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- Re-elected Kathy Yingst as Clerk of Session and Steven Guenther as Treasurer for 2021.
- Approved a transfer of membership for Louella Grgic due to relocation.
- The Treasurer shared the 2020 year-end financial reports. As expected, the church income for 2020 was approximately $30,000 below 2019 and $75,000 under budget. Expenses for 2020 were also below budget as we did not have an Associate Pastor or full-time Music Director for the entire year. Committees were conservative with spending. As a result, there is an approximate budget surplus of $80,000. At the request of the Stewardship & Finance committee, the Session approved distribution of the surplus funds as follows: $15,000 to Mission and Peace; $5,000 to Camp Krislund; $40,000 to Derry’s Capital Improvement Fund; and the remainder to be used as a cushion for the 2021 potential budget deficit.
- The Stewardship & Finance Committee has spent several months reviewing Derry’s Gift Acceptance and Investment policies. The revised policies were presented to the Session and approved.
- The Elders reviewed our current building opening policy, and based on recommendations from the Covid Task Force, voted to keep the current policy in place. There are several variables with the new strands of Covid that are appearing and numbers for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have been steady since December. Many would like to establish a reopening date; however, at this time the Session has not set a specific re-opening date pending improvement in the vaccine rollout and number of cases.
- There was unanimous agreement that we communicate with our members to let everyone know that we are continually reviewing the plans for reopening, planning new things for keeping us connected, and praying for all. A mailing will be sent to all members and a video created to communicate our discussions.
- Derry’s annual meeting has been scheduled for Sunday, February 14, 2021. Due to Covid-19 restrictions the meeting will be held via Zoom.
- In preparing for the annual meeting, the session reviewed Dr. McKinney-Whitaker and Rev. Pamela Meiland’s Terms of Call for 2021. There are no changes to Pastor Stephen’s terms from 2020 and Pastor Pam’s terms are the same as when she was called to Derry. The session voted to approve the terms as presented and recommend them to the congregation for review and approval.
- Elected all active Elders as Presbytery Commissioners for 2020.
- The AA group has been meeting at Derry for many years. The group uses room 10 and enters the church through the door off Mansion Road at the rear of the sanctuary. While the group has not been meeting over the past year, they have continued to pay $250 quarterly for the space. Session voted to discontinue these payments while the group is not meeting and to reimburse them for the money paid over the past year.