The Parish Committee met on October 18, 2019.
Dwight Gertz and Tim Moynihan were unable to attend. Rev. Rankin, Peter Sugar (Facilities), Ralph Smith (Personnel), Sarah Andrysiak (Generous Giving), Gert McDermott (Administrator), Becca Fasciano, Chris Hamilton, Ken Hurd, Kathy Huber (Transition Team) were present.
Summary of Business
The PC voted to increase the hours of Sarah Klockowski to allow her to assume the responsibilities for Youth Ministry that had been budgeted in RE, but unfilled for some time.
The Personnel Committee has been diligently at work under Ralph Smith’s direction. This group was involved in the reworking of Sarah’s position and creating a methodology and process for evaluating our Interim Minister and Parish Administrator. As part of the latter, the job description and scope of the Parish Administrator will be updated and revised as appropriate. The PC heard productive reports by the Transition Team, Facilities Committee and Generous Giving.
Facilities
Peter Sugar (Facilities Chair) reported on several projects that the committee is managing. The playground project has work to be done in terms of visioning and scope. Questions about public versus private use need to be resolved first by the Playground Planning Committee. These have implications for equipment and cost. Design issues also need resolution. The Playground Committee needs to evaluate the possibility of a supervised ‘Community Construction’ project versus a professional one. Also, the PC will reach out to see if the town is interested in partnering in creating a public option. A meeting of the Parks and Recreation Committee will schedule a discussion for this.
The parking lot has one bid for its repair that is approximately $22k-28k. Three bids would be optimal, and the additional bids are being sought. The Roof Project is to follow the same process of soliciting three bids. The Facilities Committee will pursue that along with the possibility of bringing Air Conditioning into the Parish Offices.
Transition Team
The Transition Team met with the PC to review their plan and to discuss avenues for collaboration, in addition to the timeline and outline that was distributed. The group thought that a discussion of Parish Finances, Settled Minister’s Salary, Parish membership and size, and the use of FPL’s financial resources would be important to address. This will be scheduled in keeping with the TT’s outline for discussion.
The TT feels very engaged with the Parish as it moves forward to select a new Settled Minister. They feel the enthusiasm of the congregation and its openness to examining ways to improve and to evolve. The TT would like the Search Committee selected by May, 2020, and they would like the compensation package for our new minister in the same timeframe. This falls to the PC to accomplish.
Generous Giving Plans
Sarah Andrysiak presented a thoughtful and thorough plan for Generous Giving that relies on creating multiple ways of engaging the congregation. A number of parish members have volunteered to advise and collaborate with Sarah as she creates opportunities for visiting, meeting in small groups and listening to the parish about their various ways of supporting the growth and work of FPL.
The parish will soon learn about the Generous Giving plans for the year.
Church Leaders Meeting
In an effort to increase collaboration among church committees, a meeting of the Church Committee Leaders will take place on October 30 at 6:00pm. This meeting will hear about the priorities that each committee has before them and discuss how each can further the general aim of engaging the greater Lincoln community in order to increase church membership.
Personnel
In addition to increasing Sarah Klockowski’s hours to include responsibility for youth ministry, the Personnel Committee has developed a structure and method for evaluating the job performance of both Pastor Rankin and Gert McDermott. The latter will also address the questions about the Parish Administrator’s job definition and scope in that were raised in the Annual Report. The Personnel Committee is, also, working on rewriting the Personnel and Policies Handbook.
There is one open position on the Parish Committee that is being addressed.
Meeting adjourned at 8:10 p.m.
Respectfully,
Nick Covino for the Parish Committee
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