UUFRC Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes

April 25, 2023

Location:  UUFRC Sanctuary

Trustees Attending: Brian Ferguson (non-voting), Peter Hartzell, Rob Davis, Jeanne DeShazo, Dick Edminster, Jason Laderman-Jones, Erika Pretell

Trustees Absent:  Lori Longo

Guests: None

Peter Hartzell chaired the meeting and Erika Pretell acted as secretary for the meeting.

Call to order – Peter

Chalice lighting; Opening words; A moment of centering – Dick

Anti-Racism Reading & Discussion – conversation 

Consent Agenda 

• The following reports were accepted:
  • Last BOT Meeting Minutes – 3-28-23
  • Minister’s Report – April
  • Finance Committee Report – April
  • Personnel Committee Report – April
  • Connections Coordinator Report – April 

Strategic Discussion – Strategic Plan Implementation Team (SPIT)

• How to institutionalize “SPIT” and ensure it stays in front of us?
• Suggestion from Brian to move the SPIT effort into the Program Counci
• Rationale
  • Would get more people involved (Chris has been doing majority of SPIT effort)
  • Program Council and Board would have two-way accountability for Strategic Plan
• Proposed process
  • Close out SPIT at annual meeting and invite members to join the Program Council in order to bring their institutional knowledge
  • Organize Program Council around strategic plan
  • Peter will close loop with Brian, Chris and Alex

Operations – Board Oversight

Board Reports – Items for Discussion as Needed

Pledge Drive 2023-34 – Brian

• Overall format was good (one-week pledge drive)
• Learning for next year:  Need to be more proactive about closing it out rather than waiting for people to reply (some people never responded after multiple attempts to contact).  Challenging this year because still almost $10K from people who pledged/paid last year but are not responding this year

Financial Update – Dick

• Budget review
  • Board made a revision to add a line item of -$5K for Unfulfilled Pledges, and to increase New Pledges/Excess to $10K to offset
  • Rob, Jen, Brian and Leslie to meet to hammer out healthcare policy for employees
• RESOLVED:  Board approved annual program fund total of $13,484
  • Fair Share UUA dues will be a little lower for 2023-24 year.  It’s based on operational budget, not number of members.
• Motion to approve budget by Rob; seconded by Jason
• RESOLVED:  Board approved proposed budget with the following revisions
  • Adding Unfulfilled Pledge line item (-$5K) and increasing New/Excess Pledges to $10K
  • Decrease Fair Share amount to $13,500

Program Council – Rob – no update

OGNS – Erika – no update

Personnel Update – Jason 

• Still working out details of retirement contribution – conflicting info from UUA
• Dawn should be treated as an employee as music director rather than contractor (but as contractor for accompanist role).  

Task Force Updates

Outreach & Marketing Team – Erika

• We see Bring-A-Friend day as a success
• We didn’t track newcomer numbers but estimate 10-15 newcomers
• Zoom attendance was 30 vs. usual 20
• Energy of people talking to newcomers has been high since Brian gave sermon on hospitality
• Erika will send another follow up email to congregation to give positive feedback about welcoming during BAF and keep up the good work

Annual Report

• Thinking about replacing lengthy Annual Report with shorter letter in future, but since people have already been asked to fill out their reports we will keep the process

Nominating Committee

• RESOLVED:  Nominating committee shall consist of Jeanne DeShazo, Jennifer Frank (ex-officio because not a member), Tom Hagler.  Need one more member (we’ll do an email vote to approve once recruited)
• Plan to have candidate list complete by May 8

Operations – General

Upcoming meeting dates:

• Annual Meeting – June 4th
• Additional town halls  for article 2 GA – (Brian)

Tighten the Board Announcements (Jason) (5 min)

• Concerns
  • Spoken announcements are too long, too many, some repeated week after week, and we receive them at last minute
  • Have to be submitted in multiple places and people don’t know where to submit (ex; pre-service slides)
  • Congregants having to take notes during service to remember announcements
  • Newcomers don’t know who to contact and people don’t know their email 
  • Mailchimp goes to Promotions – people don’t see
  • Groups IO – digest mode – people don’t see
  • Unclear process for approving individuals to make their own announcements
• Suggestions
  • Redesign Order of Service to include announcements – so newcomers can take home and not need to take notes.  Not all printed announcements must be read from the pulpit.
  • Have a single-source form where person check offs appropriate ways to include announcements – there would be a hard cutoff so Gigi prints Friday
    • What kind of criteria should we have for spoken announcements?
  • Have a barcode so visitors can view e-bulletin
• Jason will work with Brian to figure out what we think will fit in OOS and start an email conversation with board to start thinking about criteria for spoken announcements

Building Security Discussion and Direction – Peter

• Peter met with Cal and John; many initiatives in front of us
• Keypad lock system
• Atrium – rip out wall and figure out leak, then need to beautiful atrium
• How to make chancel ADA accessible

Possible renter – Centro Familiar de Adoracion

• Concern that they need too many nights – Peter will follow up with Alex

Wrap Up 

Action Items Review – Erika

• Rob – At next meeting confirm healthcare policy in place
• Peter will close loop with Brian, Chris and Alex about folding SPIT into Program Council
• Erika send an email to congregation to give positive feedback about welcoming during BAF and keep up the good work
• Jeanne will recruit one more member for Nominating Committee
• Brian will organize additional town hall meetings for Article II
• Jason will work with Brian to figure out what we think will fit in OOS and start an email conversation with board to start thinking about criteria for verbal announcements
• Peter will follow up with Alex regarding possible renter

Thank You Notes (Peter)

Name/Group	Gratitude for…
Amy French, Elisa Neipp	Annual pledge drive
John Cooney, Kaye Bonney	For coordinating Irshad Manjii presentation (Kaye) and helping with tech (John)

Next Meeting

•  BoT Meeting – Tuesday, May 30, 7 – 9:30pm, Sanctuary

Closing Circle – Dick

Adjourn: 9:34 pm

ADDENDUM:  APRIL 28, 2023

The board voted by email to add Gwen Leonard to the Nominating Committee.  The motion passed by unanimous vote.  Nominating committee shall consist of Jeanne DeShazo (chair), Jennifer Frank (ex-officio), Tom Hagler and Gwen Leonard.

• RESOLVED:  Gwen Leonard was elected to the Nominating Committee.  

ADDENDUM:  May 17, 2023

The board voted by email and approved a motion by unanimous vote to increase the 2023-2024 budget by $1019 in time for vote at the upcoming Annual Meeting.

• RESOLVED:  To increase the 2023-2024 budget by $1019 to enable changes to flip the minister’s medical insurance to salary with the subsequent increase to long-term disability, FICA reimbursement and retirement, increasing the projected deficit to $20,749.

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