Council Notes: June 4, 2020
Council was called to order by President Gary Apgar. Opening devotions were led by Sharon Hood.
President’s Report: We have been busy despite the COVID-19 pandemic. We are close to being able to start virtual interviews for a new pastor. We had our financial review and will have more details in the New Business section below. Worship on Zoom is going well including attendance of some home-bound members. Discussions on reopening the building started and details are in New Business below.
Secretary’s Report: The minutes of the regular May council meeting were distributed to the council for review and approved as submitted.
Treasurer’s Report:
With year to date income at $90,409.97 (59%) and operating expenses at $41,342.46 (27%) we have a $49,067.51 surplus.
Receipts are on track for the pledged envelops and unpledged giving has come back up. Lower expenses due to not being in the building continue. However, PECO has been estimating our meter readings since October 2019 which were lower than our actual natural gas usage, so we have a bill of $1400. A motion was made and approved to pay the whole amount. Adam Feldman pointed out a mistake in the report in the Evangelism section (Page 3), the $335 spent on line 5004 – ELCA Benevolence (National) should be against 5003 – Synod Benevolence (Local). Denise Bailey will correct. The treasurer’s report was accepted and approved by council.
Pastor’s Report:
Pastor Mary is very pleased with how Zoom worship is going including Laura Cooper singing the hymns and different voices doing the readings.A Deacon meeting is scheduled for next week, 6/11. She is looking forward to the Church tailgate picnic on Sunday (6/7/2020.)
MINISTRY TEAM REPORTS:
Christian Education: Our church picnic has been changed to the church parking lot. We will park in a circle. Bring your own food and bring your own chairs. Please remember to bring a mask and some gloves. We will practice social distancing. We will have gloves and mask for anyone who comes without.
--Virtual VBS is on track, purchased 2 sets of packets to cover the number of students anticipated. Will do via Zoom and record and post to our Facebook page. First week of August, daily 10am-12pm. Invitations are being sent out to families.
Communications: Sunday worship services are posted on our Facebook page. We are now including the Zoom link in the emails when the bulletin is sent out.
Fundraising: Remember Giant gift cards!
Property Team: We need to purchase a new sign when our county opens.
Social Ministry: Since we are unable to physically go to our church building, we can still donate to: Manna on main street– https://mannaonmain.org/give-money/donate-nowor Keystone Opportunity Center– https://Keystoneopportunity.org
Transportation: Dale continues to drop off Wawa food to people (4-6 families) in our congregation and the community!
Worship & Music:We have received a lot of positive feedback on the latest changes to our Zoom worship service especially having Laura sing the hymns. Worship and Music team will be meeting in the next week to review the next few months of services.
Hospitality and Fellowship: We need to update the policy for our fellowship hall rental to cover the parking lot and church grounds. Pastor Mary will follow up with Janet Hill. Should include having someone from the church on site during the event.
OLD BUSINESS:
Items in Review from May:
NEW BUSINESS
Next Meeting: Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 7pm.
A special council meeting may be called if needed in July.
Council was called to order by President Gary Apgar. Opening devotions were led by Sharon Hood.
President’s Report: We have been busy despite the COVID-19 pandemic. We are close to being able to start virtual interviews for a new pastor. We had our financial review and will have more details in the New Business section below. Worship on Zoom is going well including attendance of some home-bound members. Discussions on reopening the building started and details are in New Business below.
Secretary’s Report: The minutes of the regular May council meeting were distributed to the council for review and approved as submitted.
Treasurer’s Report:
With year to date income at $90,409.97 (59%) and operating expenses at $41,342.46 (27%) we have a $49,067.51 surplus.
Receipts are on track for the pledged envelops and unpledged giving has come back up. Lower expenses due to not being in the building continue. However, PECO has been estimating our meter readings since October 2019 which were lower than our actual natural gas usage, so we have a bill of $1400. A motion was made and approved to pay the whole amount. Adam Feldman pointed out a mistake in the report in the Evangelism section (Page 3), the $335 spent on line 5004 – ELCA Benevolence (National) should be against 5003 – Synod Benevolence (Local). Denise Bailey will correct. The treasurer’s report was accepted and approved by council.
Pastor’s Report:
Pastor Mary is very pleased with how Zoom worship is going including Laura Cooper singing the hymns and different voices doing the readings.A Deacon meeting is scheduled for next week, 6/11. She is looking forward to the Church tailgate picnic on Sunday (6/7/2020.)
MINISTRY TEAM REPORTS:
Christian Education: Our church picnic has been changed to the church parking lot. We will park in a circle. Bring your own food and bring your own chairs. Please remember to bring a mask and some gloves. We will practice social distancing. We will have gloves and mask for anyone who comes without.
--Virtual VBS is on track, purchased 2 sets of packets to cover the number of students anticipated. Will do via Zoom and record and post to our Facebook page. First week of August, daily 10am-12pm. Invitations are being sent out to families.
