Check In & Prayer: Anonymous, Arthur, Bohdan, Ed, Melanie, Brian were present. Anonymous opened with prayer.

Minutes from the January Meeting were approved.

Treasurer’s report:  Detail will be sent by email. Balance is roughly $2300 in checking account. The bills are paid, no extraordinary expenses. Newsletter bill is paid. Question about how to handle the retreat account.

Coordinator’s report: The Conference planning committee has been very active. There is a committee member who is a CPA and is in recovery who volunteered to handle conference finances. They opened an account at a bank near Ed’s church under the auspices of the FRLC, using the FRLC EIN number. Ed and Arthur are the signers on the account, although Ed cannot write checks to himself. The CPA is overseeing it and will assist in the tax reporting. It was moved to approve this arrangement for the conference and for Brian to close the additional account he began for this purpose. Brian will send the money designated for the conference to Ed to deposit in this account. The recent mailing was for the conference and was paid for out of the general funds. Brian will take that amount out of the conference donations and send the balance to Ed to be deposited in the conference account. Past retreats have been funded by participants, so it makes sense to keep these funds separate. The motion was approved.

We have about $20,000 on hand for the conference so far. There was a mailing to the FRLC to come a day early, stay a day late and help facilitate the conference, also encouragement to give financial support to the conference.  We received a gift from a church for $500 to help sponsor the conference almost immediately. Roger is making personal calls to about 40 FRLC members to follow up on the letter.

We spent $10,000 on promotion, including a full page ad in the Phoenix Spirit https://thephoenixspirit.com/  for June/July, a two month contract with Living Lutheran (July & August) for half page ads and possibly an article to go with them, and an e-blast to the Christian Century email list that went out today. The Minneapolis area Synod is working with Ed on an article, Ed and Gretchen E. are working on an article for Caring Connections, targeting Lutheran Chaplains and others. We wrote grant applications to Thrivent ($5,000) and Minneapolis Synod for $20,000. Ed has filmed two promotional videos which are being shared on FaceBook and other places. The planning committee has been attending many church and recovery events giving presentations and hosting display tables.

We have received a grant for 10 scholarships, primarily for parish nurses, and are working on guidelines for the scholarships. We are encouraging people to ask their church to help sponsor them also.

There is a volunteer working with the conference FaceBook page, and another volunteer working with the hotel and utilization of space. We have over 40 registrations at present. It is amazing, exciting, and we are really feeling the Spirit!

The article in the Living Lutheran on the opioid crisis was noted.

When we get together in the fall, come with ideas on next steps for the FRLC. Is it a new direction or a one-time thing? Please start thinking about our vision for the Fellowship. Could this become an annual event? Is that too much? Do we want to think about doing it regionally? Do we want to approach the ELCA about a position to develop recovery ministry in the ELCA?

Arthur shared his experience promoting the conference at his church. Their Addictions Awareness team advocated for it and the congregation voted to fund some scholarships. It was interested to hear the discussion and to have regular church members discuss it and promote it. Lay people in recovery will give us a much broader reach. This experience could be replicated in other churches—encourage churches to send a couple lay leaders as well as the pastor. A team can have a much larger impact. He suggested a “how to promote this in your congregation” link on our website. We are figuring it out as we go.

Ed will send a detailed list of grants and contributions to the board along with our “break even” number (the number of registrations needed to pay our expenses).

We are appreciative of the good work Ed, Arthur and the planning committee are doing. 

Old Business: September retreat: see above.

New Business:  Next meeting date: Thursday July 5, 12:00 pm MDT/1:00 pm CDT/11:00 pm PDT/2:00 pm EDT