May 2016 Ritual for Business Minutes

Minutes for the Ritual For Business on 5/28/2016

Present: Erin, Susi, Katie, Jan, David, Kimberly, Gary

1. Roles: David as Parliamentarian, Erin as Devil’s Advocate, Jan as Vibes Watcher, and Katie wielded the Spatula.
2. Chalice: Susi lit the chalice.
3. Agenda was approved as read, with the exception that NomCom does not need to formally report now since they are working on a proposal for their processes.
4. Minutes from March were read and approved. The election results were also read, as that was all the business conducted in April.
5. Treasurer’s report: Erin reported that John and Devin were unable to go to the bank to get the names transferred; old names need to be taken off first before we can add anyone else. Susi will talk to John and get things cleared up.
6. Committee Reports:
   1. Communications – Jamie will be putting out the EH on the 12th; anyone who has a blurb or other information put in should get it to her by the 10th.
   2. KidSpace – there haven’t been kids present of late.
   3. Ritual Teams – Ritual Teams has been dealing with the upstairs-downstairs shell game. Next month’s meeting (June 1st) will be for fall titling.
   4. Membership – two people will be taking the class soon. We will need to have Ritual Teams schedule a NMS!
   5. Pretty Committee – on hold while the building is being rebuilt.
   6. Social Justice – April’s viewing of A Place At The Table had five people there, and seven people came to Fresh in May. June 2nd there will be a showing of the first episode of Cooked, at Kimberly’s house.
      Kimberly has been talking to After The Harvest and has proposed a date for going out; there has been a snarl of scheduling since they want to know who is coming before they reserve a date, but our people don’t know if they can go before there’s a date! Kimberly will just pick one of the open dates and go with it.
   7. Stewardship – Pledge Drive has occurred, and a preliminary budget has been prepared (see New Business). They are talking about doing a smaller fundraiser this summer, as a storytelling bonfire.
      There was some interest in bringing back the Shakespeare event, or Longest Night (or some other ball). Kimberly will get an open stewardship meeting scheduled after Sunday sometime.
   8. Welcoming – Kimberly reported that we chosen not to participate in the Unity Sunday welcoming event we were solicited for, when we found it will have a monthly ongoing cost to be part of their group.
   9. Site/LLC Liaison – The bathrooms downstairs are being reconfigured, probably for ADA compliance. There may be a third bathroom added, on the side closer to the garage room.
      No liaison meeting has been held recently, but they are trying to schedule one. Jan asked if there were any agenda items to be brought up. David asked what the configuration/purpose of the front room is going to be; Jan reported that it will be a shop for consignment goods, and a coffee shop in the north section. Susi asked for a more specific and concrete plan of what is coming for the building. Jan also reported that Paul Goldman’s event at First Friday went well, about 30 people were here. There will be another one on the First Friday of June.
      David did not attend Manheim’s meeting this month due to a scheduling conflict.
   10. NomCom – no one present, but they sent a report that they are planning ways to reconfigure their membership requirements and processes. They will present that soon.
7. Old Business
8. New Business
   1. Budget – Kimberly presented the draft budget. Pledges are up slightly over last year, so the overall budget is slightly larger. There are two or three people still outstanding to pledge. UUA and Regional dues are now proposed to be a fair share again. The budget item for a storage space for ritual teams has been removed again, since that did not actually happen.
      Fundraising expenses is still in the budget at $1000 in case we need it to do a more extravagant event; last year we only spent about $200.
      Due to the fact that the UUA has recorded our Certified Members at 33, so our fair share contribution will be $1,980 unless we can get it corrected to 23 members. Regional dues will be $792.
   2. Elections – Erin wants to explore changing the way elections are conducted, since it seems needlessly complicated when we usually have just one person running for any given position. David explained that the current process is a simplification of the older ballot procedure, and was designed to avoid some confusion/conflict between particular roles. Since NomCom is already looking at changes to their own procedures, these changes should be combined into one bylaws update.