 Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to our spring parish meeting. Yay! A big thank you to the food haulers for the absolutely delicious lunch. I'm a huge fan of jigsaw puzzles. I grew up with one always being on a table somewhere in the house so I find that jigsaw puzzles sort of calm my mind in a way that other things don't. So when I saw that my colleague Amanda Papay wrote a piece called Putting the Pieces Together and when I was thinking about all of the parts and the pieces that we have moving around here in our time of transition this reading really spoke to me so I hope it does for you as well. She begins with a quote from the physicist Richard Feynman. Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry and Amanda writes I love jigsaw puzzles. I love that moment of satisfaction when you finally find the fourth corner piece and the smooth feel of the completed puzzle under your hand but what I love most is seeing the picture emerge. How many times have I stared at the original mess of pieces jumbled upside down totally disorganized and then little by little I noticed the patterns. Life has often felt like a jigsaw puzzle or really sometimes it feels more like the mess of pieces when you first dump out the box. What I've been faced with multiple decisions at the same time it has felt as though I'm not sure which piece to fit in first little by little I try piece after piece until one clicks then I can recognize the pieces that might fit around it and eventually a pattern emerges not just in the picture I'm creating but in the mess of pieces I still have to pick up. Of course jigsaw puzzles are for weekends away and snowed in vacations the truth we know is that in real life we can't see the photo on the cover of the box we can only place the pieces one by one and see what kind of picture we create. Sometimes we turn out to have chosen the wrong piece and the fit isn't quite right and sometimes the picture ends up being wildly unexpected. I have learned to stay present to the slow work of sorting and for that I need the reminder of my jigsaw puzzles the just world that seems totally out of grasp until little by little advances are made the mess of a life that appears to have no resolution until little by little a new possibility of healing emerges the path forward that is unimaginable until it's not so I will keep sorting and I hope you do too finding the corners and waiting for the new picture to emerge. Kelly thanks so I guess we'll talk a little bit about this part of the jigsaw puzzle that we've been trying to put together for the last six months or so. At today's meeting we're going to be aside from approving the minutes from our last parish meeting back in February we're going to be approving our board members for the FUS for the trustees and also the foundation we're going to be approving our budget or at least voting on it we're going to be having an update from Dave Weber on the meeting house restoration and how things are going there we're going to talk about our music director search which is complete and we can talk about who will be coming in along with our interim minister search that is complete if you all got the email on Wednesday about who has agreed Rob Savage is here he's going to be introducing a little bit more on Doug to us as well as talking about the transition update and what's going to be happening around the transition and then we'll just have closing words from Michael which this is his last parish meeting giving closing words out so in the handouts you should have an agenda on the back of it we have the budgets on back we also have minutes from the February 11th meeting if anyone wasn't able to grab them they should be outside on a table and then along with the nominees Biles should be back there as well and if you haven't yet if you could sign in and in fact if maybe we could pass around the sign-in sheet that would be good so that if if anyone hasn't signed in it would be it's helpful for quorum for keeping tabs on that so first and easiest is just to have a motion on the approval thank you do we have a second on the minute that was Steve is there a second all right any discussion on the minutes none okay all in favor of approving the minutes from our February parish meeting say aye please any opposed and they passed unanimously I think okay now we're going to be moving on into the board of trustees so the board of trustees is made up of seven members they are comprised of your typical trustee along with like our secretary trustee who is chip who I have to say always takes unbelievable notes I mean he has moved the bar and note taking beyond anything I mean truly we get these minutes out of our meetings with highlights of to-dos and actions that without that it really would have made it a lot harder to do what we do so thank you chip we also have a president which is I guess me at this point and then we also will have a president elect and the president elect it's I and this is something I think is a great process that we have so the president elect is a president elect for a year then I work in tandem with the president elect to basically do the things of the presidential stuff that you have to do for the trustees and the whole idea is it's a really nice on ramp for that president elect and it not only is a nice on ramp for that individual but also provides a helping hand for the existing president so I have to say after 12 months almost a solo I'm looking forward to having someone to work alongside with so the nominee for the board of trustees this is for a three-year term starting in July 1st to June 30th of 2021 is Terry Pepper and Terry is someone that if we do elect Terry on to the board we have designated her as the president elect so she would be taking over from me in 2019 July no discussion okay we have a yeah moving on you guys want to get excited I mean it's raining um okay so we have a move one second we can have a discussion if anyone would like to have discussion that's Terry um she's on vacation right now otherwise