dec. 2nd service. They do not have any special requests from the Board at this time and appreciate the support the Board has provided them.

Discussion items:

Committee Chairs: There was some discussion about who selects the Chairs for the various committees. The Bylaws state that the Chairs shall be approved by the Board but do not designate who should elect the Chair. Ken will send out a memo to all Committees that the Chair shall be selected by the Committee but approved by the Board. Discussed Chair succession. Worship and RE committees will consider June as the start of their 2 year term. Membership and Social Action Committee Chairs will be rotating out in 1 year from June. Ken will talk to Care and Concerns about the rotation they will be on as their loose structure makes it difficult to determine who’s Chair.

Lay Ministry: Discussed that we can’t officially do this until we have a program in place. There are training programs at both Salem and Portland that we could tap for resources.

Social Functions: There now is a calendar on the UUFM website where public events can be posted. These might include items such as the Men’s or Womens group gatherings, the summer picnic, and the winter holiday breakfast before the service. It would not include the Circle suppers as they occur in private homes and therefore are limited by space.

There is need for a small group of people to set up tables/clean up for the upcoming winter holiday meal. Barb will contact Eric and/or Stephen about involving the Youth in this.

Group mailings: Discussed whether we need to have criteria for when to send out group mailings, what could be sent and to whom. There are two email lists, one for members and one for friends. Brian moved and Barb seconded that all requests for group mailings go through the Board Chair. All agreed. Ken receives numerous emails coming from National, Regional and more local (Portland and Salem) UU events and wonders how to get this information distributed. It was suggested this get posted on the Website and Ken will check with Barbara Valentine about how this might work.

Consensus model: The original participants would like more members on the committee to work on this. Nakota volunteered. Ken and Bernie are also involved. Question about deciding when to use Majority vote versus Consensus which requires 90% of votes to move forward.

Membership list privacy: After noting the Membership list (which includes addresses, phone numbers, children’s names) on the back table at our services, Alene did some research into how other churches handle this information. She discovered that 1st Church in Portland and Salem have On-line lists available by password only to members. Board agreed that we need to protect the privacy of our own members and Ken will check with Barbara about whether we can do a password protected list on our website. Alene will contact Membership Committee about not putting our list out on the table. We discussed mailing it out to members only if we can’t post on the website. Kris Gabrielsen has been the person maintaining the list up to this point but it was recommended that we have the Membership Committee maintain the list and provide each updated list to the Board members. The Secretary would keep the updated list on file. Fot the time being, Alene is working on making corrections, updating and removing names of those who haven’t made contact in over a year.

Business Meeting: Agreed there will NOT be one after the next service which is Oct. 21,2012. Will be scheduling Board Dialog sessions to discuss priorities, strategic planning and other issues with the membership. We have not set dates for this yet but likely will start after the first of the year. January 20th was proposed as a date for the first session.

Sermon recording problems: Phil was unable to hear what was said in the recordings, the quality of sound is poor. Eric has stated this can be corrected with a special clamp for the microphone. Phil moved and Brian seconded that we allocate $250.00 towards resolving this. All agreed.

Child Dedication: Our first such event will be at our next service. It will include some of the older children (teens) seeing as it is our first dedication.

Strategic Planning: Extensive notes were sent out by Alene to Board members from the recent retreat. Nakota, Alene and Phil all expressed interest in being involved in this process. It was agreed that the planning would involve having 3 groups/Task Forces who would report to the Board. The 3 groups would have emphasis on 1.) Membership-to focus on growth and building up the music program, 2.) Building-focus on leasing rather than buying, and 3.) Minister-deciding what our needs are and progressing towards finding the right fit for UUFM. Rather than micro-manage, the Task Forces would come up with a plan and present them to the Board.

Next Board Meeting: will be on Nov. 5th, 2012 6:30pm at Genevieve’s.

Adjourned 9:00pm.

Submitted by Lynn Hughes 10/08/12