Deacon Meeting Minutes

July 25, 2004

Westminster Presbyterian Church 

The meeting was called to order at 7:03 PM by Moderator Shayne Ruffing.  Attending were Anthony Dilweg, Dan Milam, Shayne Ruffing, Elena Cleary, Bill Scott, Morris Griffin, Mitch Dozier, David Calderwood, Kay Rosenmarkle, Sara Pottenger. 

Dan Milam offered an opening prayer. 

Concerns and Celebrations: 

Leslie Dorminey is ill; Gerry Green’s father passed away and the funeral was earlier today.  Doug Wellemeyer’s daughter is getting married this evening. 

Approval of the minutes of the 6/27 meeting was deferred as no quorum was present. 

Old Business:

The 2005 budget was reviewed and tweaked slightly to include the following changes:

1)      $500 was added to the Deacon’s discretionary budget

2)      $1000 was proposed and agreed to for an “inreach” category, purpose to be determined but likely to include congregational outings to Presbyterian Point and other activities

3)      The WPC Seminary Student Scholarship line item was added back, pending a search for it in another area of the budget.

However, no action was taken on these items because no quorum was present. 

The continuing saga of the WPC IHN basket donation would have been resolved by the suggestion that we use $300 of Deacon’s Discretionary funds for the purpose of putting together a basket for IHN’s fundraiser.  However, no quorum was present to vote on this resolution, so we’ll unfortunately have to talk about it again. 

There was no report from the Benevolence Review Committee.  

Elena, new chair of the Mission Focus team, reported on the committee’s transition to the new Deacon year and reminded the group that the 2004 mission focus “Women and Children in Crisis” continues until 12/31.  She announced that the next WPC community mission day will be Oct 9^th, and she invited Deacons to join the committee to help select and organize our mission focus for 2005.  In addition, ideas for the 2005 mission focus were solicited. 

Presentation:

Dorene Palermo, WPC member and Board member of the Presbyterian Campus ministry at NCCU, offered her insight on the program that Linda Parker, Presbyterian campus minister, described to us last month to involve NCCU Presbyterian students in setting up a peer mentoring program for drop-out teenage mothers.   NCCU Presbyterian outreach in the past several years focused on fellowship and foreign mission trips. The previous program leader was not ordained and worked within the framework of the United Campus Ministries, a situation that Linda’s ministry has not had the opportunity to enjoy.  Linda has undertaken a long and arduous journey on faith, and her most formidable obstacles include lack of office space, lack of funding and support, and the perception of her newcomer status as a relative threat to the established ministries at NCCU.  Her Board includes 3 Covenant Pres Church reps, a student member, a Church of Reconciliation member, Dorene, and until recently, David Calderwood.  Dorene’s “take” on this program is that it’s success depends on several factors: a good near-campus location to attract and be utilized by students, ongoing financial support, and the encouragement of churches such as WPC.  Linda has identified drop-outs who need help, is recruiting students to join her effort, and continues on her quest to find meeting space.   

Dorene asked WPC to consider the following:  1 help in getting the message of the program across to the other members of the faith community; 2) help in getting 6 used Laptop computers; 3) help in fund raising and grant-seeking; 4) $1500 in our benevolence budget as an ongoing line item to back her effort over time; 5) help in funding for office space in a near-campus location; 6) help in “pushing” Presbytery to explain why Linda’s program is frozen out of the UCM at NCCU despite the fact that Presbytery gives $7000/year to the program; and 7) help in finding a replacement for David C on the Board.   

New Business:

Elena questioned whether WPC would offer the Pres Point camping trip over Labor Day and the suggestion was made to research the pros and cons of having a congregational camping trip to Camp New Hope, to expose WPC members to the camp. Shayne and Anthony will help research this.

 Mitch provided a calendar with the Deacon-centric dates of the 2004-2005 year tentatively scheduled.  Please review this and get back to him with potential conflicts you have as quickly as possible.   

Shayne reminded all about the Deacon social on 8/21 at 6:30 at the Ruffing’s—spouses included, bring a side dish. The event will conclude in time for nursery duty at church the next morning.

 Deacon’s Corner info should be in by Monday at noon.  Elena will submit info for the Mission Focus collection effort for August.  Shayne provided a long list of Deacon accomplishments for the year, and thanked all for the hard work and excellent results. 

The meeting was adjourned at 9:00PM.   

Respectfully submitted,   

Sara T Pottenger

Substitute Scribe