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Transition: Chalice Lighting & Opening Remarks

Rev. Dowgiert provided opening words.

Consent Item: Minutes

The motion to approve the minutes of the October 27, 2009 meeting as corrected was seconded and passed.

Informational: Financial Report

Margot Garcia reported that cash flow continues to be a problem; we made payroll by borrowing $5,000 on the line of credit. We now have two more part time NMD employees. As of the meeting, the church was at minus $3,493 dollars; it may be necessary to borrow another $5,000 from the line of credit if pledges stay flat and below budget. On good side, the Santa Fe trip bought in about $5,000. All expenses are pretty much in line but pledges are down $12,000 approximately 12% from where should be. We won’t see auction money until the spring. There is very little room for slippage or flexibility. The church needs at least $7,000 a week in income to operate. Margot Garcia reviewed the graphs developed in response to the board’s request for financial trend information. The graphs showed income, pledges, and expenses for the last three years. In other years have seen ups and downs in revenue whereas compared to now it is relatively flat. The budget may need to be revisited at end of December.

Motion was seconded and passed to communicate to the church via an e-mail mail asking members to pay up on pledges in order to aid with cash flow. Margot Garcia will draft e-mail and Diane will check so that there is a pastoral tone to the message. Want to be sensitive to members’ personal financial situations. The decision of whether to go after a line of credit will be up to the Finance Committee; a motion is not required of the board.

Margot Garcia

Rev. Diane

Informational: Minister’s & Performance Reports

Rev. Dowgiert distributed the Minister’s and Empowerment Team reports for the board’s review. When asked what concerns her, Rev. Dowgiert indicated that finances and space issues were of concern. Programming is impacted by our staffing level and space issues. Decisions on room availability are an obstacle in Religious Education. The IT project on ministering with technology has been initiated. Our web site is ahead of others participating in the project.

Consent Item: NMD Douglas Property

Ed Savard reported that the Douglas property is accessible by dirt road. It has not been surveyed so we cannot get a sense of what part of the parcel is under consideration. There are no stakes. He called the Arizona Department of Environmental Services to find out about potential hazards. He learned that the owner of the property must request a transfer inspection. The department does its own inspection and then sends it to us if requested by owner. He recommended that we ask the owner to have the property surveyed and staked before requesting an environmental inspection.

Rev. Dowgiert will follow up with NMD

Consent Item: PSWD Nomination

UUCT received a letter from PSWD seeking nominations from the congregation for the following positions: board president, secretary, one trustee, one Nominating Committee member and one George White Memorial Committee member. Nominations are due December 15^th. The election will be held at District Assembly April 23^rd. Fran Brazzell will ask the nominating committee for suggestions on how to proceed. In addition, she will get a pulpit announcement get to Randy Springer who will be leading the next service.

Fran Brazzell

Consent Item: Neighborhood Association Bylaws Overview & Appointment of UUCT Representative

John Schaefer did not get a copy of the neighborhood association by laws as requested. He will represent the church at neighborhood association meetings for a while. If an issue arises at a meeting, he will let board know.

John Schaefer

Consent Item: Endowment policies

Caroline Cooper reported on the status of the Endowment Committee. Separate bylaws for an endowment committee were eliminated and draft endowment policies were presented for board approval. She summarized the policies. In the past, the committee had five members; the revised policy was changed to three members which seems adequate at this point. Rather than managing funds in house, funds will be professionally managed through a fund to be determined such as the UUA fund or the Community Foundation. The policies establish a set amount per year to come back to the church once the fund reaches a minimum investment level.

Motion to approve the endowment policy as written was seconded and approved unanimously.

Motion to appoint Pete Velonis, Linda Selsor and John Shepherd as endowment committee members effective immediately with terms staggered starting first of July to coincide with the fiscal year was seconded and passed. Linda Selsor abstained from voting on the motion.

Discussion of the amount to move from the Vanguard fund into the Endowment was deferred to the December meeting.

Linda Selsor

Discussion: Strategic Plan

Fran Brazzell provided a rough draft of the plan. Next steps are to refine the language and benchmarks and set responsibility for follow up and monitoring of the plan so that we have a feedback loop. Specific editorial and substantive changes were discussed. Some overarching concerns related to analyzing programs to see what we accomplish for money expended such as in religious education. Given budget constraints and cash flow concerns, we need to revisit the issue of reconfiguring staff to achieve vision and mission raised prior to approval of the current year budget. Fairly constant membership over the years has been an ongoing concern and a constraint on reaching our vision. The board discussed the prospect of having the plan focus on expanding membership and increasing financial resources. It would be useful to put a cost in terms of people, volunteers, time and money for accomplishing each recommendation in the plan. There is also a need to have better communication with congregation around finances. We also need to determine how we are going to collected data to measure accomplishment of benchmarks. The plan was determined to be a good start but might need to be pared down and prioritized with goals that make us stretch yet can be accomplished. This is the board‘s opportunity to set the vision for ourcongregation. Strategic planning will be a focus of the December meeting.

Transition/Closing Remarks

Rev. Dowgiert closed the meeting by asking the board to keep focused higher on the congregational vision- exploring such questions as who we are and why we are in the first place. Do we want to continue to be force for change in world? We want what happens in our congregation to happen for good we do in our own lives and in broader community.