Present: Rev. Anne Roundy, Rev. Dr. Kate Winters,
Gene Hunnewell, Rev. Joanne Painter, Beth Haynes

Recorder: Beth Haynes

Reflector: All

Minutes for the last meeting were read and approved with the correction of Gaewski.

Conference Concerns:
Rev. David Gaewski told the committee that he was getting information on writing a Lilly Grant to support a Ministerial Excellence Program in the state of Maine. He hoped to gain some insight on writing a successful grant proposal. He also described the vision for this professional development program for both lay and clergy leaders/persons. His hope is to get a grant that would be large enough to fund this program for at least five years. Massachusetts has already received a large Lilly grant to provide PD opportunities which are also available for Maine,too. A majority of churches are not able to provide professional development for clergy due to funding restrictions. A lot of these clergy can not attend the workshops and courses in Massachusetts. David would like to see the Conference offer these opportunities "close to home". He asked the committee members for their "dreams" that would raise the level of both clergy and lay leadership competence. The committee looked at the draft of the Academy of Congregational Leadership's (ACL) goals. After reviewing these the following are the members' dream suggestions:
1. faith development in congregations (Kate offered to reflect in
more detail on this)
2. include scholarships for lay/clergy that can not afford BTS
Convocation or the Festival of Homiletics, etc.
3. explore the innovative worship element
4. symposium as one element of this program
5. possible lecture series

David needs to have a calendar developed on how we will do all this
(writing the grant). This time table should be ready with a presentation during early 2008. The first draft would have to be done by Sept/Oct. 2007. David has already written up a draft on his ideas which Anne will e-mail to all the committee members. The commission will meet on August 4, 2007 to begin this process so that the proposal can be written.

Executive Committee:
This committee is still struggling with the finances. OCWM funding
appears better but the fellowship dues are not back up.

Coordinating Council:
The Coordinating Council will meet on April 20, 2007 in Waterville for
the introduction of the Associate Conference Minister candidate by the
Search Committee members. Once the Council accepts the candidate,
letters will be sent out to all churches announcing the new ACM.
The Honduras Partnership's process of learning how to be a partnership
within the Conference was discussed. It was stated that volunteers need to remember that people are going in to do with (not to) the Hondurans since this is a covenant. This discussion was conducted to make sure we all maintain this relationship.

There will be a new venue for the Annual Meeting in 2008. It will be
held at the University of Maine- Farmington on June 28-30, 2008.

Workshops/Retreats:
Reports from attendees stated that the Lenten Retreat was very valuable. One comment heard was that "we always think that we do not have time to attend these, but now I see that we can not afford to not go".
Church & Ministry's focus was on the Parish Life and Leadership's
document on supporting multiple paths to ministry. The major change
would be a formation of a discernment committee (made up of the Church & MInistry committee and a committee at the person's home church) with
which the candidate would work to discern the person's call. Also it
will have to be discussed if this call to ministry will be within the
United Church of Christ.
At present there are only 7 registered for the Clergy Spring Retreat.
It is hoped that more will sign up soon.
Seminary Day in Portland was well attended (11 students) and many
questions asked. Rev. June Boutwell stated that about half of the
students were new.

Academy for Congregational Leadership:
June reported that last fall a small committee (Rev. June Boutwell, Rev. David Ray, Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, Rev. Ginny King, Rev. John Lacey and Annette Mott) looked at laity training. They are now presenting their first draft of a purpose document. This committee reviewed about seven programs from other states to use as models. This program will replace the former ACCT class which will not hold their 2007/2008 session. This will give the committee a year to prepare to begin this program during fall 2008. This falls under a regional learning program. The Christian Education Committee has met with Andover-Newton (with June) to learn how the seminary does their distance learning course work. On-line course work may be part of this program.
Anne questioned if this commission should delete the ACCT line of $1000 from the 2008 budget and insert the $7000 for Academy for Congregational leadership. This was confirmed by the commission. Students will need money for books, brochures, scholarships, facility fees and honorariums for instructors and also the program director. The plan is to model this program after the ones in Wisconsin and Vermont where the ministers within the state act as the instructors. Kate wondered if all students need to be pushed toward leadership. Couldn't it just be for personal enrichment? Another suggestion was to have commitments listed as choices, not total requirements. June and Anne will be present at the Coordinating Council so will be able to answer questions about this additional funding request.

May 24 - Finance Committee meeting

May 31 - Coordinating Council meeting

Budget Request:
Kennebec Valley Church & Ministry and Kim Murphy, the moderator of this
association sent a request for $200 for two students to attend the
Eastern Regional Seminary Gathering in Cleveland in October, 2007. June stated that since the Pastoral Study Group no longer exists the
commission could use that line of the budget for this request. The
commission decided to give $100 ($50 each). This brought up a
discussion on the need for a generic form for scholarship requests. The submitted forms could then be used as a record of previous requests.

Annual Meeting:
Gene Hunnewell provided a draft of the agenda for this fall's Annual
Meeting. June was able to give a mini-report on each of the speakers
(Mike Downs, Rev. David Shoen, and Edith Guffey) or the group. The
planning committee has just about completed their work.

Brown Grant:
Another Brown Grant will need to be written to help support the Clergy
Consultation groups. Anyone interested in helping write this grant
should plan to stay after the May commission meeting is adjourned.

Next Meeting:

May 5, 2007, 9:30 a.m. at Waterville

Plan to set the calendar for next year's events.