Recorder: Peggy Murray

Attendees: Nancy MacLean, John McCall, Elsa Peters, Roger Addor, Gary Roberts, Bob Morse, Peggy Murray, Carrie Skeffington, Elinor Redmond, Phil Whitney, Robin Reinhold.
John Shoos, Matt Early and Carl Murphy were unable to attend.

The meeting was called to order at 6:30 p.m. by Nancy MacLean.

Peggy Murray starting the meeting with two stories, one about feeding each other and the other about doing what we can. We then went around the table and introduced ourselves and told something special about the past summer.

Nancy reviewed some general guideline documents that everyone on the Council should have, and she will send them out by e-mail as well. We will review the Council Policy Statements at the next meeting.

Minutes of the June meeting were approved with the following correction:
Sunday school will end on May 27th 2012 and not May 20th as indicated under the section “Church Calendar Review”. Minutes are available on the church website and also posted on the wall outside the Library.

Minister’s Time:
• John had nothing special to report.
• Elsa reported Carolyn Foster has taken over the leadership of the Church School Program. Elsa is focusing on Pastoral Care and Small Groups. Small Groups will be sponsoring “Dinner for Eight”. Information is available on the Website. In November, the UCC is focusing on Mission1, which is an opportunity to end hunger in eleven days. Mission Outreach is making plans for this event. Elsa attended Synod in Tampa where they voted on a number of different issues related to the future of the church, including a Unified Governance, which would change the structure of the governance of the UCC from four boards to a single board. This will now require ratification by two-thirds of the Conferences. It was agreed that it would be useful to plan a meeting to make the church membership aware of what is going on in the larger church, and Elsa will do that and look for ways to integrate this information.

New Team Members:
• Ellie Chatto has agreed to serve on the Administration Team.
• Carol Zechman –on the Education Growth and Fellowship Team.
A motion was made by Bob Morse and seconded by Phil Whitney to accept their nominations. They were approved by unanimous vote of the Council.

Discovery Center Update:
Robin Reinhold provided us with a packet of material concerning the Discovery Center. There are 14 students this year versus 17 last year, despite very aggressive promotion. Fund raising is active to supplement the income from tuition. They are going to participate at the Holly Daze Bazaar this year, and are having movie nights and other events. The Board has been very active in improving the general organization of the Center. Based on the budget and the projections, it appears there will be a slight loss this year. In January the Board plans another review to re-evaluate the situation, and will report back to the Council. Kudos were expressed for the impressive work of the Board, and to Robin for her excellent report.

Motion made by Roger Addor and seconded by Phil Whitney to approve the Board of Directors for the Discovery Center, who are Gretchen Reynolds, Jerry Reynolds, Scott Berry, Karen Westerberg, Cindy Morgan, and Robin Reinhold. Approved unanimously.

Request for Use of Church for Flu Shot Clinic:
Phil Whitney has tried to have further discussions with CVS concerning their request to hold a flu shot clinic at the Church, but they have been quite unresponsive. Since they have not been cooperative in providing the additional information that we requested, and have not come back to us concerning their original request, it was agreed that we will not pursue this at this point.

Stewardship Update:
Jerry Reynolds, Betsy Keiter, Bill Campbell, Ted O’Meara, and John McCall are serving on the Stewardship Committee and have been meeting regularly through the summer. They have been looking for ways to make pledging and giving as easy as possible, with on-line sign-up and credit card options available. October 23rd will be Consecration Sunday. The theme is “Count Yourself Blessed”. An invitation will be extended to the group to come to the Council if they need our assistance.

Rental Issue at 509 Sawyer:
The Admin. Team informed the Council that they wish to move ahead to evict the tenant because of on-going issues with animals that are not permitted by the lease, and rent not being paid in a timely manner. The Council is in agreement.

Discussion RE: the article “Loose Connections” was led by John. This is a thought provoking piece about the trends in declining church membership. Members are urged to read this article.

Financial Futuring Committee:
The committee consists of Matt Early, Roger Addor, Ron Bennett, Laurie Carey, John McCall, and Nancy MacLean. They have been meeting regularly over the past several months and have looked at the financial trends of our church and other churches of similar size, and also reviewed the work of the Investment Oversight Committee. Overall, our budget and spending trends are not dissimilar from other churches in the area. The work is still in progress, and the next step will be to prepare a report for consideration by the Council and then to determine how and when to engage the Congregation in the discussion.

Our next meeting will be on October 20, 2011.

The meeting adjourned at 8:25 p.m.