MCC Governing BoardMinutes

March 3 – 6, 2011

Attendees: Nancy Wilson, ModeratorRaquel Benitez-RojasLiz Bisordi, TreasurerOnetta BrooksTony Freeman, Vice ModeratorRobert GriffinJohn HassellBryan ParkerCandace Shultis, ClerkDevon Avery, President, Board of Pensions (USA)Barbara Crabtree, StaffIrma Bauer-Levesque, Staff

Nancy led us in morning prayer (Celtic Daily Prayer) after which we had a time of personal sharing.

Visionary and Strategic Discussions: Governing Board Report Card:

o Tony: We have come a long way since August!o Raquel: Should we have a template for reports from staff: Yes!o Liz: I agreeo Nancy: The Senior Leadership Staff uses a template and reports monthly.

What sort of template would be useful for the GB? Maybe we can experiment on this.

o Tony uses a reporting template in his work with his Foundation. It takes some time to create, but once you have it, it makes life easier. Tony will work on a draft template for our use.

o Robert: Nancy, have you heard anything back that we should be doing or someone would like for us to be doing?

o Nancy: No…I did share with the Large Church Pastors at their meeting last week and I think they gave us enormous support for what we are doing. Almost no feedback from the newly released GB website. It would be good to articulate how our work will impact the local church. I talk about the GB in positive ways when I travel and people seem very positive about that.

o Tony: It is taking time for the denomination to live into the new structure, too. I received some nice emails from pastors when our reports have gone out.

1

o Nancy: probably just too early to expect a lot of feedback. Time of education and repeat

o Liz: There seems to be some confusion about the new role of Elders.o Onetta: At the Networking gathering there was still some question about

denominational finances, but I was able to give good feedback about how we are doing. I will be recommending a Policy template tomorrow.

o Raquel: It is probably a bit early but I think the new website will be helpful as time goes along. We should have our emails available on the website for people to contact us. We should have a monthly newsletter from the GB about what and how we are doing.

o Liz: We will have time to talk about communication…we just can’t communicate enough.

o Nancy: Staff Huddle or no Staff Huddle time…can we talk about this?o Tony: I think if we need it we will say so. We haven’t felt the need yet,

but if we do I believe we will ask for it.o Nancy: We’ve done the Board Covenant and have appointed a

Governance Committee.o Tony: I wonder how we can better engage around our open questions.

What if we each took a turn to write a one pager for discussion at each meeting? Because we struggle about them we probably haven’t been quick to engage others in them.

o Robert: I will organize that conversation for us internally. o Nancy: Do we want to engage on our wider conversation yet?o Tony: We should have some plan with time line for conversation with

our partners.o Nancy: The mentoring retreat and the large church pastors meeting

helped to begin the conversation. But more broadly in MCC how can we engage others with the open questions. Summits and Network meetings might provide those opportunities. Can GB members be present at these meetings to assist with the conversation?

o Tony: These questions captured our attention. As we continue to be excited we can lead others to be excited.

o Liz: It would help to have a script available to help led these discussions.o Nancy: We have a lot of good resources but not a good delivery system

for those resources. o Tony: We need to have conversation about how we are going to go

about evaluating the Moderator. We may want to enlist Don Eastman’s help with this. We want to do it in a respectful and helpful way.

o Nancy: My best evaluation has been done with Don in a 365 way and was very helpful. I would appreciate setting the pattern over the next 5 years.

2

o Tony: We are already a pretty mature Board and I think we could do it in a way that would be helpful to Nancy. Tony will contact Don and bring that information to our next conference call.

o Tony: We talked about having one year terms…I’ve seen that it works well to do 2 year terms…I think we need to talk about whether 2 year terms make more sense.

o Nancy: We need to balance the sharing of leadership roles with how long it takes to feel like you have learned the ‘job’.

o Onetta: We do need to be mindful that things do not take on the personality of the person but rather the role is what takes precedence.

o Tony: I just want us to be the most effective as a Governing Board.

