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Congregational meeting 10/20/19

Wy’east UCC Congregational Meeting Minutes

Sunday, October 20 , 2019

 

 
 

Meeting Minutes

  • Quorum is reached

A recommendation from the Social Justice Committee to create a second Sustained Partnership with Q-Center

  • Q: What is a sustained partnership?
    • A: It is a 3 year partnership, and can backout at any time, it means we will volunteer,  1 special collection a year, and there is a contact person who collects information.
  • Q: Will someone join our community as well?
    • A: They will come 1 per year to the special collection
  • Q: What is the Q-center
    • A: It is a nonprofit, designed to promote the well being of sexual minority people.   They have a lot of programming, and there is a facility at N. Mississippi.
    • A: They promote inclusion of sexual minorities and also ethnic minorities 
  • Q: What is the commitment?
    • A: It is a 3 year commitment, and they will have events that we can volunteer at.
    • A: We will also ask them to I.D. family friendly events so that families can volunteer together.
  • Q: Do we have a letter to review?
    • A: That went out in the email.
    • A: We are not making any commitment.  They will provide us with opportunities.  We wanted to provide a more consistent support to a group.
  • C: I like supporting this.  Once a year is not enough, can we have more connections to see what they are doing?
    • A: volunteer opportunities will provide more connection.
  • Q: Why does this have to be a vote?
    • A: We wanted it to be a democracy and make sure it was fully supported by the congregation.
  • Q: If this is a partnership, do we communicate on the work that we are doing too?
    • A: If people feel the need to communicate needs of our congregation we can do that.
  • Moved to vote.
  • Q: There is an opportunity here, what does a good sustained partnership look like?  How can it be better?
    • A: There are opportunities for it.
  • C: I haven’t given much thought to what a sustained partnership means, but to me this is a partnership like we had with the Village Support Network.  It was us partnering to support them.
    • A: I think this is the same.  This is a chance for us to be more involved. If there is energy to coordinate with the Q-Center, then we can do this.
    • C: We need to work on not having cliques and not know what is going on, that will pull us apart.
  • C: Strategic planning is new, I think of this as an experiment of how our congregation will evolve, to see how we can become better. Q: We have already been apart of  Girl Scouts, I’d like to hear what has been going on with that. Since that is our first partnership.
    • A: Girl Scouts bridging ceremony we were there and supportive, so that the leaders were celebrating with the girls instead of doing a job for the event. We volunteered to do the tasks to make it successful.
  • C: I like it, but I like coming together and talking about it.  It feels good to me.
  • Vote: Unanimous vote to approve, and no abstentions.
  • We will create the sustained partnership.

Budget for the Digital Refresh Committee

  • Facts from Linda M. about what it is.
  • Q: Is there possibly a screen there we could put the lyrics on so that we can see better?
    • A: It requires a projector and screen and more money.
    • It is not helpful to use the TV screen because we can’t see it.
    • A: It seems the price keeps going down on those things.
      • But we share this space with others.
  • Q: Do we have a surplus of funds this year? Why can’t we wait another 6 months?
    • A: Why not now? If we want to live the mission, we should show it now.  We have been living without the funds for 14 years. The funds are there if we want to spend them.
    • A: The budget has a surplus or savings.   It is about $52,000. It is recommended to have about $20,000 in savings for our congregation
  • C:  I am excited about this.  We just did the strategic plan so now is good. I have a concern, about older people using computers?  If someone doesn’t have a computer, that there be another person to be responsible to send out mailings.  Also, finances, they might not have funding to have Internet.
  • C: The why not question...ideas don’t mature at the annual meeting, they mature later once you have time to wrestle with it.
  • C: I visit other congregations, and have seen worship spaces that are embarrassing and incredible. I see where we are, and think we can do better.  Also, this will strengthen our presence with young people coming in our doors. Website has some problems with accessibility and people need the clarity first of who we are. The worship space needs a safe, welcoming space.
  • C: My first introduction was seeing the sign outside.  Then through Mathias who was handing out materials. I would be willing to help with the technology with members who are comfortable with using it.  I don’t think 1 training is enough. You have to repeat for it to work. We could have a technology day for seniors. I would be willing to help (Yu Te).  The budget is very small for what is needed. I am willing to help with this. I think to make the most use out of it is to interact with it and use it, and update the information. I am willing to help with migration and volunteer. 
  • Q: Have any of the ideas been developed with HSC?  Could we talk to HSC and see if they are thinking about a projector and invest together?
    • A: That is something that I haven’t looked into, but it is a good idea.
  • C: Linda: Website would be more fresh and move to more common WordPress platform.  I am motivated to see some of this happening before the end of the calendar year.
  • Q: How can we keep it running for the long haul?
    • A: There is not a lot of money involved in maintaining the website.  We have some experts that are available at Wy’east to volunteer. This will be the easy part of the project.
  • C: We forget to thank people.  This presentation is awesome, and thank you for taking all the time for this. I want to thank SJC too for all they do.
    • A: Diana S. is also someone who did a lot of work.  But we are a committee of 2, so we would love other people who are interested.
  • Q: From the GA, what does a more inclusive congregation look like? How can we change to include everybody not just white seniors?
  • Q: I strongly approve.  Motion to vote. 
  • 2nd motion. Set to a vote.
  • Approved with 1 abstention.

 

Respectfully submitted

 

 

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