The January 12, 2012 meeting of the Resurrection Lutheran Church Council was called to order by Dan Kuntz at 6:30 p.m. Those present including Dan were: Jeanie Wilkens, Steve Johnson, Mike Lage, Wilbur Wilkens, Rachel Kuebelbeck, Dale White, Mark Kranz, Pastor Linda and Pastor Dwaine. Troy arrived a few minutes late.
Wilbur led us in devotions.
There was a motion and a second to approve the agenda as it was presented. Motion carried.
There was a motion and a second to approve the Secretary’s report as presented. Motion carried.
Committee Reports –
Church in Society – Jeanie reported that the Good Gifts fair brought in $2029.62 and $1366.21 was collected for World Hunger and $725 was collected for Share the Spirit. We also received $750 from the St. Joseph Lions and as a result made contributions to several organizations including, St. Joe food shelf, Casa Guadalope.
GRIP is doing some restructuring after the leader was terminated.
Property – Mike reported that the Sunday school wing was painted by one of Dan’s Eagle Scouts.
Worship/Music – Troy reported that they have a new member and her name is Janet Knoll. The discussed Christmas services and upcoming Lenten services.
Youth and Family – Lou said her group met yesterday. A thank you dinner is planned for the congregation this coming Sunday as a way to say thanks for the support of the mission trip. The retreat is coming up as is the multi-generational musical. A licensing agreement is due and Lou is asking that the $200 bill be split between Youth and Family, Sunday School, Worship and Confirmation since they all use material related to this agreement. There was a motion and a second to do $50 from each group. Motion carried.
Finance – Put together the budget
Staff Reports
Pastor Linda is going to Extravaganza in New Orleans next month. She received a travel scholarship for this event which will be February 2-8.
Pastor Dwaine highlighted his written report by pointing out that average weekly attendance is down by 8 people. Wednesday worship is up 11 people. There were 400 people in worship on Christmas Eve.
Old Business
Building Needs Task Force is still working with Architect on our plans. Dan is going to talk to him and see if he is still moving forward and actively working on things.
Electronic giving – We are still looking into this project. The fees are quite high and may make this cost prohibitive at this time.
Building energy efficiency – Wilbur will do some checking on insulation. We got 1 bid and are waiting for another to compare.
Dishwasher – Mark will check into this a little more. The company that he checked with before refurbishes used ones when they have time. They just lost a technician and are way behind on their work.
Electronic outdoor sign – We have received a donation toward an outdoor electronic sign for the front of the Church. They are still looking into things like city restrictions before going any further. See how the signs are used in Church settings at the Daktronics website daktronics.com
New Business
Annual meeting will be Sunday, January 22 at 9:45 a.m. (between services). The nominating committee had ballots in the bulletins last Sunday. The agenda for the meeting will be as follows: 1) Approve roof repair 2) approve Mission spending plan. There was a motion and a second to put Pastor Linda’s call renewal on the annual meeting agenda. Motion carried.
Since our last meeting we have added $4547 to the projected revenues. Each Council member was asked to come to the meeting with ways in which they would like to see this amount reflected into the Mission spending plan. Wilbur proposed that we increase the wages of the hourly people on the staff. After much discussion the following changes are proposed to the Mission spending plan: increase Evangelism by $400, add $400 to the Technology line item and add a new line item to Benevolence of $250 for Dollars for Scholars scholarship and accept Wilbur’s proposal to increase office staff to $15 per hour, custodial staff to $11 per hour and increase the salary of Youth and Family coordinator to $17, 444 per year and Youth and Family coordinator retirement to $1744 annually. In addition the general fund income will need to be increased by $495. The new item for Dollars for Scholars Scholarship will be designated for an RLC student attending an ELCA college. Motion carried.
Baby changing stations – Mike will research purchasing 2 baby changing stations for the Sunday school wing bathrooms.
Building use request – We have a request from Providers Choice to use the building to do some training. We will inform them that we will charge them the usual rate of $50.
Congregational Leaders training will be on February 11 in Willmar. This is for all lay leaders in the SW MN Synod. RLC will pay the registration fee for any that are interested in attending.
Finance –
At the end of the year the checkbook had a balance of $11,808.21. We received 99.62% of our projected income. Our spending was under budget by 2.86%. Good news on both items.
Thanks to Dan for his years of service on the Council.
The next meeting will be Thursday, February 9th at 6:30 p.m.
Devotions: Rachel
Treats: Troy
With no further business the meeting was adjourned and we closed with prayer.
Respectfully submitted,
Mark Kranz
Council Secretary
(Posted 1/17/2012 by JDH)