Your Board of Trustees is hard at work grappling with some challenging issues facing the whole congregation: deciding what kind of Board the congregation needs in order to be efficient and effective so we will work well with our new minister; determining the best staffing structure given the retirement of our Associate Minister, Rev. Judy Tomlinson, in June and the arrival of our new Settled Minister in August; and developing a clear statement on stewardship.
A sub-committee of the Board has been discussing the basics of policy-based governance, its usefulness and challenges to us. In this kind of governance, the Board works with the staff to set vision and direction and proactively develops policies. This kind of governance would represent a shift in how the Board interacts with the congregation. The Board would need to develop a learning plan that could be implemented this spring with the expectation that we’ll work on this area more fully with the new minister in the fall.
The full Board of Trustees has spent a good deal of time and thought recently on what staff configuration is needed to make sure that our Religious Education needs are taken care of as well as other responsibilities such as leadership development, membership, and covenant groups. We are considering whether it is possible for the congregation to be served by a single minister. The Board is making progress on these important staffing decisions!
Finally, what will it take to fully fund our beautiful building, our talented staff, and our plans for the future? One of the things the Board is examining is our culture of stewardship. We want to ensure that our congregation’s financial resources will make it possible to meet the challenges facing us in the future.
Please share your thoughts with your Board members at any time. We will keep you informed on our deliberations as we proceed in the coming months.
Dottie Hiebing
Trustee-at-Large, Board of Trustees