Members
Present: Regina Moody, Joe Kyle, Rusty Wenerick, Jo Conner,
Sandy
Chubon,
Becky Dickey,
Rob Harper, Mary
McGriff, Dwight Pregler, Don Thacker, Sharyn
Walters.
Members
Absent: Patrick Price, ex officio; Mary Heriot, ex officio.
Guests:
Carita Barr, Tootsie Holland, Gertrude Edge, Isabel Oake, Cindy Harper,
Emily
Aleshire.
CALL
TO ORDER
The meeting
was called to order at
6:15 pm by Regina Moody. She lit an
improvised
chalice and
encouraged board members
to bring an improvised chalice to future
meetings.
OPENING
WORDS
Mary McGriff
read the opening words.
MINUTES
Corrections of
the June 11 minutes:
Don Thacker's and Jo Conner's names were
misspelled. Regina's
name was misspelled in paragraph 2 of section 2. Minutes
were
approved with those corrections.
REPORTS
Administrative
Coordinator - In addition to her written
report, Isabel
informed us that a
shredder and a
cordless phone (with
its base) have vanished from the building. Emily
Aleshire
donated a regular phone
that is being used in Room 1
Summer
Religious Education
Program -- Board members commended Emily for her
informative
report. Joe Kyle suggested that future RE
reports continue
to include the
weekly
attendance and the names of
teachers who participate.
Regina Moody reported that Emily
Aleshire has
requested to no longer be a paid staff member. She
is continuing as youth coordinator and summer elementary director on
a volunteer basis. There are some
issues she wants to resolve before resuming a paid staff position. The issues are not new and have been
problems in the past. The RE Committee
plans to get the issues resolved quickly after Susan and Patrick return. Board members asked whether Emily has a job
description; Sharyn and Joe Kyle affirmed that she does. (Emily had not
yet
arrived when this discussion was held.) Don Thacker requested that
Emily's
issues be addressed and a report of their resolution brought to the
September
board meeting.
RE has raised enough money from the
Sunday luncheons
to pay the youth coordinator's
salary. Sharyn
reported that Sandra Carnesale had donated $500 for the youth
coordinator's salary and that money
has been spent
as she requested.
Treasurer's Report -- Rusty reported that he has not been able
to meet with Joe Long because they have both been out of town at
different
times over the last month. Hence,
he has no June financial report at this time.
He
has an appointment to meet Joe L. at the
bank (BB & T) tomorrow and get the accounts transferred to Rusty's
signature.
Rusty said he plans to
provide the board with more detailed financial reports.
He
would like the expenditure categories in
the monthly reports to match the line items in the annual budget. Rusty
has
also begun work on a comprehensive review of the fellowship financial
system(s)
to bring to the board.
Sandy commented that last year the
board did not get
an end-of-year report for 2001-2002. Joe Long
did not provide a monthly report at the July 2002, meeting; his
report at the August meeting was for the first month of the new fiscal
year. Sandy requested a copy of the
end-of-the-year (June, 2002) report and Joe gave her one but did not
provide
copies to other board members. That
report showed a $4800 deficit at the end of the last fiscal year. But that deficit is never acknowledged in
the 2002-03 reports. At a subsequent
board meeting, Sandy asked what had been done about that deficit and no
one
knew. Sandy requested that Rusty's
reports for the new fiscal year include information about any deficits
carried
forward from the last fiscal year. Joe
Kyle reminded board members that we agreed to re-visit the budget at
our
September meeting to assess whether our income is sufficient to
continue paying
staff their present salaries. He said
it would be important at that time to have information about any
deficits
carried forward from the previous year.
Sandy reminded board members that we
have no savings
account, our CDs are gone, and our only money is in our checking
accounts.
Isabel Oake expressed concern about
how to set
priorities in writing checks when we do not have enough money to cover
all
bills. Rusty stated he did not see this
as the Treasurer's function, but a decision to be made by the board. There seemed to be consensus that the board
should set those priorities. Joe Kyle
suggested that general guidelines or principles could be developed to
give the
bookkeeper direction.
Don urged that a decision be made
quickly about how
to handle overdue bills currently outstanding. He
pointed out that Isabel is most likely to incur the wrath of people
who are owed money and we need to give her some guidance about how to
proceed. Regina suggested that the officers set
some
guidelines for the immediate future. Don made a
motion that, until these pass-through bills are resolved, the
executive committee of the board develop a priority list for paying
bills. The motion was approved.
Sharyn said that RE received several
hundred dollars
less than was budgeted for the 2002-03 fiscal year. She
asked whether they will receive those dollars plus their
budgeted amount during the 2003-04 year. Rusty
said they should get both amounts, if there is money available.
Committee Council -- Regina reported that during the past
year,
they have been working on committee descriptions and a personnel
handbook. It was noted that the Personnel
Committee
(not a standing committee in the bylaws) has not functioned this year
and she
recommended that a review of its functions be conducted.
Finance Committee -- The board was asked to approve new
members
for the Finance Committee: Ann Johnson, Sara Williams, Omid Motahed,
and Joe
Long. A motion was made that Joe Long
should not serve on the committee. After some
discussion, the motion was approved by paper ballot. The
remaining three new members of the
Finance Committee were approved.
Fundraising Action Team -- Plans are underway to
develop a fundraising committee as a subcommittee of the finance
committee. This group would approve and
coordinate all
fund raising activities for the fellowship. Regina
asked for feedback on the document in progress which has been
circulated to people who indicated an interest in developing it.
