Board Meeting Minutes: May 7, 2022

Attendees: Jo Ella Coles, Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, Matt Hoostal, Alex McCauslin, Melanie Odom-Groh

Meeting start: 9:40

Opening Devotion - Melanie Odom-Groh
Finance Report - Matt Hoostal
1. Melanie Odom-Groh and Matt Hoostal became signers to the PNC bank account and Pam Van Heyningen was removed. The current signers are Rosalie Karunas, Jo Ella Coles, Melanie Odom-Groh, and Matt Hoostal.
2. The change of the church name on the PNC bank account has been initiated and should be completed by PNC next week.
3. Matt Hoostal presented a summary of the church's main checking account's balance history over the last several months. The balance has dropped by about $30,000 over the last 3 months. The board discussed why this happened, including paying out some grant funds and a large catch-up insurance payment.
4. Matt will prepare a balance history going back further and email it to the board.
5. Matt asked if he should set up automatic credit card payments. It was suggested that he set up automatic minimum payments to avoid any late fees, but the church would continue to pay off the full card balance manually.
6. Alex McCauslin suggested we transfer more from our permanent funds to the checking account to pay for ongoing expenses. The Van Wagoner fund currently has about $57,000 dollars in it and we could transfer money from that.
7. Melanie Odom-Groh asked the board to approve transferring $20,000 from the Van Wagoner fund to the church's main PNC checking account. This proposal was unanimously adopted by the board with no dissent voiced.
8. Matt Hoostal will work with the people with access to the account to make that transfer happen.
9. It was suggested to transfer the funds in the Russia With Love account to a church more connected with the Russian community. St. Vladimir's church would be one possibility.
10. The church will purchase new checks with the Journey of Faith name on them to pay bills from the renamed account.
11. Jitasa has been given access to the Art on a Journey PayPal account
12. IRS letter for the church's name change
  1. The church received the letter from the IRS, but it had the name "Journey of Faith" on it, not "Journey of Faith Christian Church". It is not known if that was a clerical error or if the name is different with the IRS than elsewhere.
  2. The church's Russia with Love account was recently garnished about $260 due to some back tax issue for Memorial Christian Church. It's unclear why that could have happened or if it might have been done in error.
13. Inaccessible money in Journey of Faith PayPal account
  1. No progress has been made on this. Jo Ella and Matt will work on this. They may have to get the help of the previous treasurer, because probably only he has access at the moment.
14. Creating a process for tracking expenditures for West Willow
  1. No progress has been made on this. The church will talk to Jitasa for recommendations on how to track these transactions.
Operations and New Beginnings Homelessness Ministry Report - Greg Fisher
1. Susana is not working in person in the office. She is working remotely doing the tasks she can do from home. We would like to recruit some volunteers to do some of her on-site duties.
  1. Any checks that arrive at the church are staying at the church for Matt Hoostal to pick up. Alex McCauslin is bringing all other mail to Susana's house so she can process it.
  2. Rose has been opening the door when people ring the doorbell, but the New Beginnings ministry is closed from May 6 until June 13th, so there will be much less of that to do for the next few weeks.
  3. May 21st at 9am will be a cleanup day (rain date June 4th) to clean up the outside of the property.
2. The drinking fountain downstairs has been fixed.
3. We will gradually increase the rental rate for renters. The new rate will be $150 for 4 hrs, $50 for each additional hour. We might also charge extra if they want to use Audio/Video equipment or the kitchen appliances.
4. Sheri at Peace House is taking a sabbatical for the month of May.
5. The New Beginnings shutdown is in response to some recent events that have created concerns about whether we can manage it properly. In particular one guest was very problematic, making messes, destroying property, and frightening renters. Additionally, Greg has observed a number of rules being broken in the church.
6. The goal of the shutdown is to reset expectations, creating a new set of rules and getting help to support Rose in enforcing them.
7. Jo Ella Coles suggested we get in touch with other organizations doing similar work to get advice on how to manage the homelessness ministry better.
8. As part of the shutdown, Rose will reach out to former guests who are no longer coming. Greg will reach out to people formerly involved in working with the ministry. Both efforts will have the goal of figuring out if there is something in particular that has caused those people to stop participating, perhaps because the space is no longer welcoming or comfortable.
9. All homelessness ministries are shut down for the current period except for limited, by-appointment studio time for the artists.
10. Building access for renters in May and June: the building team is covering these appointments and opening the building to renters.
11. The unexpectedly high HVAC bill for a previous consultation
  1. This bill is still unpaid.
  2. The church will pay the bill and also send the company a letter expressing our disappointment and displeasure at the bill.
12. The safety of the wobbly chairs in the sanctuary
  1. Larry and Mike fixed all of them so they are currently not wobbly.
13. Greg and Jo Ella were working on a more formalized onboarding process for new interns
  1. No progress has been made on this.
14. Greg intends to review the church's insurance policies
  1. No progress has been made on this.
15. The current state of the hot water heater
  1. No new info. Showers are hot, but there is no hot water in other parts of the building. This has low priority right now.
16. New elevator maintenance company
  1. The church is changing from the current company to Otis.
Communications Report - Adam Goforth
1. No progress, due to Susana's time off.
2. Adam Goforth and Larry Odom-Groh will move forward without Susana for now.
3. Jo Ella will send an Accessibility report for the West Willow and Journey of Faith websites to Adam Goforth.
Aging and Caregiving Report - Jo Ella Coles
1. Jo Ella has been talking to other organizations that are working in the West Willow neighborhood. One current concern is that the schools in the area are not open in person, but there is not a lot for kids to do in the neighborhood.
2. A project is being started to bring together seniors and young people in the community, centered around community gardens at three of the churches we have relationships with.
3. A community health worker has been found who will work in the neighborhood.
4. The University of Michigan will be making some policy changes around payment of student interns. Right now it's unclear what those changes will be and if they will affect us.
5. There are currently some challenges around getting the various churches we're working with to work with each other.
Additional May board meeting
1. The board will meet again on May 15 to discuss the topics for which there wasn't time to discuss in today's meeting: Dr. Meadows' DEI proposal and future board membership.
Closing (Alex)

Meeting end: 11:35am