she would be here she's been in the choir she really has a really interesting background Rob did you want to fill something in come up to the mic though so you can be heard uh Terry has a very interesting background if you look at this where she was part of James Reeve she was present of James Reeve she has this affliction where any congregation she belongs to she has to be part of leadership and involved and give back um so when we had this conversation with her it was almost like she didn't have a choice because this is what she does and she was one of the members of the interim minister's search task force and I can really highly highly endorse her candidacy I really think that she is going to be great so there you go I think we vote all right all in favor any opposed all right six weeks away then for me the next is for the foundation board oh here wait there we go it's a three-year term again similar to ours 2018 to 2021 we have Connie Bean who is currently president of the board Connie you're there so she is willing to stand once again which is great we have uh David who um is currently a member isn't he and so this is for another reappointment and then Richard Millard who um I believe Richard was a past secretary wasn't he of the past president so he's well informed on the foundation the foundation is a great organization if your your meetings are open I believe um I've been going to the foundation meetings it's interesting getting to know a little bit behind the scenes how they manage uh they're nearly three million dollars and uh the different type of funds that we have for different things uh so those are always open it's a quarterly it happens on Monday nights typically sometimes on Tuesdays but we do announce when those happen so the the next one that's coming up I believe is June July July 24th which it might be a Tuesday I can't pardon there's a 23rd okay so it is on a Monday it's the 24th or 23rd um and so and we always put a mention to the red floors about that so for these members any any questions on on these three candidates Connie's here so she could be able to answer questions if all right does anyone want to move uh Mike dork seconded okay all in favor all opposed well congratulations I want to say thank you to you all and congratulations everyone I mean it's it's it is one thing I really have come to appreciate it's just how much time a lot of the volunteers in our membership take in order to help the organization run so from the board to our committees to our special task forces all the way to the volunteers are part of the ministry teams obviously this is a huge community effort um and so the fact that people are willing to stand up and serve on on the boards is is vital and phenomenal all right so from the budget so we had our budget forum a couple of weeks ago and we laid out a budget we we had a change that we had to amend the budget that we proposed to you all um effectively uh our our next interim minister Doug um was concerned about the amount of professional uh professional expenses that we were delegating because he has found that when he comes to a new a new church and he's actually working in the interim he likes to rely on different sources and attend to different seminars and sort of bring in some expertise sometimes uh depending on what's all going on and so that's really what it came down to uh Rob Savage and I had a great conversation with him last Friday and it you know having him stand up and and talk about how we just wanted to increase there in order to provide as good of service to us as possible it was hard to argue with so we had a ten thousand dollar push on the budget that we had to make up for and what we did is we were trying to keep lower our use of restricted funds that we had our designated funds moving money between them and basically this we had succeeded and then we kind of failed where we basically are pulling from our designated funds the same amount that we did last year to make up for that ten thousand dollars um as many of you remember this is a difficult budget for us we're effectively eliminating 1.5 um positions uh we are doing this through um the retirement of Jean where we're not effectively replacing her and we're taking two jobs putting them together and then we are taking one full-time job and knocking down to part time and that's something that we didn't like to do but we had to uh in order to to balance the numbers so effectively the budget that we are proposing uh today is is very much similar to the one that we proposed before except for that ten thousand dollar transfer from restricted to cover the extra expense around the interim um there is something sort of a heads up for the parish itself is that when we do hire an ex-called minister um there there's a fairly significant movement around the UUA of bringing everyone up to uh suggested salaries and that is one thing when you have a called minister like Michael for over 30 years and especially as Michael turned down raises from time to time to help us balance the budget over these 30 years uh truthfully we are woefully underpaying him um so we're going to have to be prepared that and this is something that drew was uh I'm sorry Doug was telling us is that we you know he's more expensive than Michael but who's coming after him is going to be more expensive so we just as a pair shift understand that um and that's the way it goes yes uh the uh uh found a the um the fundraising position so we had brought that up to full-time during the capital campaign because there's a clear need during during that period we had hoped that we'd be able to maintain that at full but we just weren't so it's as if we're able to bring in more pledges then we're anticipating that will that will change things for us but at this moment what we're trying to do with the budget is adequately um estimate the pledges that will be coming in because it's it's it's a difficult period where we're running our annual campaign right now it won't conclude to the end of June but yet we're coming