LUNCH

Liz lead us in a discussion of who do we want to be at this point in our history as MCC. (Moving from pastor-sized to program-sized denomination)

We need to lean into who we want to be and where we want to go.We are transitioning from one era of MCC into another.The biggest transition we have ever made will be in 5 years from now with the election of a new Moderator.Everything we do has to have an organizational sophistication that allows us to move into the new generation of MCC.Need to have the right people in the right roles doing the right things.We are moving toward being system driven rather than personality driven.Leadership (Governing Board and Senior Leadership Team) needs to buy into the change process.We need to be intentional about modeling what we want. We need to be intentional about what we focus on. What is our baseline? Where are we starting from? We need to know that in order to know how to get to where we want to go. We need internal modifications to achieve our vision, mission and goals.Look at document from Rev. Elder Lillie Brock.

How many programs/departments/ministries do we have in our church?Analyze the connectivity of the various programs, etc. Are we duplicating rather than adding to information, etc.?How can improve or modify the system?Then we build the finances to support the system.When we do this we will improve the finances and the programming/ministry system.The question we always hear is, “What are we (the local church) getting for our money?”We also have a tension with trying to be an international denomination.

3

We have done a staff restructure leading us into the ‘new’ era. (see information from Barbara Crabtree)How do we take the long view? And how do we work now toward that future?What are we supposed to know as the Governing Board? How much detail do we need?

Change Model:AwarenessDesireKnowledgeAbilityReinforcement

Strategic Planning Discussion:(Paper from Tony Freeman)(Nancy’s paper regarding things that have changed since General Conference 2010)

An invitation to strategize around leadership development

Brainstorming: Leadership Development Stewardship Excellence in program resources from the denomination to the local church Access to capital for churches Communication Intellectual capital Out of the box/provocative ministry Appropriate salaries at all levels (staff) Global intent and intention Effective global strategy Culture of church growth and development Development of local churches Sharing of resources and responsibility

Which if these are really strategic?? Leadership Development A Culture of Church Growth An Effective Global Strategy

A Strategic Planning Team to include staff and Governing Board. The plan should be a five year plan.

Strategic Plan from the Elders – presented at General Conference 2010 Strategic Growth Church Planting

4

Leadership Development Messaging

MOTION 03.03-07.01 – by Robert Griffith, seconded by Candace ShultisThe Governing Board will appoint a Strategic Planning Working Group to consist of:

2 members from the GB (Tony Freeman and Robert Griffin)2 members from Senior Leadership Team (to be appointed by Nancy Wilson)2 members at large (to be appointed by Nancy Wilson)

They will report back in August, 2011 to the Governing Board with a draft 5 year (2012 – 2016) strategic plan.

M/S APPROVED

Closing Thursday Devotions by Robert Griffith.

Friday, March 4th

Morning devotions led by Liz Bisordi.As John and Irma have joined us we continued with personal sharing.

Consent Agenda: Finance Committee Reports 2010 (end of year financials) and 2011 (January 2011

financials)

MOTION 03.03-07.02 – Moved by Tony Freeman, seconded by Liz Bisordi to receive the item on Consent Agenda.

M/S APPROVED

Regular Agenda:Report from Director of Operations (Barbara): Staffing changes, efficiencies, savings

and reorganizing to match the goals and the effort to be a program sized denomination; Human Resources Manual progress; progress on PTO, payables; update on headquarters. (Reference Power Point presentation dated March 4, 2011)

Barbara led the Governing Board through her report, including: a financial recap for 2005 – 2010 tithe income the world wide economic downturn and its impact on MCC key fiscal principles for budgeting MCC’s organizational priorities and strategies for implementing our vision of

ministry

5

Key successes and implementations from our August 2010 meeting Staff reorganization The 2011 Budget (with and without the receipt of grants) especially focusing on

our priority for leadership development and church life & health programming

MOTION 03.03-07.03 – Moved by John Hassell, seconded by Bryan Parker to adopt 2011 Budget Plan A if grants are received and Budget Plan B as the contingency if grants are not received. We will address creating a grants policy planning to have a policy in place by June 2011. We ask Barbara to provide us by April 2011 the costs to maintain the new hires after the grants run out. We also ask Barbara to provide us a prioritization of the positions in terms of need.

