Council Members Present: Pastor Ross Goodman, Maile Hedlund, Mark Olson, Dana Ramish, Alison Roberts, Heather Sheridan, Brian Sniffen, George Wilson.
Also Present: none.
Absent: Wendy Stack, Chris Trost.
A quorum was gathered and we came together in God’s name.A candle was lit to remind us that Christ is present with us as we meet.
The secretary arrived after check-in, devotions, and the hymn.
The agenda was accepted.
The minutes of last month were accepted as amended to correct Mark Olson’s name.
We’re slightly ahead of schedule and generally on track.
No surprises to report.
The secretary arrives somewhat late and picks up the notes here.
We’re having conversations with one of the (confirmed) youth about replacing Airin Cherian as a council member.
We also need people to be Synod delegates on the first weekend in June (June 3–5); our elected representatives can’t be there for the assembly. Two adults or adult and youth would be great: there’s some service-work, conversation, fellowship, but no earth-shaking votes.
Yesterday’s Adult Forum asked that we consider how to make St. Paul greener: lighting, gardening, recycling, our kitchen use, heating and cooling and general energy usage, greener practices around meetings (e.g., teleconferences or video-chat instead of in-person meetings), cleaning products. We ask the Property committee to look at the capital and property improvements, and C.J. to look at some of the process improvements.
That leaves informational projects, like an energy audit, in the middle. We’d like C.J to share her long experience with these issues with a subcommittee who could return to the Council with a list of small, cheap projects (e.g., buying green cleaning products) and a list of bigger projects that might be worth the investment.
The inclusion committee has been working to improve accessibility for many of our members who can’t regularly make it to Church or can’t fully participate. They could particularly use some help right now. Many of their projects fall into the domains of other committees. They have the Council’s full support.
Saturday, June 18, 9am–2pm: We’ll meet to discuss who we are, what we have, and where is God calling us to be? We’re between crises right now, so we can use this time to get some progress on the important-but-not-urgent work: inclusion, restructuring, greening.
Pastor Goodman has been tracking down new people, a bounty of baptisms, a wedding, and wonderful growth in the Church. We’re going to need a pack of Sunday School teachers in a few years. How do we get these new folks woven into the congregation?
Pastor Goodman gathers us in prayer and leads communion at 8:50pm.
Respectfully submitted, Brian Sniffen
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Next regular council meeting: 13 June 2011 at 7:30pm.
These minutes can be found online at http://evenmere.org/~bts/Church/.