Deacon Meeting Minutes

July 24, 2005

Westminster Presbyterian Church

The meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Mitch Dozier.  Attending were Mitch Dozier, Elena Cleary, Betty Berghaus, Jeff Sutton, Carol Cunningham, Bill Scott, Morris Griffin, David Calderwood, Sara Pottenger, Barbara Rynerson, Rebecca Mattern-Milcarek, Nancy Safrit, Michael Reich, and Bobby Yurkatat.

Mitch offered an opening prayer.

Concerns and Celebrations: 

We celebrate the successful Mexico Mission Trip. The Youth trip to Montreat was also a success. Duck’s step daughter, Maggie, got married last night. The Housing for New Hope breakfast raised over $77,000. Mitch is starting a new job (still at Duke).

The minutes of the 6/26/05 meeting were approved.

Doug Cleary together with Skip Long informed the Board about Jobs For Life, a new program that WPC is beginning to support. This faith-based program will help unemployed/underemployed Durham residents find employment and will provide life skills training and mentorship. The program has been implemented elsewhere with great success, i.e. high retention rates. In Durham, implementation will be a group effort between WPC, Covenant Presbyterian, and Judeo Reform. Doug Cleary will lead from WPC. Jobs for Life will be recruiting volunteers among the WPC congregation but is not asking for money from WPC at this time.

WPC has traded IHN dates with another church. We will now have guests September 4-11. This includes Labor Day weekend which may cause issues with getting volunteers to move in the guests.

Frances Anton presented the budget requested by the Global Missions Committee (see handout). A motion was made and accepted to accept this budget request as is. Any adjustments will be made in the context of the rest of the Diaconate budget after the Stewardship campaign. Elena and Mitch shared information from Carolyn Haynes and Bonnie Derr regarding budget expectations for the Fellowship and Assimilation Committees. The overall 2006 budget proposal was discussed and agreed (see attached Excel spreadsheet).

The future of the WPC website was discussed. Michael presented a proposal (see attachment) which was supported by the Board.

Rebecca informed the Board that the Youth Council discussed events associated with the Memorial Day family camp at Presbyterian Point. The Youth Council takes the safety of the youth very seriously and were quite concerned about reports of inappropriate/open use of alcohol by adults at the family camp. She reported that the youth would not continue to participate in this event if that were to continue. Mitch, Elena, and Bill committed to resolving the issue prior to the Labor Day camp out.

Respectfully submitted, 

Elena Cleary