August 2016 Ritual for Business Minutes

Minutes Ritual For Business 8/27/2016

Present: Susi, David, Kimberly, Devin, Erin, Scot, Barbara, Rosemary, Matt

  1. Roles: Erin as Parliamentarian, Barbara as Devil’s Advocate, David as Vibes Watcher, and Kimberly wielded the Spatula.
  2. Chalice: Susi lit the chalice.
  3. Agenda approved.
  4. Minutes from July approved as read.
  5. Treasurer’s report: YTD totals will encompass the actual month of RFB, even though there will usually be another Sunday following. We made ~$71 tabling at First Friday. Barbara reported that tabling fee was only $30, so Lyn owes us $5 back. Devin will pay Church Mutual as soon as he can locate the payment voucher.
    $6781 in the main bank account, the other accounts are unchanged (see report).
  6. Committee Reports:
    1. Communications – Jamie got briefly back on the horse with respect to FB events etc, but this week has been rough.
    2. KidSpace – still rare to have kids, but we’re also not incurring costs. Kimberly asked Devin for a reminder to run his background check.
    3. Ritual Teams – rituals are happening smoothly. Erin noted that she could hear Cathy perfectly clearly during Sunday, even though she was not speaking loudly. There appear to be ‘sweet spots’ of acoustics. Barbara wondered if we know any sound engineers who can help us figure out the space.
    4. Membership – Lena joined the community as expected. We have not seen Isabella of late.
    5. Pretty Committee – putting it officially on hiatus for now.
    6. Social Justice – on August 4th we showed the Air episode of Cooked. 4 people were there.
      On August 10th we held a committee meeting to plan projects in relation to Dionysius; research for those is ongoing. Devin reported that Heifer’s donation for bees has been made, and they sent a thank-you letter.
    7. Stewardship – Stewardship had a meeting, which turned out to be mostly about ways to get more people coming in the door. They talked about doing another theater event in the late winter/early spring (to coincide with the traditional Dionysia).
      The bonfire/storytelling event will happen tonight at David & Kimberly’s house. It will be on the back driveway since the yard is so marshy. If you are coming, bring extra chairs if you have them.
      Jason Lichten suggested to having a ‘Dionysius concert shirt’ for Gaia to honor the year. This was held to be a good idea if we can figure out how to generate the art.
    8. Welcoming – the restroom signs have been installed and look great, though the middle bathroom still needs a Handicapped symbol that David will make to match the others. Barbara also would like to make arrows on the eastern wall of the bathroom bumpout, so people can find the doors more easily.
    9. Site/LLC Liaison – Lyn and Barbara have been communicating regularly through email and text; more rarely does it involve the whole committee membership meeting. Danny reported this morning that he found standing water in places in the building, and mopped it up. There is a new flaw in the west wall paint which seems to be related to a wall leak. Kimberly also reported that there is dampness in our closet, which Danny was aware of. Barbara reported that the building’s concrete block is designed for a desert climate, not a midwestern temperate climate. It is not designed to be waterproof at the level we need! We will need to do some touchup on the north wall, at a minimum. Also the building to the north of us has had their brickwork tagged with graffiti, which may bleed over to us if not cleaned up promptly.
      There is a single new renter, a healer who is using the smallest room upstairs a couple of times a month. There is a homeschooling group that is interested in renting some of the rooms upstairs for Wednesday meetings in the daytime. They are unlikely to want to get exclusive usage, but we might be able to make a partnership arrangement to go in together on getting a kid-friendly room upstairs.
      Barbara is still trying to get a more formal agreement in place among all of the interested parties; Vicky has not made arrangements with her lawyer to progress further on that. Vicky is also still putting in emergency funds on a monthly basis; Kitty is doing her best to track those contributions so everything can be recorded and credited properly.
      Erin reported that there was some confusion/competition with the flute event a couple of weeks ago. They set up a merchandise table downstairs in unclaimed space, and we had to process past them, listen to them play the flutes and chatter. We processed past them, and Danny and Lyn made as much adjustments as they could, and everyone learned from the experience.
      David went to the Manheim meeting; there were about 35 people present, which is a vast improvement over recent months. David suspects that their use of a robodialer is probably contributing to that. They are spending a lot of the general meeting in breakout meetings to get things done..
    10. NomCom – They exist, and will nom if needed. Jan is back in town, so there is no need to worry about her board position.
  7. Old Business
    1. Clothing Exchange – happened on August 11th. Had attendance from many non-Gaians as well as Gaians. Linda took all the donated clothing away.
    2. First Fridays – we tabled last month, made some small sales. Logistically it worked pretty well, though we will not want to try to bring in the same merchandise every month. However we do have some tarot readers and the like who can help vary things. We may be able to have some Day of the Dead stock for October, and Voices of Gaia will be performing in November.
      There was a confusion of communication with Linda that she did not actually have a table space, but it was worked out on the fly.
  8. New Business
    1. Pagan Pride – Kimberly wants more volunteers for Pagan Pride Day; we are staffing an information table, the labyrinth, a discussion forum series (the Pagan Experience), and a table for Dionysius outreach as part of the Pagan Pride Passport program (come chat, get a stamp, collect the whole set). David will make recycling-directions signs for the trash cans to encourage participation.
    2. Meeting Time – Erin proposed moving back to a 4:00 start time, since we no longer have people coming from far away (Lawrence) with small kids. Consensed to do a comment period for a month, and decide on September 24th Ritual for Business. Kimberly will put together a survey instrument again.
  9. Announcements
    1. Devin has arranged to have Prairie Village’s Earth Day involve a Maypole.
    2. SURJ-KC’s LGBTQ focus meeting is Monday night at All Souls.