June 15, 2015 Stated Session Meeting & Annual Trustee Mtng.

Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church
Stated Session Meeting, June 15, 2015, Narthex

Attending:  Ruling Elders Heather Bogan, Monty Brekke, Lynne Hoerter, Kristin Lavergne, Stephanie Miller, Fred Royal, Manfred (Al) Schalk, Archie (Butch) Smith, Jerry Wehmueller (Treasurer) Marcia Ladd (Clerk), and Teaching Elder Rev. Mindy Douglas (Moderator)

Absent: Barbara Strange (excused)

 

The meeting was called to order by Mindy Douglas at 7:00 p.m.  Monty Brekke led the opening devotion, ending with prayer. Mindy welcomed our new elder Al Schalk, and indicated that Barbara would not be with us for the June or July meetings due to previous plans. Concerns and celebrations were shared.

Mindy called the Board of Trustees meeting to order to elect officers. She explained that this is a scheduled annual meeting and is usually only for the purpose of electing officers. The Treasurer and Clerk perform duties throughout the year, but the work of the President and Vice President is primarily to sign documents. Jerry was nominated by Heather, seconded by Stephanie for treasurer and elected unanimously. Stephanie moved, Heather seconded Marcia for secretary of the corporation and clerk of session; it passed unanimously. Lynne agreed to serve as President and Fred agreed to serve as Vice-President.  They were elected unanimously.  All positions are for a one-year term.  There being no further business the Board of Trustees meeting was adjourned

Leadership development: Mindy lead a discussion on the fundamentals of our Presbyterian polity. She explained that one of the unique features of our polity is nonhierarchical governance. She explained she is a teaching elder and other session members are ruling elders; all with equal votes. She further explained that at CITP our meetings are governed by Robert’s Rule of Order; members should raise their hands to be heard and address their comments to the moderator. Motions should be drafted and given in writing ahead of time to the clerk. If a motion comes from committee it should also include the rationale behind the motion. Heather asked for clarification on whether a motion is passed by majority rule. Mindy indicated that a majority is all that is needed to pass a motion; and dissents are noted in the minutes. A quorum for stated session is half of the ruling elders plus one. For a called meeting to accept new members, a quorum is three members. Al asked for clarification of the consent agenda. Mindy briefly descried its purpose as informational and that any item may be removed from the consent agenda by any member of session if they would like to discuss it further.

Approval of agenda and consent agenda

It was moved and seconded that the agenda be approved as revised.  The consent agenda was unanimously approved, as follows:

1. Approval of minutes:  Stated session meeting 5/18/15; Called session 5/31/15

2. Committee minutes – Building and Grounds 5/12/15, Worship 3/29/15, Communication and Technology June, Fellowship 6/5/15, Stewardship Team 6/14/15, Worship Committee 6/14/15

3. Correspondence:  –  Bob Warren banner email, Chatham Literacy thank you

4. Information – completion of annual review of Operations Manual on 5/20/15 by Marcia Ladd, Nana Morelli and Mary Donna Pond

Pastor’s report.  Mindy will be going to Montreat next week for the Worship and Music Conference as will members of the choir and all five worship leaders.

She is anticipating new members will be joining later in the summer.

Mindy explained to Session that our summer intern, Indhira Udofia, plans on working in urban ministries. She has repeatedly been placed in rural, white churches for her internships. Mindy and Indhira met with Byron Wade, the pastor of Davie Street Presbyterian Church in Raleigh, last week to arrange for Indhira to "split" her time this summer between that church and CITP, giving her an opportunity to work in an urban setting. Byron Wade, pastor of this church, is involved in advocacy, another interest of Indhira’s. She will preach twice for us during the summer, work two days a week and put together a racial reconciliation program that we can use at a later date. Mindy asked for Session input. The consensus was that this is a good use of Indhira’s time and would not be detrimental to CITP.

Committee reports

Finance

Heather indicated that In July Finance will be coming to Session with a plan for a spring 2016 capital campaign and a fall 2015 stewardship campaign.

Jerry went over the May financial reports, and reported that our position is favorable. June will probably look good as well. Our YTD revenues are ahead of where he had thought they would be and also ahead of last year. Our expenses are well controlled and below revenues. The balance sheet is also very healthy. Jerry noted that there are increasing numbers of people doing one time donations for their pledge early in the year.

Worship

Stephanie drew the Session’s attention to the document in the packet on the background for the angel banners motions. She presented the following motion from the Worship Committee:

designate the angel paintings remain displayed on an ongoing basis

She asked for questions and comments. The motion passed with one dissent.

Stephanie also informed Session that Worship will work with the Liturgical Arts Subcommittee to de-clutter the Narthex. Worship will request that LA bring an action list for their review and approval prior to implementation. Worship will keep Session informed.

