Our March council meeting was the first gathering of our new Parish Council after our Annual Vestry Meeting in February, and we were happy to welcome several new members to the council, including our new warden, Andrea, and our new council members, Tobias and Jim.
With our new council, we had a number of administrative matters to address, including selecting new signatories for the church bank accounts, receiving updates on the new daycare lease, and discussing the timing for a work day to paint the new front doors in the church entry.
The parish council also received an update from the capital campaign committee and approved the budget proposed by them. This will allow us to now seek a capital improvement matching grant from the diocese for up to $40,000, which will greatly accelerate our fundraising efforts. We expect to be launching the capital campaign to the congregation soon.
On our ministry front, council passed a motion to sponsor three refugee families with Flourishing Foundation, should sponsorship slots become available. With recent changes at the federal level, the number of sponsorships made available to our diocese have been greatly reduced, even as the list of people seeking sponsorship grows longer each week.
Finally, the council spent some time in our big conversation talking about what we want to see in a framework for how we work together as Parish Council. This will be on ongoing conversation and an evolving framework as we grow together in our leadership of this parish.
Sincerely,
The Rev. Adam Yates