M/S APPROVED

Policy Manual – final review and approval before publication: The Governing Board will review the Policy Manual and update it on a quarterly

basis. We gave Onetta a number of editorial changes.

MOTION 03.03-07.04 – Moved by Robert Griffin, seconded by Liz Bisordi to adopt and post the MCC Governing Board Policy Handbook (after proofing by 2 people).

M/S APPROVED

Governing Board Policy on distribution of funds from bequests, property sales and remaining funds from closed churches:

A policy on bequests received by UFMCC is found in Board of Administration minutes (August 2008). Should we include that in our present policy manual? Does our mindset change given the volatility of the economy? Do we want the same 50/50 split? (50% to our cash reserve account until maxed to 6 months of reserves available and 50% to our investment account) – Raquel suggests 75% to investment account and 25% available for operations. – Tony suggests 25% to operating reserve until it reaches the six month total; 25% to operations prioritized toward vision goals; 50% to our investment account.

MOTION 03.03-07.05 – Moved by Tony Freeman, seconded by Robert Griffin to adopt a policy on the receipt of unrestricted bequests that they be distributed according to the following formula:

25% to operating reserve until it reaches the six month total;25% to operations prioritized toward vision goals; and50% to our investment account.

6

M/S APPROVED

Discussion of a policy for the receipt of monies from sale of church closures: These are the present categories per the Policy Manual. (This was created out of the sale of the Sacramento property.) a.) Estimated legal fees; b.) Cash to fulfill designated reserves; c.) Accounts payable; d.) Fund cash reserve account; and e.) Funds for church plant or contribute funds to an existing church to retain an UFMCC presence in the local area. We will work on the language regarding church plants.

MOTION 03.03-07.05 – Moved by Onetta Brooks, seconded by Robert Griffin to repay $105,000 (used to secure the purchase of the Sarasota property) into our Investment Account out of our cash flow over five years (60 months) beginning on April 1, 2011 at 1% interest at $1,800 per month.

M/S APPROVED

Closing Friday Devotions by Raquel Benitez-Rojas.

Saturday, March 5th

Opening Devotions by John Hassell

Meeting with Devon Avery, President of the Board of Pensions (USA) Pension 101

o The end result is defined and guaranteed as opposed to a 401(k) which does not have a guaranteed end income.

o What is different about the MCC Pension Plan is that every four years we have to rewrite the plan for the IRS. We are in that year and we may make some significant changes to the plan.

o It has a mandatory contribution from churches and from pastors who participate…pooled money.

o The Pension Board oversees that money.o The Plan is presently overfunded by about 100%. The Plan has 2.4 million

at the moment. It would cost 1.2 million to pay every participant off.o We do need to have a cushion and be conservative, but we still have

options available to us to reconfigure the Plan. Give churches a few years off from paying in to the Pension Give clergy a higher payout

7

We have only about one quarter of the churches who are late in their payments but only by about a quarter or two.

The Board of Pensions has divided churches among themselves to talk to them individually about the Pension Plan and encourage catch-up and the possibility of payment plans to catch-up.

A few of those churches have closed. Several have also caught up in the last few months.

Tony: Since one of our goals is to develop leaders, it would be helpful to be able to provide a good pension to our clergy, especially our younger clergy.

Devon: The Pension Boards number one mission is to oversee the investments in the Pension Fund. This year we have a wonderful opportunity to amend the Plan.

