Coordinating Council Meeting

April 4, 2008

First Congregational Church, Waterville

 

Present:  Denise Goodman, Anita White, David Gaewski, Judy Hubley, Susie Craig, Richard Weidler, Jane Lowell, Connie Insley, Jeanne Davis, John Glover, Herb Oliver, Franklin Anderson, Dan Johnson, Linda Smith

 

Not Present: Ron Beinema, Ted Ruark, Mark Schussler, Don Greene, Anne Roundy, Victor Stanley, Katie Pinard, Phil MacKean,

 

Moderator Denise Goodman called the meeting to order at 10:05 am.

 

Rev. David Gaewski led a meditation commemorating the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr.

 

Richard Weidler notified us that he will be leaving Woodford’s church on June 1st, and therefore is also resigning from the Coordinating Council. 

 

The minutes of the February 22, 2008 Coordinating Council meeting were reviewed and amended to clarify the position of the Honduras Partnership and its part-time position for 2008.  Voted to accept the March minutes as amended.

 

Treasurer’s Report – Mark Schussler was not present, but a written report was submitted and attached to these minutes.  First quarter statements regarding Fellowship Dues will be sent to the churches in early April.  The Conference will request that the churches report their budgeted amount for OCWM for 2008.

 

Business Manger’s report was submitted and attached to the minutes.  George Higgins has resigned from the Finance Committee due to health concerns.  A preliminary review of the 2009 Budget shows that the monies needed are slightly less than 2008.  Mark will review, and report to the next Coordinating Council meeting.

 

Conference Minister’s Report – David reported that the Personnel Committee has an item of concern and they would like some feedback from the Coordinating Council.   For some time the Personnel Committee has been aware of an inequity in the compensation for Annette Mott.  The Conference certainly gets more than it pays for with Annette in the position of Director of Local Church Resources.  Annette has been growing into and expanding her position for 27 years.  She is currently underpaid when compared to other conferences, by about $10-20,000, plus Annette has elected not to receive health and dental insurance through the Conference.  (Conference policy states that employees that opt out of benefits do not receive supplement to their salary for the cost savings). 

            Secondly, there is discussion whether the Associate Minister for Small Church Development should be designated as an Associate Conference Minister.  If so, then the position must have equity with other Assoc. Conference  Minister position.  To maintain equity, we will need to increase the salary by $12-15,000. 

            Annette will graduate from Bangor Theological Seminary in May and has notified David that she will be seeking a call as a local pastor, although most likely not accept a position until the end of the year.  However, this change will impact the 2009 budget.

            Annette carries several program responsibilities in addition to those related to the Resource Center – preparation of OCWM interpretive materials, convenes the Stewardship Committee, serving as a resource to local churches, leads the Planned Giving programs, and is the liaison with the Capital Campaign Committee led by Bricker Gibson.

Personnel Committee has proposed two options to re-allocate staff responsibilities – Option A and B.  Currently Anne Hodgman is serving as the Assistant Director of the Resource Center, working 10-12 hours per week.  Personnel Committee proposes to increase this position to a half-time position, and promote Anne to the Director’s position, working 20-26 hours per week.  Preliminary discussions with Anne determined this to be an acceptable arrangement.

In addition, Option A would reallocate the program responsibilities from Annette’s duties and add them to the Assoc. Minister for Small Church Development’s responsibilities, bringing this to a full time position.  This change would add approximately  $29,500 to the 2009 Budget.

Option B would distribute the addition program duties among several part time “consultants” working approximately 5 hours per week for each responsibility.  Possibly, using retired or part-time clergy who would like to supplement their income.  This option will most likely be cost neutral for the 2009 budget.

David G. proposed and additional Option C.  Over the last year, David’s work in financial development has been growing, seeking alternate revenue sources.  David suggests that he add Annette’s additional program responsibilities to his list of duties, and create a part-time (approx. 10 hr/week) position to cover David’s search and call responsibilities.  Those responsibilities would include 25% of placement, and yearly and quarterly search and call meetings.  The cost for Option C would approximate Option B.

Discussion  raised several points for consideration – concerns around the changes to the Assoc. Minister 4SCD position where Darren Morgan hasn’t even begun  the Acting position yet; concerns about current difficulties meeting the budget and raising the money to increase the AM4SCD to a full time position; the ability to include more clergy in involvement and service with the Conference; make the best use of the time David has invested in OCWM and Stewardship programs; communication of any staff changes to the Conference churches must be early and on-going.

The guidance from the Coordinating Council was unanimously in favor of Option B or C, not Option A.  We will see these changes reflected in the 2009 Budget when presented to the May meeting.

 

David also reported that a gift has been made from the Maine Missionary Relief Society to Jeff Gallagher and his family to help with medical expenses around the birth of his son, Jacob, who was born with a heart defect and will need 3-4 surgeries in his first year. 

