Merry Christmas. That may be an oddly timed greeting if you don’t read the recount of the December Board Meeting until January, but if so, just take it as an echo of the glorious season and a hope you had a merry one!

So let me turn my thoughts away from the fast approaching birthday for Jesus, the celebration that is my favorite holiday, and even the wondrous rolling out of multiple vaccines that are leading us towards the end of this pandemic, and instead report on the more mundane functioning of your Board during the December meeting.

For those not familiar, December for our Board, like for many Boards, means budget, budget, budget. It is time to get serious about what resources we have, what we may be able to anticipate, and what we need to meet payroll, physical plant needs, and, of course, our service goals for the coming year. We spent most of our meeting discussing those issues.   I can sum it up this way: 

We don’t quite have the resources we would like, perhaps due to some COVID-effect on giving and completing “Estimate of Giving” cards (the promise of giving on which we base most of our estimates of income for budgeting); 

Some costs have gone up (as they inevitably do); 

But we have good people doing good work to reach out and ask for what we need and there’s still a few weeks to get more estimates in.  

In other news, Geoff Clayton, who most may know for his regular presence at the piano during services, has been hired, using a grant through YCAP, to manage warming shelter activities to help our less fortunate friends survive the colder nights. A fantastic development for all involved.

Erika has also obtained a grant that funds her upcoming group study of ‘See No Stranger’, a book by Valarie Kaur.  Again, great news, more work that can be done for our community, and grants mean that we don’t have to even consider whether we have room in the budget to help fund it.

Finally, your Board discussed our appreciation for the staff and the need to make sure to get the word out to collect for staff Christmas presents.  

And that was your December meeting.  

Merry Christmas, see you in the Happy New Year – may 2021 bring peace, joy, and an end to the pandemic.

Dave Ferry, 

your CB Moderator