Minutes for Gaia Community Ritual for Business held online on 5-16-2020
Present: Aubry, Barbara, David, Kimberly, Erin, Susi, Matt, Jamie, Kitty, Katie
I Chalice
II Agenda: was confirmed as revised.
III Roles: Vibeswatcher=Susi; spatula=David
IV Secretary’s Report: Minutes from April were approved.
V Treasurer’s Report: We are at 106.29% of pledges YTD; tried to pay Church Mutual but their website was not working. Some suggestions to the sorting of income categories were made. Devin checked post office box yesterday; he is in process of handing Treasurer responsibilities over to David.
VI Committee Reports:
Communications — Some Facebook issues were resolved. There have been challenges with getting Sunday services on the website. Note the Facebook event function has changed so that the Zoom link is hard to find, but it is still there. It was also noted that it seems that the Facebook event function has the “discussion” function turned off or hidden for some people. Kimberly requested everyone notify them if they see an event
Kidspace — no report
Liaison — There’s been no feedback from Equal Minded Café, restaurants have been allowed to open
Membership — Jamie did follow up with Jan to try to schedule a virtual new member class, but has been impeded by events from setting anything up.
NomCom — Results of Elections:
- President, Matt Scrivner;
- Vice President: Erin*;
- Secretary, Barbara;
- Treasurer, David;
- Other Trustees: Jamie, Kitty*.
(*Kitty & Erin are continuing 2 year terms) - Susi & Kitty were elected delegates to GA, and David and Barbara were alternates.
- Leo, Susi, Devin were elected to NomCom
Ritual Teams — Focus on God Auction, proposal to be made under New Business; worked on refinement of Zoom ritual skills. Aubry was consensed back on to Ritual Teams.
Social Justice/Care team — discussed situations of folks whom we have not seen in awhile, and posting links to Harvesters, etc. Joys and concerns has been very well accepted and attended.
Stewardship — addressed in proposals.
VII Old Business
UUA registration for delegates — David and Kimberly reported that they were unable to link to the registration. Erin indicated she was able to use the link but not provide electronic credentials as an official of Gaia. David indicated he would send that information to Erin. Aubry indicated that there are technical requirements needed to be a delegate. It was determined that these problems need to be worked out in a subcommittee of the delegates, alternates & others with information or Power (eg Erin).
VIII New Business
God Auction Proposal: Matt presented the proposal:
In lieu of the traditional God Auction I am proposing a final patron nomination from the final 3 candidates where:
We form 3 ritual teams. Each of those teams crafts a ritual that espouses the core ideal they would put forward for patron nomination in GA form.
These rituals can be presented 7/5, 7/12, and 7/19 in lieu of currently scheduled events depending on in-person rituals/activities.
After each team has had a chance to do their ritual, and share WoD with the community at large via FB and our other dissemination tools, we can take a week-long ballot like we’re doing for community elections.
Consensed
Proposed 2021 budget (2 versions pending GA discussion) A recommendation was made for a change to reflect that we are not paying for room 204 anymore. Discussion included online donations, about $25 per month. It was noted that the budget does still include paying for some childcare. The following revisions were suggested: that new member gifts money be reduced; money restored for annual member gifts; UUA dues or partial dues are $1135. We are not sure what the dues for Region will be. The revised budget will be presented for consensus in June.
UUA remote meeting guidance — It was noted that the UUA recommends suspending in person meeting for the next year; points were made in favor of us complying with this: financially, there is a risk of being sued; music experts have noted the extreme danger of singing; we have working members who will be susceptible to becoming vectors and members and attendees who are vulnerable to severe complications, and members who work with vulnerable populations, etc. Aubry volunteered to do a survey with some of the issues mentioned in the UUA guidance to try to assess how our members and other usual participants feel about these issues. Concerns that were mentioned were primarily focused on the burden on our high-tech-knowledge folks. Some suggestions were mentioned for increasing the Zoom capabilities of some other members.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.