Communications: Sunday worship services are posted on our Facebook page. We are now including the Zoom link in the emails when the bulletin is sent out.
- An anonymous donor gave $600 to be used for Evangelism in 2020.
- Financial Review meetings updated and recommendations are listed below under New Business.
Fundraising: Remember Giant gift cards!
Property Team: We need to purchase a new sign when our county opens.
- Cards will be sent out for Father’s Day.
Social Ministry: Since we are unable to physically go to our church building, we can still donate to: Manna on main street– https://mannaonmain.org/give-money/donate-nowor Keystone Opportunity Center– https://Keystoneopportunity.org
- We need to encourage e-giving! There are still folks who don’t know how to enroll. Jack Walls with work with Pastor Mary to send reminder cards and then have follow up calls with members.
Transportation: Dale continues to drop off Wawa food to people (4-6 families) in our congregation and the community!
Worship & Music:We have received a lot of positive feedback on the latest changes to our Zoom worship service especially having Laura sing the hymns. Worship and Music team will be meeting in the next week to review the next few months of services.
Hospitality and Fellowship: We need to update the policy for our fellowship hall rental to cover the parking lot and church grounds. Pastor Mary will follow up with Janet Hill. Should include having someone from the church on site during the event.
OLD BUSINESS:
Items in Review from May:
- Armed Intruder information– update from Vince Hill concerning the scheduling of a meeting with Montgomery Township Police Chief J. Scott Bendig or Officer Rob Johnson.
- Update on constitution.Pastor Mary is checking on our constitution but has not been successful getting any attention by the Synod office (not a high priority right now.)
- Proposed Acceptable Computer Use Policy -Distributed in November to read. Still pending additions pertaining to PCI Compliant language. Rich Hollenbach and Jack to discuss additional wording needed.
- Information about Re-keying of Locks? Deferred
- Update on deacons and new care. Pastor Mary with work with the Deacons, meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 11th.
- Fellowship: Request for a new projector for outdoor movies. Adam researched and provided 3 quotes, requesting the BenQ HT2050Afor $699.00. Motion was made and approved by council. Need to refer to the special funds team for where the money comes from (must appoint the member at large). Gary will follow up on this team.
NEW BUSINESS
- Financial update
- Financial Review was approved so the Call committee can move forward.
- Need to send a letter and communicate to the congregation of the status: Pastor Mary and Gary Apgar to put together.
- There were several suggestions/recommendations:
- Need to use a Check Request Form to get money (record of money)
- Need to have a different person filling in the check with another person signing it (can’t be the same person requesting the check)
- Three counters instead of two, looking to add regular members to the list. One financial person (Janet or Carol Taylor), one council member and a congregation non-council member count. ELCA accepted guidelines.
- Two people need to drive (separate vehicles) to the bank for the deposit.
- Have backups for treasurer & financial secretary
- Recommended to use QuickBooks instead of Quicken (which is for personal finances). Desktop version is $300 for 3 years for a single user, additional $50/year for additional user. Cloud based version is $480 per year for up to 3 users. Council recommendation is to try the desktop version for 3 years. Motion was made and approved by council. Pastor Mary will look at Tech Soup to see if we can get it for cheaper (they support non-profit organizations including churches)
- Use of a Payroll services company: ADP & Paychex: a motion to adopt Paychex was made and approved.
- Restructure our memorials: have a general memorial account for memorials under a dollar threshold, e.g. $500 or $1000 for named memorial account. Recommendation for $1000 limit was made and approved by council.
- Names on bank accounts in order: some names on the accounts are no longer here at Faith. The accounts will be consolidated at Thrivent and Univest. Finance team will coordinate this consolidation and who is listed on each account. They will also have a record of what funds are in each account.
- Adjusting the benevolence accounts: we only send to the local SEPA Synod but had a budget for the National (ELCA). Part of the Synod (55%) already goes to the national. After discussion a motion was made to keep $4000 for Local Synod and approved by council. Local Benevolence ($1000) was added to budget in 2020, will be up to Evangelism team to decide how it’s used.
- The finance team will meet on June 15thto follow up on council’s actions.
- Reopening the church:a team was formed to plan the steps needed to reopen our building. Members include: Pastor Mary, Gary Apgar, Jack Walls, Rich Hollenbach, Debbie Hollenbach, Janet Hill, Vince Hill, Adam Feldman and Dale Foster. SEPA Synod Bishop recommends not doing so before 1 July and realistically will be about 6 to 8 weeks before we can truly open. We will continue to have Zoom worship for now and will most likely have hybrid services to include Zoom even if some members are back in the building for worship. Need to communicate this to the congregation.
- Tracey Beasley thank you letter: We should send a thank you to Tracey for doing the financial review. She conducted a thorough and valuable review of our finances and provided many necessary recommendations. Request finance team to draft the letter and review with Pastor Mary. It will be sent from the congregation.
Next Meeting: Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 7pm.
A special council meeting may be called if needed in July.