OLD BUSINESS
Copier
-- Sandy voiced concern
about this issue. Isabel provided us
with cost estimates
for two
different brands of equipment at the May meeting, but there was no vote
to
approve spending the money. At the June board meeting we learned that
new equipment
was in the building for a 1-month
demonstration and
that our CDs had been cashed. At that
time Sandy asked whether the board would have an opportunity to vote on
the
question of leasing new equipment; she was assured that we would vote
on that
at the July meeting. Actually, the
contract to lease the new equipment had been signed the day before the
June
board meeting.
Don suggested that, in view of our
current financial
situation, we should determine whether we can break the contract for
leasing
the new equipment. If we can void the
lease, then we could explore other options: do we really need two
machines? Regina pointed out that we
have money budgeted for the office equipment. Isabel
said we are now leasing the two machines (copier and duplicator)
for the same price we had been paying to lease a duplicator. The lease is for 5 years. Don
agreed to pursue this matter
further. He will obtain a copy of the
contract from Isabel and see what options we have for breaking that
contract
and what other options might be available at less cost. He
will report back at the September board
meeting.
Don also suggested that, as a matter
of policy, all
contracts should be approved by the board before they are signed. Joe Kyle suggested that only contracts which
involve large expenditures should come to the board. It
was agreed that we need to develop a policy to address this
issue.
Audit Invoice -- We have received a bill for $480 for the
process
audit that was done this year. Three
members of the fellowship volunteered to pay for the audit but have not
all
come forward to do so. Don suggested
that we need a complete audit of our finances annually. There
seemed to be consensus that the cost
of an audit should be a part of our budget, not something to be
financed by individual
members. There was discussion of kinds
of audits and the cost of those. Don
will collect information about the cost of different kinds of audits
and he
will report back at the September board meeting. Joe
K. suggested, if cost is an issue, perhaps we could break the
audit into parts and have different parts audited in different years,
so all
parts of our finances are audited every few years.
MRC -- Minister's Annual Review -- Regina reported that Sej
Harman is waiting for two more people to submit their forms regarding
Patrick's
annual review. Board members agreed
that the MRC should prepare the data they have collected and not wait
any
longer. The board would like to have
the report at its August meeting.
Coffee House ad hoc Committee -- The board anticipated a
report from this committee at tonight's meeting but there was none. Cindy Harper said she understood that Susan
Corbett has booked one act for the new season. Regina
will talk to Susan.
General Assembly 2003 -- Regina reported that 7 members
of the UUFC attended GA in Boston (at their own expense) in addition to
Patrick. It was a very inspirational
experience and they will be sharing their impressions during worship on
July
27.
NEW BUSINESS
Board
Notebooks -- Regina
provided notebooks for new board members and materials to
update the notebooks of continuing
board
members. She reviewed the contents of
the
notebooks. She
asked that board members bring the notebooks to meetings and return them at the end of their term.
Circulation of Board Minutes -- In the last year, board
meeting minutes have been
circulated via e-mail a few days
before the next
board meeting. Members agreed it would
be helpful to have feedback earlier. It was suggested that the secretary prepare
and
circulate, within one week after each
board meeting,
a listing of the decisions made plus
any action items with information
about who is to
follow through on those items and the
time line, if one was established.
Don suggested a review of the minutes
of all board meetings
of the last 3 years to find all
motions passed and ascertain whether
they have been
carried out. Regina said there is a
tentative plan to put all the minutes
on a CD, so
they can be indexed and information can
be retrieved by topic.
Shepherd's Staff Version 7.2
-- An
upgrade is available for $250. We just recently
began
using version
7.0. We agreed not to purchase version
7.2 at this time.
Volunteers
to Serve as Board
Liaison on Committees
Sandy
Chubon agreed to serve as the
board-appointed member of the Nominating
Committee. The
board
approved her appointment. Sandy will also serve
as liaison to the Bylaws committee. Mary McGrifff
volunteered to serve as liaison to the Caring Committee.Rusty
volunteered to
serve as liaison to the Endowment Committee.
Funds for Reception -- Tootsie Holland asked the
board to allocate some money for the
reception for Patrick and Jennifer on
August
9. There was consensus that, given our
uncertain financial status, we should
not
spend
fellowship money for this event; we
will have a :pot luck.
Procurement Policy Working Group -- Regina wants a group to
work on policies for
purchases and procurement
(heating/cooling
systems,
library roof, etc.). We have $1000
donated to replace the broken heater
and we
hope to
do that this fall. Dwight will get
information about the latest bids to
repair
that
heater (bids obtained last year).
Board/Leadership Retreat -- August
23, 2003 -- Regina has been
trying to
obtain a
facilitator for this meeting. TJ
District provides that service but it
will cost $300 because
we have not paid our dues ($150 if we
had
paid our
dues). Board members questioned
why a facilitator was necessary. We identified a number of important issues
during
tonight's meeting. Perhaps
we could have a productive working day without a
facilitator.
Don suggested that we spend August 23,
working on
identified issues and determining
how to proceed with them this year. If we find that we need a facilitator,
perhaps we
could do that later. The
group agreed to that plan. Joe Kyle volunteered to facilitate
a part of the day, and would work with Regina on what is needed.
Suggested
topics for the retreat: Making sound decisions given our financial
situation;
confidentiality of board meetings and information; better communication
with
the congregation throughout the year; input to the board from
committees about
how they spend their money; paying dues to UUA and/or TJ district.
Snacks -- We agreed to have a small snack for the
social
time at board meetings (6:00-6:15), but not a meal.
Sunday Welcome & Announcements -- Regina encouraged board
members to sign up to
do the welcome and announcements for
Sunday
services. Joe Kyle will bring snacks for the August board meeting;
Becky will
do a reading; Rusty will provide a chalice of his choosing.
ADJOURNMENT
The
meeting was adjourned about 8:50
pm.
These minutes are a joint effort of Jo
Conner,
secretary, Sandy Chubon, and Regina Moody.