Administration Ministry Team
Meeting Minutes by Moderator Newman McAllister.
The Administration Ministry Team met on April 27. Those present were Pastor Darlene Avery, Moderator Newman McAllister, Vice Moderator Linda Seger, Treasurer Sunde King, and Member Vaughn Drinen (by ZOOM).
Pastor reported that Holy Week was engaging and went well, with good participation in the “whole walk,” immersion into the spirituality of the week. Attendance has been good considering we are still in early spring. The workshops the church continues to host on emergency preparedness are made more relevant by the grass fire that happened in April on Rampart Range Road. Pastor has rendered much pastoral care. The wedding season begins in May. Pastor wants to access from Sunde the Sallie Bush Community Building’s system for handling weddings. The final event schedule for the Green Box Arts Festival should be set this week. One event is an opening sanctuary concert using the church’s piano. Pastor is on vacation from May 6 through May 13. Linda Seger will preach on May 7. All services through Pentecost are planned.
Sunde presented the March financial report. All income was $10,107.88 and all expenses were $11,583.90, for a negative balance for the month of $1,476.02, and a negative balance for the year of $11,818.24. The $100,000.00 from the closing of the sale of the Sallie Bush Community Building was deposited into a new money market account at Ent Credit Union. There was discussion about whether the church should retain a financial advisor for recommendations on investing the money. However, those funds will be diminished by upcoming repairs and maintenance, which have been often delayed by financial concerns. Also, the church received a very large donation in 2022. Without it, the church would have had a deficit of $47,961.56, rather than the actual $7,961.56. Therefore, it seems prudent to delay retaining such an advisor.
Newman will soon receive a written estimate from Holbrook Heating for repairs to the boiler that heats Tatter Hall and the downstairs. The good news is that the boiler itself is sound and does not need replacing. Linda and Katie Gardner are working on the history corner in Patchell Hall. The Sallie Bush Community Building sale closed on March 29, as planned, with the church receiving the noted $100,000.00 cash plus yearly distributions from the Oklahoma City Community Foundation, beginning in the fall of 2024.
Newman presented the team with a packet prior to the meeting, recommending that the church switch its insurance coverage (three policies: church package, excess umbrella and workers compensation) from Church Mutual to the Insurance Board of the UCC (“IBoard”). IBoard offers flood and earthquake insurance but the team was not interested. The quoted annual premiums are $15,071.00 for the church package, $2.208.00 for the excess umbrella and $609.00 for Workers Compensation. Coverage is more extensive with IBoard, the premiums are slightly less than Church Mutual and IBoard does not require that any of the church’s trees be trimmed or removed. After a motion by Vaughn and a second by Linda, the team unanimously voted to switch coverage to IBoard, effective June 1, 2023, and to cancel coverage with Church Mutual, effective May 31, 2023.
The pew cards materials have been finalized by Pastor, Linda and Heidi Bailey. An outside firm will be needed for printing. Pastor is still working on the space rental packet. The church’s finances have not been audited for many years and it should be done in 2023. The church’s files are now set up in Google Drive. A backflow inspection must be done this summer. The elevator will be inspected on May 2. Ron DeValk has agreed to head the project to install bat houses so that the bats don’t nest in the bell tower, as they did last summer.
The next regular meeting is on Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 3:30 p.m.