Council Work Session

July 14, 2008

Present: Carol Zechman, Nancy Maclean, Sally Hinckley, David Allen, Jean Siulinski, John McCall, Sally Sutton, Stan Jordan, Chris Keiter

Call to order: Chris K. called the meeting to order at 6:30pm. With only seven members present, a quorum was not present. We decided to proceed with the work session, recognizing that the results would be recommendations to the full Council, not decisions of the Council.

By-Laws: Stan led a review of the latest draft of the by-laws. Stan will update the by-laws with the comments and will send them to Chris. Chris will add a cover page and table of contents and will propose a process for having them reviewed by the congregation.

Church Mailing List: A situation occurred last week that could be interpreted as the church allowing the church mailing list to be used for other than church-related business. This is not the case. The church only allows the church mailing list to be used for church-related business. However, there is no written policy to this effect. The Council will develop a policy about this in the fall.

Church Directory Permissions: The church directory will be updated soon. We discussed concerns and options about what permissions are required in order to include member contact information in the church directory. Our recommendation is to include listed member contact information in the church directory unless a member specifically requests the contact information to be withheld.

Les Andrews additional bequest: After Les Andrews passed away, a bequest was given to the church and was accepted. It was known at the time that an additional bequest was likely. Last week, Les’ son came into the office and gave John two checks worth a total of about $68,500. He requested that $1,500 be put into the Ministers’ Discretionary Fund, with the remainder to be put into the unrestricted endowments, unless there was a specific project that it could be used for. When John described the chancel reconfiguration project to him and showed him the progress to date, Les’ son said that we could use any of the bequest to pay for the chancel reconfiguration project. Les loved the church and he loved music, so this would be an appropriate use of the bequest.

The Council discussed the situation and developed the following proposal:
· Accept the Les Andrews additional bequest
· Still have the Music Fund contribute $2,000 to the chancel project
· Still have the North Church Memorial Fund contribute $4,000 to the chancel project
· Still conduct the fund raising effort for the chancel project (it is almost complete)
· Still sell the choir pews to help fund the chancel project
· Instead of using the unrestricted endowments to fund the remainder of the chancel project (as previously discussed), use much of the additional bequest from Les Andrews
· Put $1,500 from the Les Andrews additional bequest into the Ministers’ Discretionary Fund
· Put the remainder of the Les Andrews additional bequest into the unrestricted endowments

Chris will ask the Council to vote on this proposal via email.
Homecoming Sunday: This event is coming up on September 7th. Chris asked for volunteers to develop a display / event to represent the Council on Homecoming Sunday. Sally H and Jean volunteered. Thank you!

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 8:00pm


Respectfully submitted,
Chris Keiter
Moderator