First Parish Portland
Governing Board Minutes
12/12/12 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Members present: (6) President Anna Allocco, Clerk Carolyn Barschow; At-Large
Representatives Tom Rogers, Greg Dismore, Anne Heminway; Minister Rev.
Christina Sillari
Members not present: (3) Vice-President Celine McFarquhar, At-Large
Representative Richard van Bergen, Youth Representative Eleanor Dow
Meeting begins 6:40pm
Light chalice (5) Greg lights
Read Covenant (2) Anna reads
Check in (8)
Issues for Discussion
 Great things happening at church (10)
o Greg, Christina, Anna share that people expressed gratitude for the
thank you notes that the GB wrote last month
o Greg heard appreciation for his Stone Soup piece
o Santa Lucia service = so much powerful positive praise
o Rev. Christina shares that staff members are doing well
o Collaborations between people on the board have been strong
o Asking for help has been met with great assistance
o
 Role of Youth Representative on the Board (not on agenda)
o Tom inquires about the issue, short discussion follows
o ACTION: Anna follows up with Eleanor
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Stewardship and $ (15)
o Does the Governing Board want to host a fundraiser?
 Yes, we need time to plan: a separate meeting outside of GB
meeting: tentative dates
 Sunday, 1/6 3-5pm
 Wednesday, January 2 6-8pm
 Our Goal: challenge ourselves to be leaders in fundraising and
raise money for the stewardship campaign
 ACTION: Anna sends out poll regarding meeting date
o Need for an Auction Chair: who do you know?
 ACTION: Anna will follow up with some church members
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Committee Parameters Policy discussion (10)
o What does a Committee Mean?
o How can we support new activities/committees?
 Congregational momentum is necessary
 We can draw from Faith in Action policy for guideline ideas
 3 people needed to start a new endeavor
 Must be In concert with mission, goals
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Make a set of guidelines for whole church
Address how to plan events
New projects will be known as teams rather than
committees
ACTION: Anne and Carolyn will write a draft of policy
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Strategic Plan Outreach (5)
o “Strategic Plans Wins” article items: Lynne Beasley and church
building upgrades
o ACTION: Anne will write article for Stone Soup

Supporting Committees with no chair/Carolyn’s email and suggestion
concerning umbrella committees (10)
o Regarding umbrella councils versus committees
 The current by-laws have umbrella councils which Carolyn
suggests could be a way to organize programs of the church in
a more cohesive, understandable way
 Are umbrella councils working as intended? Do we wish to
continue this model into the future as we adopt new by-laws?
(the new draft does not include council structure)
 ACTION: Anna will Invite Worship Council to next GB
meeting to check-in about how the Council/Committee
structure is going, whether we should keep this in place
or move to a different system
o How do we inform members about the programs of the church and
facilitate involvement in current programs?
 Idea: Start an ad-hoc team with the mission to explore and
document how people get involved in First Parish
 This group will meet 4 times to develop this model over
next few months
 ACTION: Anna has a list of people to invite, Greg will
serve on team
Ideas for Desired Outcomes:
 An understanding of all of the programs of the church
and how they are in relationship with each other and
how they COULD be in relationship with each other
 More leaders to share the work of committees
 Internal “membership” document for committees and
leaders
o Strengths of the committees
o Concrete ideas for each committee to draw new
members
 An external document for whole congregation/new
visitors/general public
 A list of programs in the church
 Articulating what the programs are and how they
are related are in simple words
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Action Items
 Organize Welcome & Announcements and Ushers for rest of year (5)
o Split among the GB, COM and Trustees
o Welcome and Announcements
 Who would excel at this task: Jeane Handy, Randall Weil, Anna
Allocco, Linda Blue, Tony Potter or Greg Dismore
 ACTION: Anna asks Kitty for list of other lay-leaders who like
to do this
o ACTION: ANNA will split up the Sundays among GB, COM and Trustees
o
 Farming out Goals Alignment collation (10) moved to next meeting
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Divide up the committees by GB member (look at roadmap carefully,
engage, etcetera) (15)
o Short discussion
o ACTION: Anna will divide up committees for each GB members to
communicate with for the rest of the year, send out via email
o
 Confirm times of GB meetings for next year (10)
o See tentative dates below
o
 Homeless Shelter Overflow at Church (5)
o Christina shares letter from Doug Gardiner from City of Portland HHS
reaching out for our support, noting that we would be a 3rd overflow
shelter for the city, which has been used only 2 or 3 times per month
in the past
o Governing Board recommends that we move forward with a Trial
Period of 1 month.
 Invite GB rep, Trustee and Staff member to assess the trial at
the end of the month
o GB will seek recommendation of Trustees before moving forward
 ACTION: Anne will contact Steve Jenks from the Trustees to set
up a time/ Anne and either Richard or Celine will attend
Trustees meeting
 ADDENDUM: A few days after 12/12 GB meeting, the City of
Portland found another space to use for a 3rd overflow shelter.
Next Month’s Agenda (5)
Items
Budget: need to raise $50,000 more next year (33% increase)
How do we achieve this?
How to plan for all outcomes of fundraising?
New proposals in By-Laws
Youth Representative Discussion
Tentative Date: Friday, January 11 4-6pm
Save the Date: Friday, February 8, 4-6pm
Meeting Evaluation (5) Mood Map
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Closing (2) One thing to improve, one thing that worked well
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