Doug Miller, Senior Warden, called the vestry of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Elizabeth City Parish, to order on April 21, 2015 at 6:32pm. Present were members Jr. Warden Bettyrene Pope, Treasurer Linda Curtis, Youth Representative Thomas Miller, George Cornwell, Doug Miller, David Edmonson, Ann Templeman, The Reverend Samantha Vincent-Alexander, Dan Clark, Val Bowen, Mary Pat Croft, and Kevin Eley. Ann Templeman opened the meeting with a psalm reading. Minutes from the March 17th meeting were reviewed and a correction was made. The minutes were approved as corrected. Motion to approve by Dan Clark seconded by Linda Curtis. Doug began the meeting discussing the tasks from last meeting. It was decided that going forward when the minutes were distributed, tasks assigned from the vestry meeting would be highlighted in an email as a reminder to the vestry members. Treasurer’s Report Linda reviewed the March reports. Income was greater than budgeted income; mainly because the 1st quarter payment from the Endowment Fund was received. Expenses were high, due to the additional $2000 pledge made to the Diocese to go toward the unfulfilled pledge and two oil deliveries were made in March (none in February). Additionally, Outreach made a $4000.00 donation to the Downtown Childhood Development Center. Pledged income was pretty close. Hoffman House fund is rolling right along with a good amount of money sitting there earning a small amount of interest in case anything is needed for emergency repairs. Based on what Linda learned at the Diocesan training for treasurers and administrators, she is getting all the small groups to close out their separate accounts. Everything should be in the church account for proper oversight. The men’s group has closed out their account and St. Anne’s guild will be doing the same. Doug asked if we had the Hoffman House insured and if the insurance for the church could be decreased since we had a sprinkler system installed. He asked Bettyrene to look into it. A question came up about the Communion Silver and insuring that. Charlie Edmonson has looked into it and to do so it must be appraised. Bettyrene commented that Vestal had it appraised by Sotheby’s. It may be too expensive to insure especially since it irreplaceable. Doug is going to check with Vestal about the appraisal and retrieve any paperwork. Samantha asked if we ever loaned it out and it has to the History Museum before. Easter offering: Nothing was designated as a recipient for the Easter offering this year based on last year. It was decided that the plate offering would go to the operating budget ($510) and the Easter offering ($1675) would stay in the Easter Fund in case a specific need arises. The Maundy Thursday collection would be combined with the Good Friday collection to be sent to the Diocese of Jerusalem. Doug made the motion to put the plate offering to the operating budget and hold the Easter offering in a separate fund if a need arises, Dan seconded and it was approved. Bill Kirkland has been voted on and approved to serve on the Finance Committee by email and his term will extend to March 2018. Vestry Committee Discussion and Reports Instead of breaking into groups, Doug wanted to discuss the model to see if it was still needed and if it was working. Val stated that some good things had come from it. The newcomer committee was starting with Nancy Adams and Bill Brown. But in a lot of cases we don’t know who the liaisons are if there are any to begin with. George commented that in principal this was better than just receiving the committee reports but we needed to rededicate ourselves to it. The discussions in the groups have had value but there is no clear direction. The vestry then discussed the different committees that existed and no longer existed. Samantha has a good starting knowledge of the groups presently operating and will come up with a list and Doug will circulate it to the members. Rector’s Report
Vestry retreat- Samantha was able to secure Chanco for the vestry retreat August 28/29. The facilitator she wanted is available as well. Details will be discussed as we get closer to the event.
Summer Service times- we will go to one service again this year. Some members didn’t like it but the overall response was very positive. Samantha has decided on a 9:15 service time. This will be the time going forward. The summer service will begin on June 21st and last through September 6th. We will return to two services with Christian Formation on September 13th. Val reminded everyone that there should be signage on the gate alerting the public to the summer hours. Samantha will get with Jen about ordering one of these.
Website/Facebook page- Samantha is still trying to get the webpage up to date. She is asking for each group/committee of the church to submit their information so it can be added. George commented that when designing a new webpage you need to pull everything out so the designer can see everything about the organization. Ann commented on a page she had seen that had a video on the front page of the rector welcoming everyone and highlighting church activities. There is concern about our website; it needs to be redone and engaging. The December Epistle is still on there. Bettyrene commented that at the vestry training she received, when people are visiting your website, no one is interested in your history and this is a big part of St. John’s webpage. The Facebook page needs to be enhanced as well. As of now, Samantha, Jen, Betsy and Shannon can upload to the page. Linda suggested putting facility rental information on both pages as well to get the word out.
Covenant Conversation- the vestry discussed the separate service that has been created, it is a blessing not a marriage. There has to be a vestry discussion around this and it has to be a vestry decision. Samantha passed around a page outlining the resources for conversations among Clergy and Vestries. She is also going to send the vestry a link about the process. The liturgy was derived in 2012 and so far 10 out of 100 parishes in the diocese have adopted it. A motion was made by Linda and Val seconded, it passed unanimously that the vestry would begin the conversation on the Witnessing and Blessing of Covenanted Relationships at St. John’s. It was decided that we would need separate meetings from the vestry meetings to discuss this. The first meeting will be May 26th at 6 pm. The communication to the congregation will be put in the June Epistle.
Jr. Warden’s Report HVAC- Dan recapped the meeting with all parties involved with the HVAC in the church. Recommendations have been made, now the plan needs to be put into motion. Dan is following through on this. None of the plan should cost the church anything except installing wireless to the sanctuary (password protected) for the monitoring system. That way any future problems with the system can be diagnosed over the internet. Bettyrene stated that the warranty start date has been pushed back to April 5, 2015 but she would like to push it to the date they actually get it working properly. Sr. Warden’s Report Endowment-Whiting Chisman, Sr. called together all members of the Executive Committee, the Mary Williams Trust and the Endowment Board. The church has a lot of money it cannot spend and there is a need to understand all the restrictions. The Mary Williams Trust is clear but the Endowment Funds are not known. Larry Cumming has been retained to review these funds to determine what their restrictions are. Linda was asked to create a list of all property expenses. Once the funds have been reviewed by Larry, the property expenses will be lined up with the restrictions to see if there is a fit. The Endowment Board will not approve anything until this is cleared up. The proposal from Q Design and the new walkways had been approved by the vestry to present to Endowment. Dan made a motion to take the Q Design proposal and walkway proposal to the Mary Williams Trust. This was seconded by Linda and approved. Dan Haufler is a retiring director and the board came up a name. The vestry will take up the replacement at our May meeting. Stewardship –Samantha and Doug are going to speak to our potential chair. Linda asked that the vestry take an active role in the campaign after December 1. For budget purposes, Linda needs to have a good idea of the pledge amount, so if there are past pledgers who haven’t made their pledge yet, the vestry will make the commitment to reach out to these members. Linda believes this will make the task of the Stewardship Chair less onerous and more attractive. Linda will not be at next month’s meeting so she is switching with George for prayers.
Ann closed the meeting with a prayer and we were adjourned at 8:40 pm. Submitted by Ann Templeman, registrar