up with the budget that's going to be supported by that and when we look at timing it's really hard to change anything around that so it's that's that is really sort of the situation yeah they're going to be um it's the monaco do you want to come up and and explain a little bit the question is and we're going to need a mic for you monaco um the the question is uh gene's duties whose are we all compiling together to take from two positions to one good morning everybody good afternoon now um so we're talking about combining janet and gene's position into one um so essentially two half-time positions creating one full-time position and that was a way to really um cut down on the overall compensation so it's not just the salary we're looking at but health insurance and dental and pension and all those good things and kelly anything else you want me to add about that combining one uh the two positions into one does that answer the question for the most part it is it is and it's um oh the comment was that it it's unfortunate that we had to cut staff positions i mean especially at a time when we very much would like to raise staff salaries so it's it was it was really it had to go in the direction that we don't want but with a multiple i'm totally of a mouthful of food sorry i did not hear what monica said so if this is repetitive forgive me i was getting more food um i'm so right the biggest loss in the combining of the two is that janet's position was half-time adult ed and half-time the quest program and that's what allowed us to run that program it's a two-year program and then we have a year off where we do all the edits and revisions and planning and then we run it again so we finished quest four last year and the hope was to start quest five this coming fall with the loss of that half of janet's job we won't be able to run the formal quest program for the foreseeable future until we can figure out how to get a position like that back um so what we're going to be looking at is figuring out how to take a lot of the components of quest and spread those out into the community the first one being creating a theme-based small group ministry so you're going to be hearing a lot more about small groups over the summer and heading into the fall um in the hopes that we can get a lot of people involved in those kinds of groups since we won't be able to run the program the other thing is that you're going to be hearing a lot of calls for volunteers for ministry teams because to make this work we're also going to have to shift half of janet's current job onto volunteer ministry teams um so please keep your eye out and if it's something that interests you and you've got the time please volunteer because we're trying to take 80 hours and make it 40 and not take 80 hours and make it 60 so when you see those please answer the call to help on those new ministry teams right so as joe mentioned the 25 percent that's being cut um that time was being spent on capital campaign and now that capital campaign essentially has concluded um we have time left over still to do the cab array and hopefully another uh fall fundraising event um a planned giving campaign that's planned for the fall so no real changes other than the capital campaign we have the cuts applied to the music program okay the the question is why don't we cut the music program staff in place of someone else yes um we didn't we had to make choices and the one thing is music here is pretty important and it a lot of members are very much enjoying the music program and it does bring in quite a bit of donations so when we looked at that i mean that was just something we didn't want to cut from um something else that came up i mean since we're along the sort of lines is uh we we did have a member from the equity team during the budget forum request that we put in a line item into this budget for ten thousand dollars um it's actually a thirty thousand dollar line item but spread over three years so ten thousand dollars each year in order to bring on the ywca to assist us with equity training and making uh just really a hiring practices um viewing those around implicit bias and other things um just given where the budget was we didn't have room to uh include ten thousand dollars into this budget for that i mean literally we would have had to look at cutting other staff to really get to that but we had a really long discussion with the two team members that were at our board meeting this last wednesday um and what we are doing is kelly and monica are meeting up with the ywca to talk about the program uh we've already committed to a half day training through the ywca on equity that will be attended by staff and other leadership in the church and then after that we're going to see and really try to figure out what type of program the ywca could offer us around equity what the costs are around that and then see is that something that we bailed the fund through some other mechanism so we are continuing down that pathway but we just weren't able to commit to that right here and now um along with that what came out and it was interesting this is part of the discussion at our at our forum uh last two weeks ago was discussing on restricted funds and how we want to manage restricted funds something that we don't have right right now is a real flexibility within the budget where let's say there's a program we really want to run um and even if we don't have money in our budget but if members were to come around it and want to fund it we don't right now really have a mechanism for carrying that forward so the board um has come to realize that and that's something we're going to look at at developing a policy where if there's something members really want to do if it has budget implications and if there's a way that we can create a fine creatively find a way to finance it we need a mechanism to push that through that doesn't mean that you the group would have to wait till the next fiscal budget because as it stands you'd have to wait another 12 months um which just