CUMC Church Council Meeting Minutes April 18th, 2021
Attendees: Dave Lanzer, Charlie Moore, Carol Moore, Mary Beth Holly, Barb Julian, Stan Cardwell, Sara Turner, Bonnie Kegan
Meeting began with group sharing of God’s blessings over past two months in personal and church life.
Sara opened in prayer at 12:51pm
Fire suppression system in MMB has been inspected, leaks identified, and fix is in progress.
- Sanctuary Roof Replacement-
Discussion of skylights, which are currently custom-sized in the roof. If we convert to standard size we would lose 54% of our light. If we cover up the windows, we would need to add lighting inside the church
Options:
1)$36,900 custom size window
2) $35,750 standard size window
3) if we eliminate skylights $31,000 (with painting/drywall)
4) $28,000 no paint/drywall
Additional lighting not included in options (3) or (4)
Finance is recommending that we move forward with roof replacement
$150,000 from PPP2 currently a loan, may convert to a grant by Fall. Have about $111,000 unrestricted reserves to put towards the roof replacement.
Reasons for no skylights: tend to be prone to leaks which could cause additional expense. From an AV side, we have so many windows, on a sunny day screen would be washed out. Replacing AV presentation equipment would be $36,000 as well. Lights would be LED and low cost. Covering the skylights would give us more control over the lighting in the space. May also positively impact our cooling costs in the summer. Trustees are currently 50/50 on wanting to keep versus eliminate the skylights.
We are moving toward a larger A/V presence in church and this requires more control over lighting in sanctuary.
Dave expressed thanks to the trustees for the amount and quality of work that they do.
Charlie made a motion that council designate up to $43,000 to trustees for replacement of sanctuary roof, elimination and patching of skylights, and plans for interior lighting installation.
Sara seconded the motion. Council unanimously approved the motion.
Sara will plan to include taping and minor repair for drywall, repair of ceiling baffels(sp?) in sanctuary.
We will also need to engage an AV lighting consultant and/or contractor.
2) CDC and MMB use update
Dave and Carol met with CDC board last week. Discussed restrictions on COMAR restrictions on the use of the MMB.
Side of building with Kitchen, youth room, and library can now be used. Cleaning would need to be performed on Sunday nights prior to CDC opening Monday.
Fellowship hall was also discussed.
Hope to get back into the fellowship hall by June.
Working with MD licensing for childcare on whether or not the CDC classroom space can be used.
Net gain of 4 students, retaining enrollment for Fall.
3) In person activities
Should we change the website to open up the MMB for space/event reservations. This should be open to all groups internal/external.
What would be the increase in our cleaning bill? Ordinary cleaning: $25/hr surcharge Kitchen $75. Youth room and library already on contract for cleaning on Sunday nights.
Recommendation to consider in future, not charging groups for space use, in the spirit of generosity and mission. Focus on the connection with the community. Recovery groups have priority and should not be charged. HOA groups which are business focused should possibly be charged.
Request for key from girls boy scout troop to use the nursery space. Problem is the nursery space has been used for storage of various things during COVID. The nursery can’t support the size (20) of this group. Encourage them to request a space thru the office. Sanctuary is only available space that supports this group size.
4) Proposals from Dave concerning worship
1)Suggestion that we should relax some procedures for attending worship, such as the advanced sign-up. Provide a recommendation to the homecoming taskforce that we eliminate the sign-up, but continue to record attendance for contract tracing purposes.
2) Proposal that those leading worship are able to remove masks if comfortable. Congregation will continue to wear masks.
3) Possibly stop doing the pre-recorded service, as an experiment, during this interim period.
Discussion: Support for doing away with advanced signup for services.
Outdoor worship would be wonderful to do- delay until new pastor begins serving. A second A/V team would be required plus volunteers to setup/takedown equipment each Sunday.
Go down to one service through transition, experiment with elements to have familiar feel, will help guest speakers as well.
Would congregation be comfortable with singers not wearing masks. Just notify congregation, open windows, provide seating opportunity further away.
HVAC filters being regularly changed. Conversation is about HVAC effectiveness.
Still working with Comcast on reliable internet streaming. Fix is pending, but unknown timing.
Still working on recording ability in-house without dependence on streaming
Live streaming is about 2/3, pre-recorded is about 1/3 of attendance
How do we provide hospitality to guests to worship? Is one service enough?
Recommend that we do one service on last two services for Stan (May 16th, 23rd)
ACTION ITEM: Talk to homecoming committee about removing advanced sign-up protocol.
ACTION ITEM: Discuss mask use with worship leaders.
ACTION ITEM: Plan for one service beginning on May 16th during pastoral transition-temporary/experimental
5) Diversity/Anti-racism Initiative
Designate a few people to be in connection with Wilson UMC.
Dave has maintained relationship with worship chair and the pastor (Pastor J). They are very interested in building this relationship. They dropped off a flyer about a food drive to us; opportunity to support a local mission together
Have provided some A/V support to them.
Get their youth leaders and our youth leaders together to plan combined activities.
Sara recommended Dana Buckwalter.
Charlie recommended we involve the new pastor in building these relationships.
Recommendation that we don’t wait to start working on our relationship on a lay member connection level.
Advertise mutual opportunities to work side-by-side together with Wilson UMC.
Prayer walks thru community or combined prayer groups. When you pray you share your heart and we would get to know each other.
Do a pulpit exchange? Break bread together when it is possible.
We want to be welcoming and pursue our relationships that we currently have.
6) Catalyst Feedback
Our application was not selected for this upcoming year.
We will have coaching/guidance for 1 year with quarterly action plans. The evaluation suggested focus on building our spiritual vitality. We have a 90-day prayer plan: May/June/July.
7) Pastoral Transition
Looking at our staffing needs. Some groups feel they haven’t been included in conversation. SPRC plans to hold a listening session to hear concerns/feedback. Plan to post existing job description prior to new pastor’s arrival, but hire will not happen until Erik can provide input.
Concern that church doesn’t focus on children’s ministry/outreach/spiritual formation.
Barb will include Dave in listening sessions.
Schedule ways to allow congregation to meet Pastor Erik.
Stan closed us in prayer at 2:49pm
