UUFM Board of Directors

Regular board meeting

September 16, 2013

 

Present: Nakota Ashstarte, Ken Moore, Brian Demarco, Jay Teller, Genevieve Woodard, Madeline Bishop, Greg Valentine, Kathleen McKinney

Absent: None

1.    Opening of the meeting

a.    Chalice was lit and covenant was read.

b.    Members voted to accept Greg Valentine as new board member replacing Janet Erskine. Greg was invited into the room and welcomed.

c.    Meeting was called to order.

d.    Genevieve will act as timekeeper to help keep our meetings a more reasonable length. Three minutes per person will be allowed to start.

e.    Kathleen volunteered to take minutes for September meeting. We will table a decision about secretary until our next meeting. The suggestion was made to rotate secretary but no decision was made.

f.     Agenda was approved with one change. Nakota will talk about a regional workshop under other agenda items.

2.    The minutes from the previous board meeting were approved with one change on page 2. The speaker coordinators are Madeline Bishop and Jeannine Christina not Janet Rinard. Genevieve made the motion for approval, Kathleen seconded. Unanimous acceptance.

3.    Continuing business updates

a.    TreasurerŐs report.

                                              i.     Addition of another person as a signer was tabled since we do not have a secretary.

                                             ii.     Line item for the bookkeeper will be dealt with by the finance committee

                                           iii.     Judy SpinnerŐs donation will also be dealt with by the finance committee. There was some discussion about which committeeŐs budget it should be moved to.

                                           iv.     The entry for Alberto Morales needs to be dealt with. The money has not been sent to him yet because he has been hard to get hold of. Kathleen volunteered to try to get hold of him.

                                             v.     Jay will take care of sending a thank you card to Judy Spinner.

4.    Committee reports

a.    Worship committee. Greg agreed to be liaison to replace Janet

b.    Cares and concerns. Genevieve reported that they usually have phone meetings. She mentioned support for the GabrielsenŐs with EricŐs upcoming surgery.

c.    Finance. Jay mentioned that the audit has been rescheduled for 9/25

d.    Religious education. Genevieve mentioned that OWL started on Sunday and that more signed up after the meeting.  Ken mentioned that the curriculum is online so anyone who is interested can learn more about it.

e.    Ken is looking for a couple more people to be on the adult religious education committee. Currently the committee is Ken, Patricia Faye and Bonnie. He said it has been suggested that January would be the best time to start and to run it for 4-5 weeks holding it after church. No decision has been made though.

f.     Long term facility – Nakota mentioned that several buildings have been looked at including Evergreen on Adams and the International School. There was some discussion about the need to have a plan before we start looking for a facility. Nakota said she would pass that on to the committee. Brian volunteered to sketch out a basic plan.

g.    Social action. Kathleen reported that the committee had a meeting after church instead of before church. Ken mentioned that the committee decided that one way to involve more of the congregation in social action is to have a book study group on a related subject.

h.    Senior center. Kathleen reported that there had been some confusion about whether we were on the calendar for the rest of the year. It was her understanding that our contract that she signed the end of June was for the entire fiscal year. She sent an email to Anne Lane, the director but has not gotten a response yet.

i.      Membership. Ken mentioned that the focus has been on new people once they come through the door. The committee has been talking about how we can get new people to attend. Membership hasnŐt tackled this yet but are planning to. A newspaper article was suggested as one way. Also possibly doing a service out at Linfield.

5.    Consensus model

a.    Ken and Brian will work on how we would fold the consensus model into our decision making process within the context of the bylaws. We would try this out during an after church business meeting. Ken and Brian will have something by the October board meeting to use at an early November business meeting after the first service in November.

6.    Vision – Nakota, Ken and Madeline are on this committee. Nakota will make a request of the general membership for additional members. She hopes to get at least three more people to join. The board discussed whether we needed to have the consensus model in place to start creating a vision and mission. It was decided that no, we did not. They will meet as soon as they get the new members.

7.    OWL – Nakota asked if anyone had knowledge of this program. A couple of board members who have kids who have attended said that their kids had not said much but they are looking forward to attending. Ken is reading the OWL manual and mentioned that the curriculum is online for anyone to review.

8.    Employment agreement. Brian presented our current employment agreement for employees which he feels is very inadequate. He said the board should get a file on any prospective employee with their resume, references and completed background check and then an employment agreement for board approval before hire. Brian volunteered to come up with a draft service agreement. Nakota will gather any needed information on Buffy and Steve and get it to Brian.

9.    Other agenda items. Nakota received an invitation from Diane Brinson from the PNW district. It mentioned that there are plans to have a regional workshop in January or February on stewardship. She had two questions.

Would we be interested in a technical workshop on how to run a campaign and train stewards?

Would we prefer a stewardship workshop centered around generosity and the theology of giving?

The board discussed these and decided that our preference was the first type of workshop.

10. Announcements – none

11.We set the next board meeting to be October 14th and the board retreat to be October 26th in Yamhill. Genevieve offered to host the October board meeting.

Nakota mentioned that she had subscribed to Touchstone, a monthly journal and could make copies available.

The meeting adjourned at 7:34 pm.