FRLC Board Meeting Minutes

Thursday, February 7, 2019

1:00 pm MDT/2:00 pm CDT/12:00 pm PDT/3:00 pm EDT

 

Present: Ed, Bohdan, Tom, Melanie, Beth, Arthur

 

Check-in happened. Tom opened in prayer.

 

Minutes: January’s minutes were received.

 

Treasurer’s Report: The person who is handling the Conference account agreed to handle the FRLC account. There is $1,693.28 in the Conference account and $3,605.83 in the FRLC account. There will an adjustment to both accounts as the coordinator’s stipend was taken from wrong account. In the past, when a non-FRLC member served as treasurer, the Board received a written monthly report on the finances. We will ask her to do the same and request that it be submitted prior to the Board meeting.

 

Coordinator’s Report: We have a new agent for the FRLC to maintain our non-profit status, replacing the former agent who died last year. Roger contacted a member in that state, Kathy B., who agreed to take it on.

He is working with a CPA in his congregation to work on the FRLC taxes, which will be different this year because of the Conference.

The Conference website is up to date as is the FaceBook page and Eventbrite registration. Registration opened February 4. We have sold four tickets in the last three days. Board members are encouraged to register as early as possible to assist in cash flow. Board members are also asked to consider organizing a group from your congregation, to promote the Conference in your area and to ask your church to consider funding scholarships is they can’t send a group. Melanie reported that she and Rob are discussing a booth at the Montana Synod Assembly. If you have ideas for potential sponsoring organizations, please let Ed know. Our fundraiser can follow up with them. There will be a flyer promoting sponsorships directed for treatment centers and other recovery related businesses and a different one for churches. The cost of sponsorship and display space will be increased this year. Ed is excited about the speakers and hotel space. We have contracted with the hotel for 300 participants and have the capacity to expand up to 500 if needed.

He met with several people from the Recovery Ministries of the Episcopal Church. They are working with us on the Addiction and Faith Conference instead of doing their own annual gathering. They typically have 100 people attend their event. They are going to publicize the Addiction and Faith Conference within their church body and work on sponsorships for the event. They discussed working with both denominations (Episcopal & ELCA) to fund this ministry. They are great to work with and very responsive. Their organization is for both clergy and laity but they have focused primarily on clergy at their event, which has typically ended Saturday night so the priests could return to their churches for Sunday morning worship. Both organizations have focused on people in recovery in the past, but since we are reaching out to people who aren’t in recovery Ed is advocating for the schedule as planned. They need to have a liturgical recovery service at the Conference. It is scheduled to be led by the Episcopalians Friday night after the last speaker. They want to arrive on Thursday to do business and to have some workshops on Friday so participants can leave Saturday night. Ed thinks we can accommodate this.

The biggest challenge at the moment is getting the cash in to fund the publicity. There are some events Ed would like to attend to promote the conference but we need to be able to pay for them.

The FRLC webpage can be transferred to Ed at any time. In the meantime Melanie will ask Bea to update the page with this year’s dates and a link to the Conference website.

A question was asked about having the information from last year available on the website. We will link the flyer from last year for those who would like access to that information

The local planning team met once. Ed asked the people who were on it last year about their involvement this time and did not get a lot of response. He will follow up with them. The first meeting was attended mostly by people who are working on things already. The next meeting will be 3:00 pm, Monday, February 18 (President’s Day).

The board expressed appreciation for the efforts of our coordinator and his associate to continue this partnership.

 

New business:

Newsletter: The coordinator will work on getting one ready with a brief summary of the last Conference and flyer about this one.

 

Board Member attendance: As our constitutional definition of a quorum is a majority of the members of the board, it may become problematic having a number of board members who do not participate in the meetings. We will review the requirements stated in the bylaws and discuss this at the March meeting.

 

Ed led the closing prayer.

 

Next regular Board meeting: Thursday, March 7, 2019.

12:00 pm PST/1:00 pm MST/2:00 pm CST/3:00 pm EST

Call in number: 605-475-6333 Access code: 53120#