Due to scheduling conflicts, the Board is now meeting on the first Tuesday of every month. Three big topics filled this month’s agenda: visioning, a bequest to the church, and the building use policy.

The Board is continuing the work started last year on visioning and will be compiling common themes from last year’s visioning materials and from similar congregational input over the past 16 years. Once these themes are identified, a simple online survey will be distributed to everyone; your response and comments will be a very important step in the visioning process. We are not sure of the step after that, but, our goal is to have the vision statement ready in the late spring.

Dr. Jeffrey Harris left a generous unrestricted bequest to the church in his will. The Board voted to use this money to create The Jeff Harris Trust which will fund worship services on some of Jeff’s favorite topics including, but not limited to, Humanism, Science and Religion, and Ethics. The Trust will be managed by the Endowment Committee. Up to10% of the Trust will be available annually to the Worship and Inspiration Team to cover the costs of these worship services.

Rental policies for both the church building and the fellowship building are being updated. The Board is comparing our proposed fees to the fees charged at other local venues. Issues such as alcoholic beverages, cleaning fees, equipment rentals, and special requests are also being examined. We would like to provide spaces for local and community groups at reasonable rates, with some consideration toward trying to recover costs for maintaining the buildings.

I am happy to report that the Stewardship Campaign is well under way and we have already raised $116,330 in pledges. Please keep the bucket brigade moving – we’d like to have all routes completed by the end of November. Congratulations to the 4 teams who have already finished!

Coming up at future Board meetings: website policies, policies on political issues, and policies for hosting art/information exhibits.

Cary Browse for the Board
Rev. Wendy Bell, Chuck Agosta, SusanMary Redinger, Sally Steele, Imre Toth, Darrell Wickman

Our Board meetings are full to overflowing (read: running overtime). Discussions on visioning, rental guidelines and our goals are very absorbing. Here are the Board Goals for 2010-2011. We have worked hard to make them “SMART” goals; specific/measurable/actionable/realistic/time-bound. Board Goals for 2010-2011: Finalize the Vision Statement by April 30, 2011, with input from a majority of the congregation. Develop a 3-5 year strategic plan based on the new Vision Statement. ... Read More

The first Board meeting of this church year was focused on planning and establishing our working goals. Visioning is high on our list of issues; do we feel that this exercise is worth the time and energy of the congregation? It has been over 10 years since this congregation participated in a thorough evaluation of our preferences, our needs, and our issues. Is it time to offer a similar survey? Would the information we learn about the hopes and dreams of each member of the c... Read More

Last week the Board met for our annual Retreat in the new Fellowship Building. What a pleasure to get to know the new members of the Board and to map out our goals for this coming year. You will read more about our goals in the September Belfry. Over the summer there were a few newsworthy items that came up. Bob Cleary has chosen to put his efforts into working with the Buildings and Grounds Committee and has resigned from the Board; Imre Toth has been appointed to fill the... Read More

As we wind down the year we are finding our newly opened fellowship building in great demand. The board is currently working on the issues to balance the need to generate rental income where possible with our desire to be a welcoming member of the community. In the old fellowship building we had one “anchor tenant,” the Evergreen School, which accounted for about 40% of our rental income. In the interim they have moved on to larger quarters so we are looking for ways to replace that source ... Read More

Report of the President and the Board 2009-2010 When the board convened for its annual retreat in August to set our goals for the year we knew that continuing support for the Fellowship Building would take priority. Thankfully, with the hard work of many dedicated volunteers and professionals, we have had the opportunity to start utilizing our wonderful new facility. At this writing we are two small steps away our permanent occupancy permit and the Fellowship building committee is setting the... Read More