David will be attending “Common Border/Common Faith” this weekend, as the first event planned to strengthen the relationship with the United Church of Canada.   Kent Ulrey, has been selected as the new President of Bangor Theological Seminary.  Kent currently serves as the Conference Minister in Michigan. 

David lifted up the publicity that has been around recently around Jeremiah Wright and Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.  The national offices solicited funds to run a full page ad in the New York Times explaining what the UCC is about.  The donations exceeded the expectations, and may allow the ad to run in USA Today next week.  The ad is very “vanilla”, to demonstrate that we are not a fringe group, but a mainline church and a  deeply rooted religion.  PIC committee would like to print the ad in the Portland Press Herald, and possibly the Bangor Daily News if we can raise the money here in Maine.  This is the first official use of our online donation technology.   John Thomas, President of the UCC, suggests that all UCC pastors use Sunday, May 18th to raise the issue of racism in their sermons.

 

Associate Conference Minister Report was submitted in writing and attached to these minutes.  In addition, we currently have 8 advisors and 8 youth registered for National Youth Event.  We are expecting more youth registrations to come in over this week.  We may share a bus to Tennessee with youth from the New Hampshire conference.

 

Annual Meeting 2008 – Herb Oliver reported that plans are coming along well.  We have 17 workshops planned, John Thomas is our Keynote Speaker and will lead the Pre-Meeting Retreat.  Committee has selected a scripture from Isaiah to go with the theme of “It’s Who We Are”.  

 

Churches that contribute no OCWM – David has been reviewing the information on churches and their giving to OCWM in many different ways.  He has noticed that ONA churches tend to be top givers.  Number one church in giving per capita in 2007 was Open House in Portland.  Approximately one-third of our churches give enough to OCWM to “carry their own weight”.  It takes $37.35 per capita to maintain the conference budget.  Many churches pay only the assessed fellowship dues of $12.42 in 2007 and give nothing to OCWM.  Some churches give nothing at all.  Several churches on the list have voted to disassociate from the UCC or no longer have members or conduct services.  The Conference can not remove these churches from the roles until the Associations have voted to disassociate or remove them from the roles.  Conference staff will work with the Associations to clean up the list.  It is very frustrating for the Conference to be asked for time and energy by churches who have the financial resources, but don’t contribute.  Perhaps we could do a mailing in the summer, before the budget process begins, letting churches know what it takes per capita to maintain the services of the Conference in a non-shaming way. 

            Studies have shown that top givers respond best to requests for increased giving from the Conference Minister, but mid-range givers respond better to peer requests for increased giving.  David would like to develop a team of OCWM interpreters in each Association to visit each church to discuss their giving to OCWM and provide education around the covenantal relationship between the church and the Conference.  David will provide an outline for these teams to use during their visits, before he leaves on his Sabbatical in July.

 

Town Meetings summary – Coordinating Council will hold a meeting next Friday, April 11, to review the information gathered at the 2007 Town meetings on the Conference assets and how it relates to the future of the Conference in light of our Mission Statement.  Dan Johnson has provided an agenda for meeting, and Don Green has provided a summary of the data gathered.  Denise suggested some homework for the Council members in determining which facility is needed to carry out each statement in our Mission statement.  In addition, each Council member should write down their dreams for the Conference 5 years from now and bring them to next week’s meeting.  After some discussion, it was decided to invite 2 members (not staff) from the Outdoor Ministry Committee and the Rockcraft Committee to attend the meeting and participate in the discussions.

            Voted to post Don Greene’s most recent summary of Town Meeting information on the website before the April 11 meeting.

 

Personnel Issue Subcommittee – Denise has agreed to chair a subcommittee that will study and clarify the relationship between the Personnel Committee and the Coordinating Council.  The formation of this subcommittee was determined at a previous meeting.

 

Maine Ministerial Relief Society – Trustees will be immediately preceding the Executive Committee meeting on May 1 in Waterville.  Board of Directors will meet immediately preceding the Coordinating Council meeting on May 9 in Hallowell.

 

Bylaws Adjustment – Franklin Anderson has discovered a contradiction in the wording of the Bylaws concerning the Officers of the Conference.  In Article 5 the Officers are defined as “Moderator, Vice-Moderator, Clerk, Treasurer, nine Trustees and the Coordinating Council”  In Article 6, the “Executive Committee of the Coordinating Council shall consist of Officers of the Conference and one of each Commission's representatives to the Coordinating Council …”.  Voted to have Denise re-write the description of the Executive Committee and bring it to our May 9 meeting.

 

No Commission Reports were available since the Commission meetings have been postponed due to snow storms.

 

Association Spring Meeting dates were reported by the Association representatives.

 

Meeting was adjourned at 2:50 pm.

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

Suzanne Stevens

Executive Assistant, Acting Clerk