Fox Valley Friends Meeting for Business, January 15, 2017

Present:  Carol C, Jim C, Hayden G, Lissa F, Reed H, Tina M, Mary K - Clerk

Approval of Minutes:  Minutes from the October 9 meeting were approved for posting.

Treasurer's Report:  Our financial report for 2016 was presented.  Our total income was $6,266.88.  $5,450 was from donations during the year and $816.99 was our starting balance.  Our total expenses were $6,008.80, leaving a balance of $258.08 at the end of 2016.

New Business

2017 Budget:  Donations are expected to be slightly less in 2017 due to our decreasing size.  Our treasurer, Jim C, recommended the following reductions in the budget for 2017:

1.  Reduce scholarships from $350 to $100 since FGC will not be in our region this year

2.  Reduce Friends Journal subscription from $148 to $48, the regular price without a donation

3.  Reduce Homeless Shelter Meals from $260 to $50 since we didn’t use the money last year.  If we do a Meal, we can fund it with separate donations

4.  Reduce our support of Quaker organizations slightly, from $341 per organization to $300 per organization, depending on the funds we have available at the end of the year.

There was discussion that the Quaker organizations need our funds before the very end of the year, so we should remind our members to donate at the beginning of summer if possible.  The proposed budget was approved.  We thanked Jim for continuing to take care of our finances and for presenting us with a very thoughtful budget.

Discussion of our Financial Relationship to NYM:  We will receive a visit from the NYM Finance Committee and our NYM Advancement and Outreach representatives on January 29, with discussion from 1:00 to 2:00.

MLK Day Celebrations:  Dan E passed along a personal invitation he received from Divine Temple Church to attend their MLK Celebration at 11 a.m. on MLK Day.  GIFT, a group of local religious leaders, is offering an ecumenical prayer service at 7 p.m. at Union Congregational.  Tina reported that she has been asked to join GIFT to represent the Quakers, but does not feel a calling to this effort.  Mary indicated that she will participate in GIFT as way opens.

Father Mauthe Funeral:  Father Mauthe, the original organizer of the ecumenical center we meet at, passed away this week.  We agreed to share a message of our gratefulness for his ecumenical spirit and a donation to support the Mauthe Center in his name.

Reports from Coordinators of Work Projects

Adult Education:  Lissa updated us on her current training to become a hospital chaplain.  As a chaplain, she helps those in the hospital make meaning of their hospital stay since it is often a time of spiritual crisis.  At a future point in the certification process she will need a denominational letter of support from us. To improve our understanding and spiritual support of her work, we asked Lissa to lead an Adult Education discussion with us about her experience as a hospital chaplain sometime in March or April, depending on her schedule.  She is often on call during the weekend.

Hayden’s discussion on change was cancelled in December because of bad weather, and will be held on February 26 at 10 a.m.  In April, the Crawfords will share their experience of FGC last summer.

WISDOM: Hayden reported that it will be difficult for him to attend future Board meetings for JOSHUA.  Anyone interested in taking up that opportunity on behalf of our Meeting is welcome.  We thank Hayden for his service, and also Jim and Carol for their continuing service on JOSHUA’s Mental Health Task Force.  Jim reported that a current focus of the Task Force is changing the third party petition process in Brown County so it is easier to get supportive help for people that need it before something happens that leads to a traumatic encounter with the police.

FCNL:  Bob encourages members to write their legislators to oppose repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Potlucks:  Future potlucks will be Jan 20, Feb 17, Mar 17, and April 28 at Sheila’s home.  Each week is a topic from “The Spirituality of Aging”.

Meeting Retreat:  Due to her new training program, time is a precious commodity and Lissa is unable to help work on developing a retreat for this year.  Carol is willing to develop a retreat if someone else steps forward to help her plan and run it. Possible topics are Appreciative Inquiry or Racism.

Prison Ministry:  Jim will send a copy of “Rise Up Singing” to Shane as a birthday/Christmas gift from Meeting.  Tina reported on the difficulty she has had sending books and JOSHUA information to Shane.  Books must come directly from a book dealer and include a receipt of purchase.  They cannot come from Amazon.

Spiritual Nurture Committee:  Reed and Mary will be reaching out to our new attenders with personal invitations to consider becoming members through the Clearness Committee process.  All they need to do to start the process is to write a letter asking for membership.

Communication:  We missed sending Christmas cards to our list of faraway Friends/friends.  We will look for another opportunity to send out our greetings soon.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Klos, Clerk

With support from Tina M