Board Meeting Minutes: July 9, 2023
Attendees: Korderro Brown, Tenia Dewolf, Greg Fisher, Adam Goforth, Melanie Odom-Groh, Anna Wysocki, Jo Ella Coles
Meeting start: 11:40am
Opening Prayer: Melanie Odom-Groh
June Meeting Minutes
Melanie moved to approve the June board meeting minutes. The motion was adopted by consensus, with no opposition voiced.
Internal Communication
Anna gave an update on a previous discussion of including Timothy on group communication about the building and homeless ministry. She reported that Timothy isn't interested in being in a group text or other form of group chat, but he checks his email regularly. If something building related is happening, he can be included via email, and he should see it shortly thereafter.
Church Bylaws
The Transition Team has approved a set of bylaws and recommended them to the board.
Paper copies of the draft bylaws were passed out to all board members and there was some discussion of their contents, but no changes were requested.
Board members were given a week to read the draft in detail and send either approval of the draft or concerns to the rest of the board via email. Melanie said she would email the board on July 16th to ask for approval to recommend the new bylaws to the congregation for adoption.
There was some discussion of what the transition will look like from the current bylaws and church structure to the new ones. The board agreed that the Transition Team will be tasked with creating a transition plan.
Ministry teams
Finance
Adam took over as Treasurer on June 24th. He is currently keeping up with deposits and payments, as well as catching up on some older issues. Tenia, Melanie, and Adam have started meeting as the Finance Team and discussing new finance processes, but nothing has been formalized yet.
The 2022 property taxes for Peace House were paid by Journey of Faith. There was discussion of what to do with the Peace House finances going forward. The finance team will do an accounting of income and outlays for Peace House. Jo Ella and Adam will meet with Sheri to get things moving forward while the finance team creates the financial accounting.
The church has continued to pay into Alex McCauslin's pension since her employment was terminated. Adam is working with Alex and the Pension Fund to stop the payments going forward and to get the overpayments returned.
The church signed a contract with NEW last winter to act as fiscal agent for certain grant applications. So far no grants have been awarded with NEW as fiscal agent, but some applications have been made.
There is no update yet on the possible PPP loan taken for Sheri. Jo Ella said she has some documentation of the PPP loans and she will send it to Adam.
Rosie Barnesdale donated about $5,700 of stock to the church in April 2022 by transferring it to the church's TD Ameritrade account. There is now about $5,900 in the account.
Adam moved to sell all of the stock immediately and transfer the total fund amount to the church's general cash fund. The motion was adopted by consensus, with no opposition voiced.
There was some discussion of whether to close the TD Ameritrade account, but no decision was made.
Adam has started the process with PNC to issue 2 new employee credit cards to Timothy and Adam. In order to move forward, new Authorized Representatives need to be added to the account.
Adam moved that the board approve replacing the current Authorized Representatives on the account with Adam and Melanie. The motion was adopted by consensus, with no opposition voiced.
The Schindler elevator company contacted the church about a recent revision to the state elevator code. They claim the church needs a new piece of hardware installed to comply with the code since the church's elevator was installed before the year 2000. Their proposal is to install their Door Lock Monitor for a price of $29,704.00, with 50% due when ordering the work.
Adam moved to task the building team with investigating with a 3rd party what is actually required, if the elevator must be retrofitted, if the Schindler device is the only option, and what alternatives to compliance exist (like turning off the elevator). The motion was adopted by consensus, with no opposition voiced.
The building team was tasked with carrying out this investigation.
On June 30th the church received a proposal for a 5-year fire system inspection from Arbor Inspection Services. The services in the proposal are all listed as required and the total fee is $4,240.00.
Adam moved to have someone verify with Arbor Inspection Services that the inspection and replacements are really required, and if so, to accept the quote and have Arbor Inspection Services do the work. The motion was adopted by consensus, with no opposition voiced.
It was decided that Timothy would be tasked with contacting Arbor Inspection Services and asking about the inspection.
Tauber lease agreement. The two office rooms have been rented since January with no lease. The renter has been asking about an updated lease, so Timothy has updated the dates on a previous version of the lease and sent the draft to the board.
Adam moved to task the building team with updating the lease and sending it to the renter. The motion was adopted by consensus, with no opposition voiced.
Greg mentioned that we might want to clarify some of the terms of the lease, like adding more specificity to the renter's insurance provision. This will be a task for the building team.
Communication
There was recently a communication team meeting between Adam, Tim, and Larry. There is nothing significant to report at this time.
Mission
Anna suggested that the church might be able to communicate about itself through its partners. For example, the church could be mentioned on the M.I.S.S.I.O.N. A2 website. She also suggested that the church could advertise to students at UofM and Eastern in the fall.
Jo Ella is now working as the volunteer coordinator for the New Beginnings Homeless Ministry. She presented information about the church's homeless ministry and handed out some written information. She talked about plans to improve the space in the basement of the church and described some new partners that she's talking to about working with moving forward.
The Ypsilanti IWW had previously asked about using the church building for its regular breakfasts, but they have found another location.
Gordie has been in the hospital, but is now back in the RV in the parking lot. He has not been given a deadline to move, because of his health issues.
Operations
Tenia intends to look at staff pay rates and start having performance and compensation conversations with staff.
Worship
Raphael Guillen is resigning from the board and will no longer be participating in the church community. Melanie is now doing all of the worship planning herself.
Kord said he will get more involved in worship planning moving forward and will set up regular meetings with Melanie.
Pastoral search process
Anna will create an online survey to help with creating the church profile. The congregation would take this survey to give a clearer demographic profile of the church and also express their desires for the church. There will be accommodations for people who can't or won't take an online survey.
Ann Arbor Pride
The church was not able to get a booth at Ann Arbor Pride, because there were none available when we applied for it.
The church had sent them a check for the booth rental and it was cashed, but Ann Arbor Pride will be refunding the money.
Minister's Report
Kord will be sending out links for the Enneagram test to everyone invited to the leadership retreat. The leadership retreat will be on July 22nd starting at 9:30am.
Kord has recently been certified as an interim minister with the Disciples of Christ denomination.
Next Board Meeting
The next board meeting will be on August 6 at 11:45am at the church.
Debrief
Melanie asked the board members to share where they felt tension in today's meeting and where they saw God show up. Several board members shared their thoughts.
Meeting end: 2:00pm