October 15, 2018 Stated Session Meeting

Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church
Stated Session Meeting October 15, 2018

Attending: Ruling Elders: Barbara Amago, Karen Atkins, Stan Campbell, Pat Chappell, Paul Harrell, John McDowell, Maggie Reif, Terry Rudolph, Marcia Ladd (Clerk), Teaching Elder Rev. Andrew Taylor-Troutman (Moderator)
Absent: Paul Isom, Jerry Wehmueller

Session held a pre-meeting time of fellowship with the new members Katherine Higgins and John Brantly.  The stated meeting was called to order by Andrew at 6:50 PM. Barbara delivered the devotion, ending in a prayer. Pastoral concerns and celebrations were shared.

Approval of agenda and consent agenda
Stan made a motion to approve the agenda. The motion was seconded by Paul
Harrell and was approved unanimously. Terry moved to approve the consent
agenda, the motion was seconded by Pat, and approved unanimously. The consent
agenda includes the following:

Consent Agenda-Please read these items in advance. They will be voted on as a group without discussion unless someone pulls a particular entry from the Consent Agenda

• Approval of session minutes – Stated meeting 9/17/18
• Approval of congregational meeting minutes 10/7/18
• Approval of committee minutes – Building and Grounds 9/18/18 and 10/9/18, Fellowship 9/27/18, Personnel September and 10/3/18, Nominating Committee Email vote 10/4/18, Communication and Technology 9/30/18, Membership email vote 10/12/18, Finance and Administration 10/12/18
• Correspondence – Thank you from Communities in Schools, Thank you from Mayme Boyd

Pastor’s Report.  Andrew indicated that the bulk of his report will be folded into Personnel. He and his family will be out of town this weekend, Bill Lawrence is preaching. On the 28 th Brian Blount will be preaching and teaching a class. On November 4 th we will baptize Elijah, Tessa and Nora Grimes in worship. That afternoon there will be a blessing of the animals at the Frueler’s farm. Stewardship Sunday will be on the 11 th , the B&G Workday will be this Saturday, October 20.

Committee Reports
Finance and Administration
Stan referred session’s attention to the Treasurer’s report contained in the pre-session packet. Asking if there were any questions. September revenue moved upabout $1,100 over August but so did monthly expenses which resulted in expensesexceeding revenues by $5,775 almost exactly the same as the August financialresult. The increase in expenses was due to increasing the DCM salary to the 20 hours/week level from 17 hours/week (35% of monthly increase) in September.

The rest of the monthly expense increase was due to the Mission and Service funding increase. The M & S historical spending pattern has always been to do most of their funding in the final few months of the year. That late year M&S
funding pattern helps our cash flow each year and will continue this year as they still have almost $12,000 to disperse the final three months of the year.

Other over budget spending continued in September from the first eight months.  These include nursery staff compensation, office supplies, printing, and postage which are all basically caused by increased attendance and church non-service activities.  Non-pledged revenues continued strong in September. The actual non-pledged
giving was $2,839 but $2,000 was changed this month from non-pledged to pledged giving. These gifts were from earlier in the year and were above pledged gifts from several members to cover the original increase in the DCM’s salary to 15 hours per week. The non-pledged revenue is primarily from new members and past members who have come back to attending the Sunday services.  The year to date revenue vs. expense surplus is still at $15,000 considering the $7,000 that was taken from the operating surplus to help pay for the additional parking spaces.

Stan indicated the Stewardship Campaign was launched the previous day and kicked off with the second Sunday lunch. The campaign is $300,000 in pledges. He asked that session hand in their pledges as soon as possible so Janet can start filling in the pledges received.

Personnel
John indicated that Personnel and Finance and Administration wanted session to address the following motion:

to increase staff salaries in 2019 by 2.5% across the board, and wait until the December meeting to determine year end gifts for staff.

John indicated that Jerry was reticent to set an amount for year-end gifts until he had better handle on the year end numbers. Andrew wanted the raises to come before staff evaluations, so the staff can focus on having a real conversation about moving the church forward. There is a general sense the staff is doing well. Pat asked if we were periodically benchmarking jobs. After minimal questions the motion passed unanimously.