Mission and Service

Monty talked about the participation of CITP at Chatham Serves and asked for input from Session about continuing to participate in this event. The input was generally positive. Mindy asked for folks to please complete the survey that Mission and Service has sent to the congregation.

Monty discussed the report from Will Sibert on his BEE Healing Ministries. It is primarily an informational report; Mission and Service anticipates another report the end of the summer at which time they will come back to session with a recommendation on disbursing the additional funds that are earmarked for this ministry.

Mindy asked Marcia to describe the tutoring program that will be getting underway on July 8. It is a collaborative effort between Mt. Zion Baptist and CITP. A number of volunteers have come forward to help from our congregation and there will be volunteers from Mt Zion as well. Mt Zion is recruiting the children for the program that will run on Wednesdays from 10-1 starting July 8 for 7 weeks. The children will range from K to 12 and be divided into groups by age. Each age group will have at least 3 volunteers, one a professional educator and two mentors. The plan is to have tutoring from 10-12, then Mt Zion will be serving lunch from 12-1.

Children and Youth

Mindy reported, in Barbara Strange’s absence, that a number of folks had been working diligently to try to find a satisfactory way to care for children with special needs during the church service.  Peaches McIntyre, church member and nursery worker, has some background in special education for children on the autism spectrum. She has also voluntarily taken on training for working with autism spectrum children and wants to be the designated caregiver for one particular child who would benefit from one-on-one attention during worship. This will necessitate hiring another paid staffer for the nursery during church. Barbara Treyz, who is currently doing the Sunday school child care, has agreed to do the worship child care. Mindy indicated that Jan Rickard, outgoing nursery coordinator, questioned whether we should continue paying Peaches since she is a member of the church. A question was raised whether there is a policy against paying members. No such policy exists.  Session would like to continue to pay Peaches even in the new role. Finally, Mindy informed Session that a gift was given to the church to improve the nursery; the monies have been used to install blinds, secure existing cabinets and install new ones.

Personnel (change personnel manual)

Butch explained to Session that there has been confusion in attempting to keep track of each employee’s anniversary date for the purposes of awarding salary increases throughout the year. Hence, Personnel is bringing the following motion to session

The Personnel Committee shall make staff salary raise recommendations to the Session in the early fall and if approved, those raises would be incorporated into the budgeting process and begin January 1st.

Butch asked if there were any questions. There was a question about when folks would be eligible for reviews and the committee was asked to consider this in their policies. The motion passed unanimously.

Building and Grounds

Fred informed session that the Décor Subcommittee reports to Building and Grounds for matters of church décor outside the sanctuary and narthex. The Décor Subcommittee requested that B&G allow them to change the décor in that area without prior approval or review by B&G. B&G is fine with Décor making changes in the space outside the narthex and sanctuary, but has asked Décor to keep B &G in the loop because of changes in laws and regulations that can impact décor and its placement.

OLD BUSINESS

DCE search committee – Mindy reported that the revised job description and posting has been sent to various universities and list serves.

Web site redesign task force  – Al asked the status of this task force and indicated his interest in being a part of it and the importance of us moving forward with it. Mindy will make it a priority to move forward with it.

NEW BUSINESS

Presbytery commissioner for August

The August presbytery meeting will be August 11, Tuesday, at Jamestown Presbyterian Church. Mindy reminded the session that each session member should attend a presbytery meeting at least once, and asked if there were any volunteers for this meeting.  Kristin agreed to serve, with Lynne as a backup.

Stephanie made a motion

that Kristin Lavergne serve as presbytery commissioner for August and that Lynne Hoerter serve as backup

The motion passed unanimously.

Approval of baptism of Virginia Lee Simone Bell

Mindy told Session that Marcia Ladd’s daughter and son-in-law, Magge Ladd and Jeff Bell, would like to have their daughter baptized by Mindy at CITP. They have recently moved to Chicago and have not yet found a home church there.  Mindy indicated she met with Magge, Virginia and Marcia to discuss Presbyterian baptism. Stephanie made a motion to baptize Virginia. Lynne seconded it, it passed unanimously.

The next stated session meeting will be July 20 at the 7 pm. Stephanie Miller will lead the devotion.

As the business of the meeting was concluded, Mindy led a closing prayer and the meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted, 

Marcia Ladd, Clerk

Approved by session July 20, 2015

Reminders:  

1. Remember to pray for our church each day at noon.

2. Next stated session meeting July 20, 2015 7 PM Stephanie Miller has the devotion

3. Presbytery meeting August 11, Tuesday, Jamestown Presbyterian Church

4. Volunteer fair August 30