Nancy: How can we, the Governing Board, best relate to the Board of Pensions? Tony: maybe a brief report to the Governing Board quarterly or annually? Onetta: I would be helped by an update semi-annually, just a succinct report,

tied to our face-to-face meetings. Devon: I can provide you with a copy of our investment policy and strategy. John: I would prefer us to be invested in socially responsible funds. Devon: They have not been the best performers Onetta: I would like to see included in the report:

o How many clergy are in the plano How many are retired this yearo Are there any problemso What do you need from uso Any changes made to the investment policy since the last report

Devon: We have a marketing person on the Pension Board now and hope to soon have a Facebook page.

Nancy: We are trying to find the right balance between not interfering and having a connection to provide support and to know what is happening with the Plan.

Report from Development Director (Irma): progress on staffing, database, donors, grants, etc.

Data Base: We have done the three big transfers of data to the new data base. Irma is relieved to be done with the old data base.

Nancy: What are the things we especially need to have more information on from Irma’s report?

Tony: Do we have an operations manual for the new data base so that someone else could use the data base in case something happens to you?

Irma: Marina will be training and have primary responsibility for the new data base. We will develop an operations manual that is particular to our use of the data base. We could always add another licensed person. My goal is to train everyone who needs access to the data.

8

Liz: Do we have a strategy to integrate all that we do? Nancy: Once the data base is set we do plan to integrate things. By the end of

the year we should be in a good place around this. It will revolutionize our capacity for reports and responses.

Irma: I believe that Marina and I will be in confidence mode by May and the rest of the organization should be by the fourth quarter.

Robert: Is there hope that all leadership will participate in gifting to the denomination?

Irma: I believe that our best prospects are those people who are better connected to the denomination: people who come to conferences, network leaders, etc. There is real potential there.

Nancy: We have close to 500 volunteers in some way connected to the denomination. There is little resistance from local pastors to approaching people at conferences to be monthly donors.

Tony: We could make it easier to donate from the website. Is there a plan to formalize relationships with those who have named UFMCC in their estates?

Irma: My priority this past year was to get the planned giving material out to the local churches for their use. I look forward to creating that for UFMCC this year.

Robert: We could add something to the website around planned giving. John: We need to prioritize rolling out the planned giving program for the

denomination. How can we expand our capacity to do this? Can we recruit local people to get this information out?

Nancy: The United Methodist Church has great materials to simply hand to people about end of life issues. How can we, the Governing Board, be more strategically supportive and helpful of you, Irma? We need to be working on Fund Development between our meetings.

Tony: Understanding our role in fund development is the first step. What does that look like for us? Can we formalize how we are going to do that? Until we have a clear understanding of our role, little gets done.

Nancy: Very few of our churches have the capacity to do major fund development. We need a breakthrough on this and we have the opportunity to do that now.

Irma: I think there are a couple of things you can do as individuals on the Governing Board:

o To be an ambassador for our Vision and Missional Priorities wherever you are.

o We have some donors who have fallen off. I can bring you lists of people to find out if you can provide information on them so that we might renew contact with them to see if we can re-cultivate their giving.

o I’ll ask you to think of who is not giving to MCC now but might if asked to.o Find better ways to say “Thank you,” to our donors.

Liz: Do we have anyone who is not connected to MCC that we have information on and who might give?

Irma: Our data base does not give us that information.

9

John: I did an appreciation event at my home to talk about the work of the denomination and that event has given us a large donor.

Robert: Will the new data base give us locally information on who in the local church has given to MCC and could we use that data to cultivate them?

Irma: No…but we can provide zip code information which could give us that information.

Irma: I want all of us to have the bullet points to use when having these conversations with potential donors. The Senior Leadership team will have these, too.

Bryan: Can we do a better job with the information we send to present donors to give links for information or to increase your donation?

Nancy: I want to talk with Irma to find out how I could be better utilized around fund raising, encouraging, thanking, and asking.