Personnel was asked to consider benchmarking on a periodic basis and bring it back to session.

John indicated Personnel, in conjunction with Andrew has initiated the evaluation process. Andrew submitted a self-evaluation to the committee, they met and discussed it, then based on that Andrew submitted the document in the packet Goal Setting for 2019. The process was an evolving process.

Andrew indicated the goal of the process was to create concrete goals for the coming year. He asked session in their committees to come up with concrete goals for the items he identifies in the goal setting document. He wants session to give them to the clerk several days before the next session meeting. He also wants each committee to tell Andrew what specific level of involvement their committee wants from Andrew. He also wants each committee to brainstorm ways they can involve children and youth in the work of their committee. He wants each committee to discuss how each committee would highlight their work during fellowship time.  Andrew and Barbara, along with the Fellowship Committee are going to look at fellowship teams and how they are working and whether we should continue the practice of assigning everyone to a fellowship team. If not fellowship teams, to what volunteer opportunity might members gravitate? There was conversation that people coming through the door might not want to volunteer and thought needs to be given to that. There was also conversation about the deacon neighborhoods and perhaps considering them as “fellowship teams.” There also needs to be an easy opt out of working on these teams, for people who do not want to volunteer.

Andrew will do staff evaluations in January and John will sit in on some of them, at
Andrew’s invitation.

Fellowship
Barbara wanted session to know that her committee has proposed some changes to the Building Use policies. Stan and Nana will be looking at those policies in several weeks to make changes and bring those changes back to session for approval.

Building and Grounds
Karen wanted session to know that Jan Rickard will no longer have managerial duty over the Remembrance Garden. That responsibility will be folded into Building and Grounds, the committee is working on the details. Karen, Bruce, Andrew and Jan are meeting in November to work on what Jan will be doing going forward. Karen asked session to vote on the motion thanking Jan as follows

To draft a resolution of thanks to Janet Rickard for her years of loving hard work and service managing the remembrance Garden

The motion passed unanimously.

Mission and Service
Maggie wanted to update session on the Earth Care audits and asked each member to get their audit to her. She also wanted to let everyone know that the alternative gift market would be held on December 2 and 9, and that we will be doing the Christmas wishes angel tree again this year. It is being run by Chatham County Social Services to benefit children throughout Chatham County.

Worship
Church leadership would like to change communion in November. Terry offered the following motion

To move November communion to November 11 to coincide with the Stewardship Sunday.

After minimal discussion, the motion passed unanimously.

Communications and Technology
Pat wanted session to know that Communications and Technology had completed their survey to which they got 88 responses. More than half of the people came to the church because of word of mouth. She asked each session member to be mindful of how they talk about the church in the community. The church has not gotten any members from the magazines, so they are going to stop doing these the end of the year. We are still getting people from the mailings, Communications and Technology are going to do mailings in the spring and expand the scope of the mailings. We are focusing on some free electronic advertising, like Next Door.

Membership
Paul Harrell said he has a motion regarding the new members with whom we just met.

To welcome into membership Katherine Higgins and John Brantly along with their daughter Sara Beth

The motion passed unanimously.

New Business
Andrew indicated the next Presbytery meeting would be November 13, a Tuesday, at Rumple Memorial in Blowing Rock and asked if anyone would like to represent Chapel in the Pines. Andrew will be going. Karen made a motion
that Paul Harrell be the church’s representative to the Presbytery meeting in November.  Pat seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

The business of the meeting being over, Andrew closed the meeting with a prayer at 8:20 PM

Lord’s Supper, Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals
Since the previous stated meeting on September 17, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated once on October 7. There were no baptisms, new members or funerals.  Libby Boehne’s wedding will be held on October 17.

Respectfully submitted,

Marcia Ladd, Clerk
Approved session 11/19/18

Reminders:
1. Next stated session meeting November 19, 2018. Jerry Wehmueller has the devotion
2. Work Day Saturday October 20, 2018
3. Stewardship season ends November 11, 2018
4. Pray for our church each day at noon.