To: All Interested Parties
From: Living Ministries Board of Directors
Date: June 19, 2013
Location: Life Works, 906 New York Street, Longview, WA 98632
Attendance: Karen Gidderon, Tom Stebbins, Linda Haarstad, Summer D Clemenson
Absent: Debra Lawson-Bean and Jamie Holloway are sick, John Hanna & Dale Chamberlain are working.
Summer is taking notes in Jamie’s place. With 3 of 4 Officers present we have a quorum.
The meeting was called to order by President, Karen Gidderon at 6:27 pm.
Insurance
Linda has begun looking into Nonprofit Insurance. She began communicating with an agent online, who is now on vacation. She found that since Living Ministries owns no property, assets and has no employees our insurance should be between $350 to $700 annually. This includes $1 million coverage for any events. From what she understands, D&O insurance is not really necessary right now because that is usually for internal issues, that we don’t have without employees.
Linda will follow up with the agent for a firm estimate when he returns. She will also get information for insurance for Angel Wings Rescue.
Bylaws
After several Living Ministries Board Members attended the Nonprofits & Charities Education Symposium, we realized that we need to tighten up our bylaws. It was decided at our May 2012 meeting that a Bylaw Review Committee made up of Karen Gidderon, Summer D Clemenson and Jamie Holloway would review the bylaws and work together to write up new ones that would be brought for the board to vote on for this meeting. However Jamie got sick and was unable to come here from Vancouver to work on this and we have postponed the bylaw review until she has bounced back from her chemo treatment.
Interfaith Task Force For The Homeless
- Joe Ingram and one other gentleman will be joining us from Bellevue to talk about their work with vehicle residents at our next meeting on July 17, 2013.
- This meeting will be open to the public. We hope to start advertising it on Monday June 24, 2013.
- Karen is working with her contact at The Red Lion to get a free room with 2 beds for the gentleman. Will try for a discount if free is not an option. She should know by Monday.
- Karen will contact locally owned gas stations to see if they will donate $60 of gas for Interfaith Task Force.
- We will be having a Potluck (this was originally planned for this meeting anyway) so we don’t have to worry about feeding them.
When Summer went to the Ending Homelessness Conference a few months ago she was inspired by The Reality of Vehicle Residency Seminar. Karen is also passionate about helping people who are living in their cars and has been considering ways Living Ministries could address the needs of this population. We are so excited to have these gentlemen coming to answer our questions.
Committee Meetings
We need to begin having committee meetings.
Currently the we have the following committees:
- Bylaw Review Committee
Karen & Summer Co-Chair
Members: Jamie - Fundraising Committee
Linda & Debra Co-Chair
Members: Tom - Marketing Committee
Karen & Summer Co-Chair
Members: Linda, Jamie, Debra - Christmas Angel Telethon Committee
Karen & Linda Co-Chair
Members: Summer, Tom
We will discuss in Living Ministries Committee Group on Facebook to choose meeting times.
Pet Food Drive 2013
Our Annual Pet Food Drive takes place during the entire month of August.
We decided that although the first year, all food was given to Meals on Wheels for senior citizens’ pets and last year we split the food between Meals on Wheels and Angel Wings Rescue, this year all proceeds will go to Angel Wings. This decision was made because CAP has an abundance.
Debra had told Summer and Karen that she would need to change the date of the Dog Wash Fundraiser because she was overwhelmed with the animals. Summer thinks we should move it to August and make it part of the The Pet Food Drive. She would also like to see it at a location that people frequent more often than Angel Wings Rescue and suggested to ask The Dog Zone to help out so we can cross promote.
Exclaim Media is willing to do a Connect the Dots episode to promote The Dog Zone and create a video PSA to promote Bark for Life in July and Living Ministries Annual Pet Food Drive and the Dog Wash in August.
It was decided that we would approach Doug Kalberg of The Dog Zone about donating a portion of sales from the Self Dog Wash to benefit The Pet Food Drive. Tom & Karen will follow up in person after Summer sends an email to Doug.
Angel Wings Rescue
Summer ran into Anna Leslie from CAP yesterday while volunteering at Love Overwhelming. Anna is going to look into some possible resources for Angel Wings Rescue. She also told Summer that Debra should call CAP when she is out of food for the animals.
Angel Wings really needs volunteers, especially since the ferrel cat in the cat building became pregnant before she could be caught and fixed. She has abandoned her babies and Debra is having to bottle feed them every 3-4 hours until they are able to eat kitten food. They were unable to eat kitten food as of Tuesday.
Summer impressed it upon the board that if any of them had a few hours and could stop by to help Debra this would a be true blessing.
Christmas Angel Telethon Swap Meet
We need to start earning funds to facilitate the 3rd Christmas Angel Telethon.
Summer and Linda had been talking about a swap meet instead of a garage sale. Living Ministries would make money from selling spaces to people who would bring their own things, set up their own areas and take out their items that are not sold by a specific time. Sellers would keep all money they made from sales.
As we are not sure when our insurance would be in place it was brought up that if we found a church that would allow us to use their parking lot their insurance may be acceptable.
Tom suggested that he would talk to Pastor Lance at Valley Christian Fellowship, since he attends that church and it is centrally located to see if they would allow us to use their parking lot.
Tom also said that he knows someone at TPI Toilets and would see if they would donate 1 or 2 portable toilets for the event.
We would like to be able to do this event in early September.
Tom also has a friend that may be willing to let us use their driveway during the Terry/Taylor Garage Sale on the first weekend of August. We could set up our signs and hand out cards to advertise our events.
We could also clean out our closets and try to sell our unused stuff – proceeds going into the Christmas Angel Telethon savings account through Living Ministries at Fibre Federal Credit Union.
Costo Card
Summer brought up that a Costco card may benefit us when we buy things for our events and could also be used by Angel Wings Rescue and Hearts for Homeless. She will look into costs and the board will decide when and if we should do this.
Ministry Time
We continue to pray for Lynn, Debra, Jamie, Tom and Ted for health issues. Linda’s knee is causing her tremendous pain and slowing her way down. Mike Juell from Music and More Productions has stage 4 colon cancer. Linda’s friend Gordon injured his ribs and is having a gaggle of other physical ailments.
Summer and Karen are still praying for their own house (that would also become Living Ministries and Exclaim Media headquarters).
We are also praying for new board members and volunteers to help Living Ministries grow. Summer would love a few admin people to at least teach her what she doesn’t know about some of the foundational items we need.
Meeting Adjourned around 8:30 pm
Respectfully Submitted,
Summer D Clemenson
Executive Director
