Present: Ed, Bohdan, Tom, Melanie

Discussion:
FRLC Annual Meeting: We will not be able to meet at the Rostered Ministers Gathering as it has been cancelled. We will meet by Zoom instead, during the time scheduled for original Gathering. The meeting will be on Tuesday, July 21 from 1:00 PM-3:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time. Bohdan will set up and host the zoom. Ed will email an invitation to the meeting to the whole fellowship. Melanie & Ed will put together an agenda. We discussed how to get all the board members to participate.

Zoom recovery meeting: A member asked about the possibility of doing the recovery meeting on Zoom. This came up in one of the Thursday meetings earlier this year and we intended to discuss it at the annual meeting. The RMEC (Episcopal group) has a Zoom recovery meeting for both laity and clergy, which had their first meeting last night. Some of our members value the anonymity of the phone meeting. We will explore inviting the FRLC members to the RMEC Zoom while maintaining the current phone meeting. Several people thanked Ed for reminding them of the Thursday meeting. He is considering sending a recurring email to the group for that purpose.

Coordinator’s report The 501c3 application for the Center on Addiction & Faith has been submitted and is in process. He continues to meet with the Advisory group and the future Board of Center. They are two separate groups with some overlap. The Advisory group will meet on a less frequent basis for visioning and reflection on the “big picture”, while the Board oversees the operation.
There is $5,558 currently in the Center’s account, although there will be refunds coming for canceled travel. The bulk of the funds are going to web developer, which is essential for this web-based program. Ed has been doing a lot of writing for the website and developing literature for the organization. He was advised to develop a personal professional website also and will send a link to our board members for our review and input.
They are working on an organizational structure in which the Center would be a non-profit organization and Ed would form a LLC (Limited Liability Corporation) through which he would provide work to the Center on a contractual basis. This allows them to receive both the benefits of being a non-profit and of being private.

The next Addiction & Faith Conference will be February 11-13, 2021.

Ed realized that one of the challenges of working with the church has been that they just don’t have a “box” for addiction ministries, so they never know where to put us. A motion was prepared and was approved by Ed’s conference that the Minneapolis Synod establish a Task Force on Addiction. Reference & Counsel gave it a positive review and ruled that that the Synod Council has the authority to approve it. It will be presented at the next Synod Council meeting, with Ed participating by Zoom. We hope it will create a model for other synods to follow.

He has experienced some frustration with fundraising, as he needs to do the initial meeting with funders face-to-face. He is using this time to build the infrastructure for the Center.

He was exploring locating the Center at Augsburg University as they have the largest collegiate recovery program in the country. This would allow access to student help with marketing, business items and the website and Ed may be able to provide some services to the college. He would also be able to stay on the clergy roster if this happens. Unfortunately, his contact’s position was eliminated before their meeting. Fortunately, Bishop Lull is on their board. She recommended patience as the college is preoccupied with moving online and adjusting to the current context.

There was no treasurer’s report this month, although Louise contacted Melanie regarding the delay in receiving the funds from FaceBook/Network for Good.

Kirk sent an email to Melanie and Ed, expressing his love for the Fellowship and difficulty with making meetings at the current time. Upon review, he is open to either remaining on the board in name only or resigning. One other board member has difficulty with this schedule. We did not resolve this matter as we ran out of time on the call.

Bohdan will schedule and host the next meeting on Zoom.