Irma: I still need to work on the connectivity of the information we have. I am under capacity for what we really need in terms of personnel. I am happy that capacity will double with Marina’s arrive, but we could use a total of four people to handle the work.

Nancy: I think we could have a donor appreciation event at the PAD Conference. We could put envelopes on the chairs. I believe that at every single gathering we have this year that we should do something around fund development.

Onetta: We should let Irma know if any of us are going to any MCC event so that we could be used at that event for fund development.

Liz: Even to have business cards available for us to give out when we attend these events would be helpful.

Bryan: Clergy on the Governing Board could give special attention to other clergy to get them on board as donors. This might be less of a conflict for them.

Nancy: The large church pastors indicated a desire to have some sort of denominational stewardship material available to the local churches. We also have ‘alumni’ groups (CLM, Leadership Mentoring, RevM, etc.) that we could cultivate. I’ve always thought it could be interesting to create an expectation that our clergy tithe or donate a portion, say 5%, to the denomination. We wouldn’t have to even specify an amount or a percentage

Irma: We do have some folks who presently tithe to the denomination because they don’t have a local church near them.

Nancy: We could do better at keeping people connected when they leave an area where there is a local church. We could look at places where people have moved to who were from an MCC but there is no MCC near them … this could be an opportunity to start a new MCC. And can we do a better job looking at the web as a way to connect these folks?

We viewed the crystal meth video made possible by the Elton John Foundation.

Stewardship, Fund Development and Church Tithing

10

(Training and planning with Irma Bauer-Levesque, the role of the Governing Board in Stewardship, local church tithing, goals for stewardship in the context of becoming program-sized church.)

$5 million is probably not a sustainable or doable goal in 2+ years. You want the goal to be achievable. So what is an achievable goal? We need to do an assessment first…what do we need to raise in a year…the first

things to assess are:o Do we have a history of well run campaigns?o Do we have good gift records?o Do we have the ability to track new gifts?o Do we have adequate staffing?o Do we have an adequate budget?o Do we have adequate experience in personnel?o Does rank and file give support to the leadership?o Does the leadership have a commitment?o We have some challenges around communications.

We must have a compelling and motivating vision and plan for ministry that can be communicated well.

o We are not far off track hereo What may be missing is a real passion around the visiono People want to see “more” and “better” – but do we want to only do

more and better of what we are already doing?o Can be more freshly articulate our vision to also include doing new

things?o Compelling Vision

What are the lives we are trying to save? What is the impact we can have on the world?

o Concrete Goalso Define MCC’s mission for the 21st Century

Would be good to spend some time defining thato Our tithing revenue stream cannot remain flat in the future.o Feed the churches with stewardship resourceso The revenue stream from individuals will benefit from the renewed

compelling vision’o We also need transparency and good financial management.

What is the case for support for our top missional purposes?o What difference will two church specialists make?

We are trying to help churches break through growth barriers; and

11

We are trying to position them for greater impact in their communities.

We have changed the theologies of other churches which may have at one time been hostile to becoming allies in the 21st century.

Where can we make a difference in new places which still need our message and mission? There are probably at least 100 cities in the US that could use the presence of an MCC or a renewed presence of MCC.

There is also an international explosion happening where we could make a difference. There are also possibilities in the US Latino GLBTQ community.

We need to think this through carefully as we will mostly be asking the same people we have always asked for money.

Nancy: I think that providing stewardship materials to the local church will be well received. We need to do a better job at getting an external presence (website, etc.)

John: Not sure we should step back from our $5 million goal. We do need to renew ourselves…reinvent ourselves…I want us to find those venture capitalists who will want to invest, not in our operating expenses, but in the exciting new projects we have on the table…we need to become entrepreneurial about getting the money that is already out there…get new investors in our mission.

Robert: We need to bring MCC out of the closet in the 21st century in a way that is relevant to our message and to our future. We do have the capacity to continue to tell our story in new and exciting ways.

