Tag Archives: AA

September 2018 FRLC Board Minutes

Thursday, September 6, 2018

Seven members were present. Check-in and opening prayer were held.

 Minutes: The minutes from July and August were received.

 

Treasurer’s Report: We had the ordinary expenses and income. The current balance is $235.83, which is less than the $300 monthly stipend. There are a number of changes happening.  The account at Wells Fargo has been closed and the funds moved to the Star Credit Union. Brian would like to transition out of his role as treasurer. He has served in that capacity for ten years. He is willing to remain on the board. He is willing to be flexible so there can be a smooth transition. Bohdan expressed appreciation for his service and the board expressed thanks for his faithful work, including writing the annual appeal letters. The Board needs to discuss maintaining our general account and ways to manage it. There has been discussion of taking an offering for the FRLC general fund at the closing of the Conference. Brian will participate in the FRLC Annual Meeting in person or by phone. The meeting is scheduled for 1:00 pm Sunday, September 30, following the Conference. There will be opportunity to elect new treasurer at that point and have a smooth handoff.

 

Coordinator’s Report: The FRLC is doing what it normally does. We have more members attending the conference than we’ve had at a retreat in a long time. About twenty FRLC members are registered. Ed noted that we have been low on funds before and that people have responded when we share the need. We haven’t asked for funds for the Fellowship in a while as the focus has been on undergirding the Conference. The Conference is raising our profile in the church relative to where we’ve been before.

 

The Conference is snow-balling. It’s a lot of work and we have a lot of great people stepping up to it. Others are taking care of the details Ed would never have thought of. God is watching over us! Our registrations are nearly full–we have capacity for 200. There are only 5 or 6 spots left. The rooms reserved for the Conference are all taken. We have over 135 room nights booked and have more than fulfilled our hotel contract, which obligated us to pay for unsold rooms if we did not meet the minimum. The speakers have all been contacted and are all confirmed. It looks like we will break even and maybe even come out a little bit ahead financially. The FRLC retreat will begin Thursday, tentative plans for dinner at 5:30 pm. Roger and Melanie have developed a draft schedule for the retreat which will be sent out be email once it is finalized. They had some questions, which Ed will respond to soon.

 

There will be a work party at Transfiguration all day Thursday before the Conference preparing materials for the participants.  All are welcome—Ed offered to provide rides (or arrange for them) from the airport as needed. There is an online app called “Sched” for conference information, which can be downloaded now. An email went out to people who are registered for the Conference but it is easy to miss in the inbox. Ed is still working on it and will send it out a few more times before the Conference. It would be helpful for us to try it out and give Ed feedback.

 

He is developing a list of people who will be there to volunteer at the Conference. He will assign tasks to people who are attending, and then answer questions when we arrive. People can trade tasks at that time if necessary.

 

Prayers are requested for Ed in these final weeks of preparing for the Conference.

 

If anyone wants to go off the board, it would be helpful to know between now and the Conference so we could be prepared for elections at the Annual Meeting.

 

Tom closed the meeting with prayer.

 

We will discuss our next meeting date at the Annual Meeting. It will likely be in November.

 

 

FRLC Board Meeting Thursday, December 7, 2016

            Check In & Prayer: Seven board members were present. We shared, celebrated and prayed.

Minutes from the November Meeting: approved as written.

 

Treasurer’s report: We had a good response to the appeal. Donations of $1499.11 came in, giving us a balance of $2012.29. $500 of that is for the Conference. The treasurer will break out the Conference funding in his report in the future. The coordinator has another $700 in donations to the Fellowship to forward to the treasurer.

Paypal button: The information needed to open the account was sent to our original webmaster, but last month we decided to forward the information to the person we are working with on the Conference website. The coordinator and original webmaster both got locked out of the FRLC website. They suspect the website got moved somehow although that is not supposed to be possible. The coordinator entered the site and updated a few things using the secretary’s username and password. He has a list of things to work on with the Conference website developer and will follow up on the PayPal button with her.

