Board of Trustees Meeting: March 2007

Unitarian Church of Sharon
4 N. Main St.
Sharon, MA 02067

781-784-3652
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Board of Trustees Meeting
March 2, 2007

Unitarian Church of Sharon

Board of Trustees Meeting: March 2, 2007

Submitted by: Jean Zaniewski

Attendees: Susan Allison, Treasurer

Bill Fox, Trustee

Deb Cayer, Minister

Wilbur Edwards, Vice President

Louise Marcoux, DRE

Rory McGregor, Trustee

David Nelson, Trustee

Valerie White, President

Jean Zaniewski, Clerk

Valerie opened the meeting with Chalice Lighting, Reading, Appointment of Process Observer and Check-in.

A motion to approve the February minutes, with correction to spelling of "pysanky", was made and approved unanimously.

VP change

Julie Armstrong's resignation as VP and Board Member was accepted with great appreciation and understanding.
Wilbur Edwards has agreed to fill the unexpired term while continuing as Membership Co-Chair

Motion made to appoint Wilbur Edwards to fill the unexpired term of Julie Armstrong as VP. Motion seconded and approved unanimously.

Visioning Process

· Board continues visioning process begun in November 2006. The discussion tonight focuses on organic growth ˆ our capacity as individuals and as a congregation to minister to each other.

· Deb will write up a summary of the discussion

DRE report

Louise refers to emailed report
Flooding problems - Louise is still often burdened by water issues. Today Don Fail assisted her in getting everything off the floor in anticipation of wet weather tomorrow.

Treasurer's Report

Advertising income - to date we have collected $625 from business cards ads that were to be placed in The Chalice. In the budget we had planned on this raising $2,000.

Motion made that we refund the persons who have paid already and reconsider the direction of advertising sales. Motion seconded and passed unanimously.

Related discussion:

Ad Location: would it be better to place ads in membership directory rather than The Chalice?
Refund of monies: Since it has been a long time since monies were collected, and ads haven't run; and a change in placement is contemplated, and explanation and refunds should be given.
Consensus: Ads will be printed and inserted in the new membership directories. Rory will contact persons who paid for ads to offer refund and explain change of placement.

Membership and financial database: Susan points out these should be the same. She is working on making sure they "mesh."

President's report

"Extra time" in service: last Sunday the guest minister finished early. Inviting open discussion and having an extra piece of music worked to fill the void. However, Val suggests we should have a plan or process to address a situation like this. She will discuss with Worship Committee.

Capital Campaign consultant

Tamsin Kemos will be here Friday March 9. She will tour the church building; and meet church leaders at a dinner that evening. She will hold meetings throughout Saturday—including with Board at 10 am—and after church on Sunday.
Suggestions

• Make announcement this Sunday regarding Tamsin‚s schedule during her visit to us

• Make it clear we should not expect, from her work this weekend, a dollar estimate of what our congregation may raise during a Capital Campaign.

Budget Process

In the past we have waited for results of Canvass and then decided what we can budget. There may be a better way to do this process, i.e. decide the budget in advance of the Canvass. The Canvass is set for March 17/18/19th this year, so change is probably not feasible for this year. However, budget for this year does need to be in the forefront of our minds.
Discussion ˆ

• In the best case scenario, someone would be already talking to committees and reminding them of upcoming process.

• In the past, a budget worksheet has been sent around to committees. It hasn't included vision or narrative type questions. There was some ability to put in notes.

• In the past we've discouraged "wish" budget but we haven't yet considered "mission" budgets.

• This should be a "Stewardship Committee" responsibility - but we don't have a Stewardship Committee.

• Because of time we're forced into using past process, We can assume level funding and consider change requests from Committees.

• In future we should definitely consider forming a team or Committee for Stewardship.

• We do now have a Finance Committee - could we beef up this for the next two to three months to work with treasurer to start on budget?

• Susan - there are some gaps in our information and systems. Should she let that go and devote energy to being leader on a new effort? Computer access is a problem and takes more time than Susan would like. She would like to devote more time to Fair Compensation research. Finally, there are also questions regarding the reasonableness of bills (such as insurance). Who assesses them for reasonableness?

• Bill noted the Bylaws do not call for the Treasurer or the Finance Committee to be responsible for the budget-- that is the Board's responsibility. Bill proposes a subcommittee of the Board prepare the budget. (note ˆ Bill later corrected the Bylaws do call for the Treasurer to prepare the budge).

• Discussion - previously we had received a "framework" from the Treasurer, who knew what past expenses and hard numbers were.

Motion made that a subcommittee of the board, consisting of Bill and Rory, be formed for budget preparation. Motion seconded and passed unanimously.

Committee to look at Administrative Needs Deb refers to last month's proposal for a committee to look at our Administrative needs in terms of time and responsibilities. Bill agrees to serve.

Scheduling of BOT meetings

After considering various dates and weeks of the month, agreed that the BOT meetings will take place henceforth on second Wednesdays 4/11, 5/9 In June we will reschedule due to annual meeting. Val will communicate these changes to Janet Mayo

Process Observation

There was good energy and focus. We stayed on track. Members were prepared. There were small glitches re dissent, but we handled them. Business was concluded in a timely manner. Comment ˆ We did well to do the Visioning part early when energy was higher.

The meeting adjourned at 9:34 pm.

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