Report from the Board of Trustees

June 2003

The Board of Trustees has been very busy training, reviewing, and strategizing since the first of the year. We've had two Saturday work sessions so far. And much of our time has been getting the necessary framework in place to function well with a new minister. We've had to look at our priorities to decide what to focus on, as we've had a couple of ideas presented recently that we think will be better suited for later on. We want to set up an orientation plan for our new minister. Right now, we know that "we have enough and that we are enough" as a loving and spiritual church preparing to move from family size church to a pastoral size church.

We have discovered several things that have been "missing" from our system. So we addressed these by defining the Stewardship Team's role in the organization and how they can support the Treasurer by reviewing and making financial recommendations to the Board on how and when to spend funds. To help manage our cash flow we are asking that the various team leaders, committees and staff:

• Request Board approval prior to obligating and spending church funds, if over $100 at a time (even if it's already in the Intentions for 2003 budget)
• We raise that authorization level to a $200 a month for the Book Nook for the next six months, at Carole Deising's request.
• We will let the team leaders know what items were approved in this year's budget and what was identified as "stretch" and ask that they make written request to the Treasurer prior to the Stewardship meeting, usually the 3rd Tuesday in the month.
• We will publish our financial information in the Wings and post it in the hallway by the church office. Members are invited to discuss these postings with staff and the board, as they desire.

Another challenge we've been facing is how can we make sure that our service teams are fully supported and clear on their functions within our church. In April, Ken Williamson resigned from the Public Relations Team citing the frustrations of working as a one-man team. In the last two years, he has been instrumental in getting the new sign on Lawe Street, achieved his goal of getting Unity's Yellow Page listing in 12 phone books, covering 45 communities within 50 mile radius and Unity public service announcements on both radio and television. During May 03 Ken placed 20 radio spots, using 2 different messages on WROE during the "Delilah" program, 2 spots per night for four weeks at a cost of $800. Thanks Ken for your great work and your willingness to remain on the board. Ken has reassured us that he will advise in any way that he can, a TEAM to work on Public Relations. This is a very real challenge of how to do what needs to be done without burning out volunteers and we will have to continue to work on this.

At Cindi's recommendation we ordered a $275 thermostat via the Internet saving us about $300, and we are grateful for Roy Marquardt (Lillian's son) who installed it for us. We are developing a policy statement to more clearly address the role of members and how friends (non-members) will be invited to serve the Unity Church of Christianity. Look for details later.

Last month we realized that we needed to look at strategies to fund our ministerial search as the time is almost upon us. We discussed ideas of a service tree for new minister, doing donut sales at one of the summer parades and the possibility of developing a fund raising campaign to solicit major contributors. We hope to get more feedback and assistance in developing these ideas at June's Town Meeting.

Gail Lewin, Secretary
board@unityofappleton.org