 

            Coordinator’s report: He receives the donations and forwards them to the treasurer, who deposits and records the gifts and sends out the thank you notes. We had a good turnout at the recovery meeting today. Everyone was asked to preview the Conference website: www.addictionandfaithconference.com/ There are still a couple typos to fix before it “goes live”, but the consensus is that it looks good. We have not confirmed Lori Swanson at this time, so she may not be on the program. He is waiting for that to be sorted out before going forward with the website. Neither synodical bishops will be able to attend as our conference conflicts with the Conference of Bishops meeting. They have offered to send staff to bring greetings, but the coordinator wondered about having interfaith greetings instead. Transfiguration Lutheran Church has a couple thousand dollars in their budget to support recovery ministries which will be designated to the Conference this year. A board member did a funeral for an overdose victim and the family designated the memorial gifts of $3600 to go to it also. We need a major sponsor of about $10,000 to help promote the event and allow us to conclude without major debt. We could use help from any board member who would like to work on obtaining sponsors. We are still talking with Hazelden; Fairview said they’d help some, Bishop Lull said she will approach some potential donors, and the secretary is writing a proposal for funding from the ELCA Deaconesses. The coordinator has a description of the Conference with a list of items a donor could sponsor which he will send to anyone who would like to help. They could also sponsor a vendor table. Another board member will contact a few people and find out where they get their funding and see if there are any avenues there we could pursue.

                       

Old Business: Covered in reports.

 

New Business:

It was moved, seconded and passed to move the board meeting to after the recovery meeting on the first Thursday of the month. It was more convenient for most people and we had a better attendance at both the recovery meeting and the board meeting. The motion passed.

We closed the meeting in prayer.

 

Next meeting: Thursday January 4, 2018 following the recovery meeting 11:00 am PDT/12:00 pm MDT/1 pm CDT/2:00 pm EDT 12:00 pm

May 2017 Board Minutes

FRLC Board Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

2:00 pm MDT/3 pm CDT/1:00 pm PDT/4:00 pm EDT

 

Ed and Melanie were the only ones on the call, so we talked and I took notes but it wasn’t really an official meeting.

 

We agreed that Dave C. could represent us at the ELCA Rostered Leaders Gathering in Atlanta. He has gotten the ok to have an FRLC “Affinity Group” at the event. He was not sure if he would be able to go. I let him know he had our “seal of approval” and asked that he let me know whether he is going or not. If anyone else is interested in representing us there (we have no funds to support you in this), please let me know.

 

We discussed the 2018 lay retreat. We received confirmation of the Memorandum of Agreement from Nadia Bolz-Weber’s agent:

 

Melanie:

We have received your contract. You are officially on Nadia’s schedule for April 13-14, 2018! Please find her Bio and photo attached for any of your marketing efforts.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely, Lisa

 

These dates are confirmed for the Double Tree Inn in Bloomington, MN. There is a free airport shuttle.

 

Nadia will be speaking Friday evening and Saturday morning. Other speakers include Don Shelby, a local newscaster in recovery, and William C. Moyers of Hazelden.

 

Ed and Arthur are meeting with two people at Hazelden tomorrow–the pastor who attended our retreat and their publicity person. They will be discussing vendors, networking and potential workshop leaders at the first meeting and publicity efforts through Hazelden as well as the church at the second. Ed prepared a first draft brochure to help our partners understand what we are doing, which is attached below. Please note that the schedule for the speakers in the brochure is incorrect–Nadia’s time slots are as described above.

 

Joy has the information to access the website to work on publicity also.

 

The local retreat committee will be meeting next week, on May 18.

 

We adjourned our meeting around 2:30 pm Mountain time.

 

Next meeting: June 7, 2017 2:00 pm MDT/2 pm CDT/1:00 pm PDT/3:00 pm EDT 12:00 pm

 

 

 

 

March 2017 Board Meeting Minutes

 

 

FRLC Board Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

 

            Check In & Prayer Brian, Roger, Melanie, Joel, Bohdan, Arthur, Ed, Tom.

Tom led us in prayer.

 

Approval of Minutes from last meeting January’s minutes were approved.

Annual meeting minutes yet to come.

 

Treasurer’s report was sent by email. Balance at the beginning of the meeting was $ 2275.51.

There was a deposit from the retreat of $4225 that was included in the updated report, giving a balance of $6500.51. There is one outstanding check to Mount Olivet Retreat Center for $4979.96. One more check for the retreat has not been deposited. We broke even on the retreat.