Onetta: We still need to debunk some myths: classism, racism, etc., in what way can we best compete for the same dollars that doesn’t repeat the same old same old.

Tony: New ventures could bring new dollars

Nancy: Reaching out into the Latino community could bring in those new dollars.“The upstart denomination from the margins” “What is coming toward us thatneeds us?”

Raquel: How do we ‘sell’ ourselves? What makes us different from other denominations? What do we have to offer that is different? How are we unique? It is not anymore about the ‘gay church’. We are the ‘human rights church’. Do we need to look beyond the US for donors since we are a universal

12

church? We need to use press releases more when we do something. We don’t sell ourselves well.

Irma: And is selling what we do well enough?

Tony: Who gives to denominations? Those with denominational loyalty. We are looking at something very different that will move people beyond giving to the local church to giving denominationally.

Nancy: Balance focus on local churches with focus on external mission.

Bryan: Branding and Imaging … Media campaign about who we are … I wonder if we need to take care of some of the smaller items (i.e., donor buttons on the website) before we attack the larger donor issues.

Robert: We need to declare victory on what we have done and then move on. That then gives us a platform to move on to the next emerging things.

Liz: I am hearing different levels of things. I agree with Robert about declaring victory. It is about how we market and sell ourselves. I think there are 2 different audiences, the internal MCC’er’s (align the vision statement with their donor dollars) and the external donors (what are the things that have an outward focus that the external donor will want to give to: the human rights church…concrete mission in the world (Uganda; transgender)).

Tony: the challenge to declaring victory is that it is thinner in some places than in others. But we can still declare victory over what we have accomplished. Maybe we need a pair of outside eyes to help us see.

Candace: maybe we already have our compelling vision in “Tearing Down Walls and Building Up Hope”.

(see next page for our work on this)

Irma: Once we have our slogan, who can we talk to to find out if the slogan is exciting to them? (Former donors internally and externally)

o Jeff Minero Young Adult Clergyo Jerry Smallo Anne & Frano Pat Mathiso Bob Pope o John Vespa

o Tania Guzmano Someone from Australiao Someone from Latin

Americao Jesus Gonzalez (MCC

Espana)o Joseph from Kenya

13

o Alberto Najerao Beth Stroudo Network Leaderso Bishop Flunder

o Rebecca Voelkel o Tanya Rawls

Closing Saturday prayer was offered by Bryan Parker.

14

Missions Accomplished: A human rights presence in Eastern Europe We started the Open and Affirming Church Movement, inspiring other

denominations We took the leadership in the marriage equality movement Biblical Theology (New Oxford Annotated, 3rd edition) Bible translations now

contain “our” theology Gay rights are now seen as Human Rights Compassionate religious response to HIV/AIDS First Candlelight vigil for HIV/AIDS (became World AIDS Day) First public spaces that were not bars for GLBT people First piece of GLBT property was owned by MCC Supported and hosted the first GLBT synagogue Offered significant support for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Presidential appointment to the White House Faith Based and Community

Partnerships Leadership of the first ever March for Tolerance in Jamaica An MCC person was the first GLBT person to receive the Order of Canada

We Desire to Create Leaderswho will make a difference globally

as weTear Down Walls and Build Up Hope

in our hearts, in our community, in our world

The Next Firsts:Mission in action (What we intend to accomplish with your help):

(Unfinished World, Unfinished Calling) (God is Still Acting Up!) A world class web presence (think of what was accomplished in the Middle East

by those who used Facebook and Twitter) (becoming even more Universal) (going virtual)

Capacity Building: Equipping local leaders to make a difference Safe spaces to do justice

15

Sunday, March 6th

Opening Worship led by Nancy Wilson

Thresholds and Triggers – Investment Account (Onetta): Barbara: Triggers need to happen around cash level and projections of income

and expenses. I would like to have one month’s payroll ($130,000) on hand and accessible. The next best thing would be to have at least the next payroll ($65,000) on hand. We normally have between $30,000 and $60,000 on hand. We presently have about $30,000 on hand. The goal is to have about $100,000 on hand by summer. We have $2.135 million in assets at the end of January in various accounts.

