Item

Discussion

Motion/Action

President’s Report

Stewardship is doing a fair amount of work and their activities will be starting in February.  $7,100 from holiday letter so far.  Bill also mentioned the Fort Lauderdale issue where the GA will be held near a high security level area in Florida; some controversy has arisen because its locale will require government issue identification, etc.    BWWDA is starting to generate interest and we have a few folks committed to acting as facilitators.  2/3/08 is first session for orientation. Worship Service attendance report was distributed and reviewed.

External communications group is going to report to us at our next meeting.

Minister’s report

Pathways signups are low this year and thus BJ is hoping she can make it a priority for her next year, as well as bringing more volunteers on board to work on membership growth.  Without C-Cubed and the personal touch of that kind of approach, it appears that we are having problems bringing new people into the community.  We also discussed the issue of recruiting folks who can come up with and implement other approaches to bring in new people.   Concern was expressed about BJ working 7 days a week.  Marye Gail observed that we should acknowledge how much we have accomplished under BJ’s leadership and expressed the need for patience as we look toward our future goals.

DRE report

Attendance from 2002 – 2007 has been compiled, taking at least 4 straight hours to complete.  Gail also reported that the Youth Group raised twice as much for My Sister’s Place as in past years.  New nursery workers – two folks to replace Rachel have been hired – Katie Shea and Rachel Whitty. Katie is a music education major and Rachel is music ed major as well; both have significant child care experience as well as CPR training and first aide.  Wonderful people, per Gail.  Rachel has been driving up on weekends from NJ and staying in an apartment she has here to help out.

Business Manager

Business report submitted.

Treasurer’s Report

Treasurer report submitted.  Finance committee meeting is being planned, which includes council chairs and at large members.  At that time, budget planning process will be discussed and determined  Meeting to begin in two weeks or so. 

Sexton hours

Last month Peter request increase of his hours to 30 hours.  The proposal, which Peter is willing to accept, is to increase the sexton position to an additional seven hours.  With this potential increase in hours, Peter has also offered to serve as independent contractor which would relieve us of the cost of providing health insurance and other benefits, since Peter has found an acceptable insurance plan available to him as an independent contractor.  We are exploring this and hopeful that this would work as a good compromise.  Again this is dependent on what our future budget looks like. 

Motion: MG has moved that the Board authorize the staff to increase sexton hours by 7 additional hours, which was seconded by Heather.  Motion passed.

Denominational Affairs

Who of the board and/or which council should deal with the issue of where the denominational affairs committee should reside?  Proposal to begin this conversation with the council chairs at their next meeting – Bill will raise it with then.

Nominating Committee appointments

Nominating  Committee nominates people for board positions and for endowment committee.  Chair is the ex-past President.  Last year’s nominating committee recommended changes, including whether the chair should be president-elect.  This and other changes would require constitutional amendment, which we could not effect now.  Nevertheless, we need to come up with four people in addition to Charles.  With a view to considering certain positions in governance to staff the nominating committee, we agreed that Heather as current president elect and Marye Gail as outgoing Board should also sit on the nominating committee.  We discussed two other possibilities, including another member should come from the Committee on Ministry.  Two names have been considered and will be approached.  We should plan to get elections done by April or May – June is too late.

UUS-E Meeting

There was a meeting this past Sunday to discuss shared goals, individual goals, what a UU regional vision might look like, and possible programmatic or resource sharing. Bill, BJ and Heather reported that it was a wonderful discussion. Another meeting is scheduled on 3/3/08.

Process check-in