Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Petoskey
Board Meeting
Aug. 19, 2007
Meeting started at 12:20pm
present: Norm Mottl, Kim Nowack, Gary Nitz, Marla Houghteling, Jean Nitz, Ray Epscamp, Lois Martinson, Mary Johnson
Old Business:
- Approve minutes of most recent board meeting: : The July 2007 minutes were approved via e-mail vote.
- Treasurer’s report: : Mary has paid bills, made deposits, but didn’t have enough information in time for Dale to prepare a report. Gary and Mary will continue to work towards finding an investment option with more interest earning ability and also socially responsible. Mary pointed out that the 2008 budget was not approved at the 2007 annual meeting. The treasurer’s report was accepted, but the budget was not approved. Mary will review the proposed budget and be prepared for questions and discussion at the Sept board meeting. The board wants to approve the budget at the Sept board meeting.
- Ministerial Association in Petoskey : Ray has not had luck in finding a ministerial association in Petoskey area. He will keep pursuing this idea. The area may have an “interfaith alliance”.
- Visiting minister: Mary reported that the professional minister we were thinking of asking to visit would want a fee of $200 plus expenses to conduct a service and speak to the congregation after the service. The board has the ability to approve this speaker’s fee even though it exceeds our normal $50 fee. We did not have enough information about this and this item was tabled for a future meeting.
- Programs : Lois and Jean asked at the service for lay leaders to conduct “prepackaged” services. There were no volunteers at the time. The program directors will come up with an available list of sermons for people to choose from and this may get more volunteers.
- Green Congregation : Jessica will be invited to a future board meeting to discuss the next possible steps in getting our congregation into the green movement. The board is very interested in pursuing the green idea.
New Business:
- Partner Church Today’s service was all about the UU Partner Church program that Mark and Nancy Kinney have been involved in. The board discussed how we could get involved in something like this. We have quite a few questions about the program; Do we have to be UUA members? Is there a minimum donation requirement? The board would like to get more information from the Kinney’s and decide if there is a way for UUCOP to get involved. One idea is to work with the Traverse City UU congregation to combine efforts and work on a partnering effort. Ray will contact Traverse City about this idea.
- Long Rang Planning Long range planning was discussed. The 2006 retreat was revisited since we talked quite a bit about our long term goals at that retreat. Ray also has ideas on brainstorming topics for discussion. Kim and Mary will search their files for the retreat notes so we can benefit from the work we did at the retreat. Ray recommended that the long term goals be presented one at a time at each service and also that a meeting be set up with the entire congregation in the future to work and fine tune these goals. Mary suggested that the minutes from the retreat could be posted on the website.
- 5th Sunday potluck for Sept. 30th : Tom will call the library to see if we can use the library for our potluck. The group discussed whether to have any formal program or discussion at the potluck. A brief presentation of the long range goals may work ok.