Onetta: We are about $50,000 shy of the threshold we want. I would like to see a minimum of $1 million in the combined investment accounts.

MOTION 03.03-07.06 – Moved by Onetta Brooks, that we retain a combined minimum total of $1 million in our investment accounts.

With no second the motion dies

Tony: First we need to consider the cash reserve and secondly the minimum we want to retain. Rather than looking at this as a stop gap, why not invest in an operating reserve that has a repayment policy

Liz: One option is to tithe into the operating reserve. Another would be to put the repayment of the mortgage ($1,800) into the operating reserve until it reaches the threshold we desire.

Tony: Again, we need to have a policy of regularly repaying into the operating reserve from the budget.

Raquel: until we are clear about how we are about how we are going to return monies to the investment fund, I am not ready to move on.

Liz: I think of this as a ‘rainy day’ fund that I want to make some money on. What if it is in the investment fund (say Smith Barney) but it needs to be in a liquid asset that is easily accessible.

John: I just want us to be intentional about disciplining ourselves that when we dip into our savings to pay operating expenses we have an intentional policy to pay ourselves back.

Onetta: I am not happy unless we have a policy around a minimum of $1 million in our investment account that is separate from our operating reserve.

16

Lunch

Nancy: The Investment Committee should look at the document Tony has sent regarding an Investment Policy and advise the Governing Board about that policy and report back to the Governing Board. The Finance Committee should look at the Operating Reserve Policy and report back to the Governing Board.

Onetta: Out of this meeting is there going to be a tangible amount of money moved from the Investment Account to the Operating Reserve Account?

Tony: I suggested $200,000 to be moved to the Operating Reserve.

Liz: I suggest that we vote to move the money and ask the Finance Committee to come back with language around an Operating Reserve policy.

Barbara: Can we use the word ‘earmark’ rather than move’ so that it continues to make interest?

MOTION 03.03-07.07 – Moved by Tony Freeman, seconded by John Hassellthat $200,000 from the Smith Barney account be earmarked (not moved) to a Governing Board managed Operating Reserve account. The Staff will submit to the Governing Board, as part of the annual budget, a line including an Operating Reserve balance, draw down and repayment line item/plan. Any variation in the Operating Reserve from the approved budget needs to be approved by the Governing Board.

M/S APPROVED with one abstention (Onetta)

Carlos led us through a tutorial on google.docs.

Policy Statements:We decided that the leads for writing the following policy statements for the June Governing Board meeting are as follow: Drafts due May GB meeting

Policy 11 - Financials – Liz and the Finance CommitteePolicy 12 - Communications - Robert and BryanPolicy 13 - GB Compliance Oversight - TonyPolicy 18 - Designated Gifts or Gift acceptance policy – Tony and IrmaPolicy 19 - GB Members Financial Giving to MCC - Combine with Policy forRoles of members (Policy 2)Policy 20 - Governing Board Grant Policy -- TonyPolicy 21 - Operating Cash Reserves Policy – Liz and the Finance

Committee

17

Select an Audit Committee for 2010:We need an RFP process to select an audit firm.We need to have due diligence on selecting an audit firm.Good practice to change auditors every 5 to 7 years…there is an additional

expense when you change auditors and it can create a lengthier process.Our current auditors have been used for three years

Bryan Parker, John Hassell will serve as the Audit Committee for 2010.And we will ask Marvin Bagwell.

TRIBUTE:The members of the Governing Board of Metropolitan Community Churches offer this tribute to two very special people in the MCC family.

