Board Meeting Minutes: November 13, 2021

Attendees: Jo Ella Coles, Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, Matt Hoostal, Rosalie Karunas, Rose Marcum-Raugh, Alex McCauslin, Melanie Odom-Groh

Meeting start: 9:40am

Opening Devotion (Jo Ella Coles)
Matt Hoostal, on his role as Treasurer
1. Matt Hoostal shared some of his background and some of his goals and intentions as treasurer at the church. He described his responsibilities and how he will handle various financial duties at the church.
2. Concerns around responsible collection of Sunday morning donations were raised and discussed. It was suggested that we have two people present whenever the money is counted or moved, both to protect the church against theft and to protect the people involved against accusations of impropriety. There was some discussion of how that could be achieved, given the limited number of people that are regularly present on Sunday morning. Concerns about confidentiality were raised if collecting and counting the donations were a rotating job involving many people. Matt will work with Alex to define a process that provides safety for all parties and as much confidentiality as is reasonable.
3. The importance of tracking the receipt and usage of donations for those donors who have specific expectations was discussed.
4. A suggestion was made to work on determining and documenting exactly which people/roles have access to which systems.
5. There was a discussion of changing the signers on the church's financial accounts. Currently Pam VanHeyningen, Jo Ella Coles, and Rosalie Karunas are signers on the accounts, but there is a desire to remove the existing people and have others take on this responsibility.
6. Rosalie Karunas made a motion to remove all existing signers (Pam VanHeyningen, Jo Ella Coles, and Rosalie Karunas) and for three new people to be added: Matt Hoostal, Melanie Odom-Groh, and Adam Goforth. Greg Fisher seconded the motion. The motion was adopted by general consent, with no opposition voiced.
7. The next step is for Matt to go with Pam to a PNC branch to get Matt added as a signer to the PNC accounts. When that is scheduled, Matt will let Melanie and Adam know when they're going. If Melanie and Adam are able to join them at that time, then they will. If not, Matt will figure out a later time to go with them.
Old Business & Reports
1. Communications
  - Adam Goforth reported that communication strategy discussions are ongoing, but there has been no progress on online account documentation and hand-off.
2. Building/Operations
  - Greg Fisher reported on the search for cleaning and maintenance workers.
    1. There is a potential new maintenance person: Michael Ulmer. He does the maintenance at St. Luke's in Ypsi. Greg, Alex, and Susana did a walk-through with him at the church. Michael wants to go through the building with the current janitor Tom before discussing what the cost would be. Tom has Michael's number and will get in touch to move the process forward.
3. Pastor’s Report
  - A large part of Alex's work in the past month has been pastoral care, which hadn't been the case for a while. Some administrative tasks took a back seat due to this, like the work with Jitasa.
  - The next 6 weeks will be very busy for Alex and the church as a whole, due to the advent season and end-of-year activities.
4. West Willow Health Initiative - Jo Ella Coles
  - The church has been awarded $26,000 in grants which will be coming in soon.
  - The group is pursuing partnerships around creating spaces for fostering intergenerational connections. They're talking to the New West Willow Neighborhood Association and a church in the West Willow neighborhood, as well as another church in Ypsi.
  - There is work ongoing towards having a mobile health clinic at the church in December.
  - Hopefully Jo Ann McCollum will visit a future board meeting to tell us about the NWWNA.
5. Regional Update
  - Melanie has written a letter of congratulations from the church to Rev. Eugene James for his retirement.
6. New Bylaws
  - No updates at this time. The team is planning to start work on this after the first of the year.
Homelessness Ministry Update (Rose Marcum-Raugh)
- There have been many users of Soap and Suds in recent months - at least two per day. There are sometimes difficulties scheduling people because there is more demand than we can meet with our facilities.
- The church hosted an art show with a live band. Nearly all of the artists who showed pieces sold something. The show raised about $180 to be used by the homeless ministry for supplies, bus tokens, tents, sleeping bags, food, etc.
- The daytime warming center will be hosted at the church starting December 1st and will be open 9am-5pm, Monday through Friday, through the month of December. Sheri Wander is asking for people to be masked around the food distribution area, but otherwise masks will not be required in the building. This relieves staff of the burden of policing masks and also gives the visitors a warm place where they can remove their masks, which might otherwise not be available.
- December 23rd will be the Christmas free store at the church. There will also be a big Christmas dinner that night.
- Rose is looking for volunteers for the warming center in general and for December 23rd in particular.
- Rose reported on a number of things she does outside of the church location.
- Rose became president of MISSION in August.
- The daytime warming center does not currently have a March location. Journey of Faith could be a backup location for March if another location isn't found.
New Business
1. Leadership Changes
  - Minneth Mckoy is withdrawing from the board. She has some personal situations she needs to deal with and can't dedicate enough time and energy to the board right now, so she is stepping down.
  - The board hopes to find someone else to fill that role and vote them in at the January congregation meeting.
2. Personnel Changes
  - Susana's workload has increased recently, so she has been working more hours. She has been working 20-25 hours per week lately instead of the 20 hours she was originally hired for. It was proposed that the board approve Susana working up to 25 hours per week going forward. By general consent the board adopted this proposal, with no opposition voiced.
    1. A possible mitigation to Susana's increased workload would be to add a remote unlocking system to the church's main exterior door, so that Susana or Rose wouldn't have to physically go to the door to let people in. This would minimize the size of these interruptions to Susana's day, allowing her to focus more on her other tasks.
  - Our worship leader Dave recently had emergency surgery and will be recovering for a couple of months. Alex proposed continuing to pay his stipend at the existing level through the end of the year, even though he's unable to work for the church. By general consent the board adopted this proposal, with no opposition voiced. The board will revisit this decision in January if Dave is still unable to work at that point.
  - In Dave's absence, Jason is taking on more responsibilities with sound setup and vocals. Alex proposed increasing his stipend from $100 per week to $150 per week, during the time when Dave is unavailable. By general consent the board adopted this proposal, with no opposition voiced.
  - Melanie Odom-Groh proposed that the church should do something for the retirement of the current janitor Tom. There was general support for this idea from the board, but no definite plans were made.
3. Giving Campaign
  - Rosalie and Melanie are preparing a letter to the congregation about giving and next year's financial planning. The letter will be sent out at the end of November.
4. Other
  - Adam will share about his role on the board as Historian at the December board meeting.
  - The next board meeting will be December 4 at 9:30am at the church.
Debrief and Closing Prayer

Meeting end: 11:46am