Minutes
Board of Trustees
First Unitarian Society
Madison, Wisconsin
April 18, 2007
7:00
p.m.
Lower
Meeting House
Present:
Officers:
Pat Anderson, President
Laurie Joiner, President-Elect
Sue Radtke, Treasurer
Alan Knox, Past President
Tom Detmer, Secretary
Council Trustees:
Kathy Luker
John Mathis
Nancy Kosseff
Jim Christensen
Barb Avery
Chris Glueck
Ministers:
Michael Schuler, Minister
Kelly Crocker, Associate Minister
Scott Prinster, Associate Minister
Staff:
Susan Koenig, Church Administrator
Observers:
Paula Alt, Nominations Committee
Brian Hellmer, Foundation
Dick Goldberg, Foundation
Gary Leisman, Music Committee
CALL TO ORDER
After an
opening by Nancy Kosseff, Pat Anderson called the meeting to order at
7:00 p.m..
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
Pat Anderson asked for a motion to approve the April 4, 2007 minutes. It was MOVED by Jim Christensen and seconded by Kathy Luker to approve the minutes. A correction is needed to change the date of the previously approved minutes. The Motion was unanimously APPROVED.
NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE REPORT
Paula Alt presented the slate of candidates for the Board, Council Chairs, and Committee Chairs. There are a few remaining openings but almost all of the positions are filled. The parish meeting date will be May 20, 2007 when this slate will be presented to the parish. It was unanimously agreed that Paula and her committee has done an excellent job in finding candidates for the open positions. This is always a challenging task and the nominations committee is to be commended.
LOAN RECOMMENDATION AND APPROVAL
Dick Goldberg passed out the Facilities Finance Committee report. The committee has developed a model that should assist us in a number of ways financially over the coming years. A recommendation is being made to accept a loan by the M&I Bank. Several local banks were asked to provide bids to make a loan to the Society. The committee asked for a number of things in the $5 million loan. The M&I Bank met all of the criteria that we seek. The Bank of New Glarus was also very good but they are smaller and may have less flexibility in the future due to their size. We would be stretching their capitalization. They are to be commended in their effort to work with us. However to make a loan to us they would have to partner with two other banks.
M&I provides us with the flexibility to get our capital in our location as well as providing the stability and customer service we are looking for. They had the best spread, which is the best rate added to potential future loan rates, if we decide to refinance due to lower long term rates.
We have a proposal from M&I Bank based on a credit line of $6 million that gives us plenty of cushion. We do not expect to use the full amount of the credit line.
The Bank of New Glarus worked hard as did M&I to provide competitive bids. We appreciate the work that was done by them.
Chris Glueck MOVED and Nancy Kosseff seconded that the Society proceed with the proposal to use M&I Bank. The motion CARRIED.
REQUEST TO USE OUR FACILITIES BY SHAAREI SHAMAYIM
Michael gave some background on the Shaarei Shamayim congregation. Their
spiritual tradition is probably the closest to us of those in the Jewish
faith tradition. There is the possibility of substantial collaboration
with us. The downside is that is creates administrative complexity. We
might want to try a limited term arrangement with them first to see how things
work between us.
This would be for both their benefit and ours.
We should project out our calendar with the calendar of Shaarei Shamayim to see how they overlap. Michael and Susan will work on this.
The initial decision at this point is simply to decide if we are open to continued discussions with Shaarei Shamayim and to consideration of a mutual arrangement. At this point we are not committing to anything. We are only deciding to continue discussions. The Board believes we should continue to do that.
BREAK
BUDGET
Susan said that what we need to do is think philosophically. Do we want to consider the deficit in the annual budget for this coming year to be part of the cost of the building because it is really a capital cost? This is one idea that has been proposed by the finance council. The deficit is caused this coming year because of a loss of revenue streams that we normally have, i.e. the parking revenue and the Meeting House Nursery School revenue. If we had that revenue, we would already have a balanced budget.
On May 2 we need to look at how the canvass is doing and how the building budget is shaping up. The pledges have been generous but we have run behind in the number of pledging units who have pledged to date.
The budget will be re-examined on May 2.
CALENDAR
The parish meeting is moved to May 20th. There are June 6th, July 18th and August 15th Board meetings. There will be a leadership retreat on August 4th and on September 15th there will be a Board planning retreat.
POLICY GOVERNANCE DISCUSSION
The Board wants to take up discussion of the policies section of a policy governance document. Not enough Board members have their copies of the document for a discussion at this meeting so this will be discussed at the May 2 meeting. All Board members need to bring the policy governance documents next time.
CLOSED SESSION
ADJOURNMENT
MOTION by
to adjourn.
CARRIED
Meeting was adjourned at 9:00 p.m.
Minutes by, Tom Detmer, First Unitarian Society Board Secretary
