Unity of Springfield
Meeting of the Board of Directors
May 23, 2016
Board Members Present
Mary Hilsabeck – President
Amy Burnett — Director
Tom Long – Director
Paula Armknecht — Director
Jon Anfinson – Director
Sue Baggett-Spears—Spiritual Leader
Dee Richardson – Administrator
Norma Vinson – Emeritus
Jolynn Higgins — Guest
Jim and Gee Stiles — Guests
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*The meeting was called to order by Mary at 6:05 p.m. Sue opened with prayer. Check in was conducted. All attendees read the Core Values, Mission, and Vision Statements together aloud.
*Jim Stiles asked to speak to the board about an idea he and Gee had to help keep our spiritual community members out of the “poverty treadmill” by helping them avoid payday loans by allowing free loans up to $100 to help them make it to the next payday. If they can’t afford to pay it back, they could work it off in service to the church. Jim and Gee currently have $559 in their fund and would like to turn it over to the board to use as they see fit.
*The Minutes of the April meeting were sent out for review prior to the meeting. Jon made the motion that they be approved as submitted. Paula seconded. All voted affirmatively. Motion carries.
*Financial Report—Financial Report was provided prior to the meeting for review. Paula moved that the Financial Report be approved as submitted. Jon seconded. All voted affirmatively, motion carries.
*Committee Reports:
· Adult Education: No report.
Building and Grounds: Norma: We had lots of volunteers to help with the spring clean-up. Dan did a great job. Request that Dan be sent a thank you note. Used Vinegar & Epsom salt as a natural weed killer.
Employment: No Report
Fundraising: Simone: $526.85 income generated from fashion fair (before expenses). Will need to evaluate whether or not to do this again next year. Low turnout may have been due to lots of local graduations and the fact that this was held on Friday night.
Long/Short Range Planning: No report
Marketing /Publicity: No report
Music: No report
Outreach: Amy: Small groups outreach activities are ongoing. Cheryl Willis’ group did street clean-up. Stowe-Good promotions was also done by one of the groups. Community cupboard is being as a project by Helen Cliburn’s women’s group.
Volunteer Services: Tom: Will talk to Mitch about street clean-up.
Youth Ed: Paula: Ukuleles were purchased for the Uniteens and De DeArmon is going to teach them to play. It is okay for Julia to go ahead and order meditation DVDs from Amazon, as requested.
Teen Activities: No report.
Communications: $1,100 donation received today.
Administrator’s Report: Dee: Stowe-Good workshop had 24 attendees, and concert had 70.
Spiritual Leader’s Report: Sue: Dee and Sue will attend a June 10 summit followed by a conference, and then Sue will be going on vacation.
Old Business:
Dwane Koppler’s idea for Unity blitz: Paula talked to Dwane about his idea for a Unity blitz - will choose a month (maybe in the fall) for the blitz of Unity in the Community. Bumper stickers, window stickers, billboard, encouraging people to carry cards to hand out, wear shirts, flyers, mailers, etc.
Audit: Simone checked with Tina McManus but she does not do audits. She will let us know if she knows of anyone who can do one. Waiting on some info from John Anfinson from companies he was to check with. Will continue the process of getting information to select an auditor and budget for it for next fiscal year.
Thrift Shop: Meeting planned for June. Will discuss again at June board meeting.
Wednesday Nights: Sug Reitmeier shared a letter with the board with some good ideas in line with what we’ve been discussing about what could be done on Wednesdays once we start back up in the Fall. Starting June 8, Kathy Westmoreland will be organizing loosely structured Wednesday night activities to allow congregants to get to know each other better. Board will meet June 8 for an informal meeting at Farmer’s Gastropub to talk more about Wednesday night plans after the summer break. Mary read through the ideas submitted by the congregation in response to our inquiry for Wednesday night service suggestions.
New Business:
Dee: Community Cupboard donations: Stella Wilber and Helen Cliburn are going to run the community cupboard. Stella wants to solicit people to donate $5 per month and she will donate $25 if others donate $125 for a total of $150 each month to go shopping. Sue questioned whether or not this would comply with our fundraiser policy. Suggested setting up a table 1 Sunday per month, but not soliciting pledges. Suggested giving a visual of how much certain items will cost or how much $5, $10, $20 will buy to encourage people to give more.
Building a platform for sound stage: Jon asked about building the platform for sound/video equipment. Nothing more has been done on this. Jon asked if we could solicit people to donate spare lumber to use in construction. Sue suggested that we get someone to come in and assess what is needed so we don’t get a bunch of random wood scraps. Jon will have drawings finalized and come back with list of specifically what is needed so we can reach out to congregation to see if anyone might have useful materials they’d be willing to share.
Jolynn: Shared opportunity for exposure through social networking video sharing (Periscope, Facebook video sharing, etc.). She is continuing to explore various platforms and has been very impressed with what she is seeing from other organizations sharing their missions. Some of these may be accessible for us if we’d like to pursue it.
Seeing no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:55 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Kari Brashers - Director