 

            Coordinator’s report: The retreat was well attended and inspirational. One participant’s first day sober was at the retreat and he remained sober throughout. There was a lot of visioning for the future, including developing a retreat and fellowship for laity in recovery. We met with several guests including staff from the Minneapolis and St. Paul Synods and Hazelden, and a professional fund raiser. The message from our guests was there is so much potential left in our current fellowship that they encouraged us to focus on this work and not on expanding the new fellowship for laity in recovery. There was a lot to think about. Retreatants regrouped and decided to go ahead and plan a retreat for Lutheran Laity in Recover next year. A team was formed with several local people plus at least one person who will participate in meetings electronically. Joy, Jim, Beth, Arthur, Roger are on the team and will meet March 16 at 9 am. Dates were proposed and the group a decided on the Minneapolis area for a location, with a preference for holding it at the Mount Olivet Retreat Center. There are no available dates at Mt. Olivet that will work for us. Melanie sent an email to a potential speaker’s booking agent but has not heard back from her.

Otherwise, the Coordinator had routine contacts, finding the work for the retreat to be satisfying. He has some checks to send to Brian.

                       

Old Business:

            Thank you to people going off of the board (Melanie): John W., Mary S. and Gary G. were thanked for their service. John responded with an email which was shared at the meeting.

 

New Business:

            PayPay button on website Our Coordinator asked if this would be possible at the conclusion of the retreat. Our web guru said she could do it but would need us to have a PayPal account and document our 501(c)3 status. Discussion included potential costs, that it may generate new donations, that we could encourage current donors to continue to give the way they do now, and that it would give potential donors another option—we might get impulse givers or use it in an email appeal—where they could give with one or two clicks. It would be good to get it in place if we grow. There were questions about how it works for the administrator. One member suggested there are other brands that deal with donations, which we could look into. Arthur can email a site with option for PayPal account or credit card. Brian will research this before the next meeting. Melanie will send Bea’s contact information.

 

            Thursday meetings—schedule leaders: Retreat participants were invited to be added to the chairperson’s schedule and current chairpersons were asked if they would like to continue. All of the current group is continuing and we have one new person for the list. The schedule will be emailed to the chairpersons when it is complete.

 

            Revising the Board: The secretary will send an inquiry to all new board members regarding contact information for a list to be used amongst the board and also what information they would like listed on the website.

 

Newsletter articles: We have frequently done a post retreat with reflections about that experience. New board members who attended the retreat are asked to write up a story (250-500 words) about the experience and what it meant for them. Anyone else is welcome to do so also. (Secretary’s addition: in the past we have also invited new board members to write a brief article introducing themselves, along with why you chose to serve on the board and what you hope to accomplish by doing so. While we didn’t discuss this and the meeting, it would be helpful should you choose to do so. The biggest challenge for the newsletter and e-blasts has been getting articles to include in them.)

 

Spreading the word: Joel offered to work on ideas on how to get the word out about our existence—to seminaries, Synods, etc. He will develop an email and send it out to the board members for feedback before the next meeting.

 

  • Next meeting date: April 5, 2017  2:00 pm MDT/3 pm CDT/1:00 pm PDT/4:00 pm EDT

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Works if You Work it!

One of the pitfalls to being in a “helping profession” is my tendency to neglect my own needs. Someone once told me people in helping professions go into those professions precisely because they need the help themselves. And rather than getting the help they so desperately need, they end up helping others, thinking this will satisfy their needs.  Perhaps ministers go into the ministry because it is they who need to hear the gospel so much.  In any case, as a recovering person and as a minister, I need to remember that unless I meet my own needs I cannot meet anyone else’s. As Jesus said, “Take the log out of your own eye first.”  My recovery has to come first before I can be of any use to anyone else. This means my meetings must be a priority, the steps need to be my daily habit.

People say it is a selfish program and there is much truth to that. By being selfish about my recovery, by addressing my issues first, I am in a better position to serve others. By putting my recovery first, I am putting others first.

Brother Lawrence, a monastic from the 17th century made this observation once: “It was lamentable to see how many people mistook the means for the end, addicting themselves to certain works, which they performed very imperfectly, by reason of their human or selfish regards.”  Brother Lawrence was talking about how in the name of feeding others we begin to imagine we are being fed by our actions – we become so preoccupied with forming committees, serving on boards and dealing with crises we start to see ourselves as principal actors instead of people who need to be acted upon (works, righteousness, idolatry).

My meetings feed me and keep me humble. Working the steps keeps me growing in communion with God.

They have a wonderful saying at the end of my regular meeting. Usually, after the Lord’s prayer you hear, “Keep coming back, it works if you work it.” At my home group they add this line: “Keep coming back, it works if you work it, and it sucks if you don’t.”

Ain’t that the truth!

Ed T., Editor