Fran Solitro and Ann Vassilaros: For decades you have both been faithful, hardworking members and leaders at Church of the Trinity MCC. You and others from that congregation have played a vital role in the strength and stability of that church over many years. In addition, you both have been generous, faithful friends to Nancy Wilson, first as pastor and then as Moderator of MCC and also, of course, to MCC itself. You have caught the vision and answered the call to our global ministry, and have stepped up to the plate with your time, service and resources, for MCC’s work in Jamaica, in the Dominican Republic, for General Conferences and for many MCC ministries. We can hardly count the number of times you each, and both, have answered the call to serve with enormous generosity.

Several years ago, you made it possible for MCC to purchase our Sarasota office. You blessed us at the beginning of that purchase, and now, again, at the end with this extraordinary gift.

Thank you. May God bless you, and all the work of Metropolitan Community Churches that this gift has, and will, make possible.

M/S APPROVED

Evaluation of our Meeting Highlights/Best Things

o Good decisionso High functioning as a policy boardo Real breakthroughs in our functioning this early ono We are doing what we are supposed to be doing!o Not getting bogged downo Pleased that we got into different facets of our financial health

18

o Good to begin thinking about our annual appeal in positive wayso Our conversation was richo We have matured in our ability to disagree in ways that are productiveo Nancy managed our agenda well

Things that need improvingo At some point we need to look at risk management – What is our role

here? Health and safety; potential lawsuits; etc.o Would like to begin looking at the long-term: succession; financial health,

etc.,

What do we most want to communicate from this meeting? Focus on motions made We are working efficiently. We were able to accomplish more than we thought

in a shorter time than we thought we needed. We are ahead of schedule for our work with the International Task Force. We have taken up the work given us by the General Conference and are making

progress on financial management and financial growth. We value the insights that Dan Hotchkiss, our consultant, has helped us with to

better function as a new Board. We value the work that Barbara Crabtree has done to create to make us more

secure financially. We value the time we had with Irma to look toward the future financial health of

MCC. We established a Strategic Planning Committee which includes people beyond

the Governing Board. We continue to check in on our open questions and vision goals We feel a great alignment with the Senior Leadership Team on our vision goals.

Our August Meeting: Nancy: I think we have a better idea about time management for that meeting.

We will have some time for Strategic Planning at that meeting. (The names of that team will be finalized at our next conference call.) That will feed into our 2012 goals and budget and our annual campaign. We’ll have a day with Dan Hotchkiss and figure how that will align with time with our Senior Leadership Team. We will have time with our Senior Leadership Team. We will have some evaluation of how the new structure is doing. Our contract with Dan ends at the end of 2011. He coaches me and Tony every month. He had a big impact on this agenda which improved our work these past days enormously.

19

Onetta: How do we get and pass on the many skills learned (from Dan) by our present executive committee? Are there young adults and other potential candidates who could benefit?

Nancy: We some opportunities with the upcoming young adult mentoring retreat.

John: How can we integrate our desire to mentor youth into our August meeting?

Nancy: What can we learn from other churches that are doing well with reaching youth and young adults?

John: Do we have any ‘report cards’ on some of desires to succeed beyond financials? I would like to have a better understanding about how we are doing? For example we heard from Mona about the metrics around ordination.

Liz: How are we operationally and programmatically doing against our goals? Since the Senior Leadership Team will be with us we have a great opportunity to hear about these things. And we need to ask them what they need from us for success.

Onetta: I know from the reports we receive from Nancy as the head of staff. I don’t want them to come just to check in, I want to know what they really need from us.

Irma: It might be a good question for Dan. How do we best relate to the Senior Leadership Team?

Bryan: I think we are already modeling how we should interrelate.

Onetta: Dan could overlap by having time with the Senior Leadership Team and then be with us when we all meet together.

Barbara: I think there is information that Irma and I have because we have been in on Governing Board meetings that the rest of the Senior Leadership Team doesn’t have.

Nancy shared personally on the recent history of MCC.

Our meeting adjourned with prayer by Onetta Brooks.

20

21