that's not how we want to operate so we are looking at how to improve that as well and that's something that we're going to do quickly here in the next several months there's a question here yes it it's more of a comment I just want to remind everybody we still have a full-time social justice position which is something we achieved fairly recently and this budget sustains that and um and I know there's lots of part competing priorities but the fact that we're still fully funding that position is tremendous it would be wonderful if we would have the budget to not just do that but even expand beyond that so that's really where we stand um any any other questions otherwise we'll move to the vote uh yes comment here maybe I just can't read the uh budget numbers but the uh proposed capital budget has a transfer out of 135,000 in the two operating and under operating there's a transfer in of less than 135,000 what's the difference there at the same number so we're looking at the bottom of your agenda at the left hand side at the bottom of line of the proposed capital budget it says mortgage transfer of 135,000 dollars to operating yeah and then when I go up to the income for operating transfer funds transfer I don't see 135,000 I see 99,000 plus okay so the mortgage transfer to opp is something the 45k that we've been doing for about the last I don't know four or five years if that sounds right so we're going to maintain that until the point that we can pay down the mortgage so through 2020 when pledges will be paid so does that much make sense so we're um how can I further explain so 45k we've needed in order to balance the budget so we've transferred that from the capital fund over to the operating fund for four or five years and we're going to we have to do that in order to balance the budget up until the point that we've paid down the mortgage as we've proposed as a part of the capital campaign should we follow 45 somebody do the math 80 120 yes yeah so it's a matter of allocation correct so we're continuing that initiative to support the operating budget via the capital fund that makes sense to the majority of us so Monica I think it's a matter of line out line in for people is that what you're really saying why isn't labeled differently or does somebody else have more they want to add to that thumbs up if that made sense to the majority of us okay all right um any suggestions about how to further so who was aware as we've discussed at other budget forums that we were transferring 45k from the capital fund over to the operating fund thumbs up there okay we have each year correct so we are continuing that initiative until the end of 2021 um at which point we'll pay down a portion of the mortgage and we'll no longer need what I refer to as the capital crutch that 45k um so once we pay down the mortgage we won't have to transfer funds from the capital fund over to the operating fund does that make sense okay I see more nods Larry how you doing me and you after yeah uh-huh so just so one thing to clarify is the proposed capital budget is over the next three years right and what we're seeing here in operating fund is just one year that might be the discrepancy that that you're looking at is that helpful oh good we got there loving that happens thank you both sorry about confusion yes yeah I think we're gonna have to cross that bridge when we come there so one thing we did do with the budget for the roof is we built in how much 30 percent extra in case of overruns um so while we're obviously hoping it doesn't go above that it ought not I hope it comes below that so but if it does go above that where the 30 percent wasn't enough of an overrun then we'll have to deal with that when we deal with it we can talk to Dave a little bit about that because we're starting to get a little bit of a better insight into underneath the roof as to what's all going on so we'll talk about that a little bit more um any other questions yeah so if you move 135 from the capital budget to the operating and you only use 45 for mortgage and the rest of it's to plug a shortfall no okay I understand so it's no the 135 is divided by three so it's 45 000 every year so if you look at the left bottom left proposed capital budget where we talk about um it's the 135 000 mortgage transfer to operating that's over three years so that's why it reflected as 45 in this year's 45 per year yeah 45 and that is something we did try to get rid of we succeeded in getting rid of that four years ago we didn't do that transfer but then the way money worked out we had to start doing that transfer again because that's something we've been trying not to do there was one year work before you yeah that was when Andy was still here any other questions all right so do we have a motion to approve second right for the operating the capital and the designated restricted budget so all in favor all opposed thank you very much everyone um and one thing that I would like to emphasize is if anyone is interested in getting more involved in helping us craft the budget we would be more than happy to have another member or two on the finance committee we're always looking for members to get involved so um it that's my big push where if you're seeing you're thinking I wish I understood more about our budget come on in and join us because it it's fun and that's the one thing I really want to say thank you to the board of trustees so uh the seven of us along with the youth and Monica, Michael, TK and Kelly I really appreciate all the effort I mean this past Wednesday we had our our meeting uh it was a three and a half hour meeting it's usually a two hour meeting we've had this was our third meeting in the last four weeks that we've had or so so the board has been putting in a lot of nice overtime at this moment it isn't typical so I don't want to scare anyone from thinking I don't want to get on the board but when you have a music director's search an interim minister's search a capital campaign for three million dollars along with everything else that you're dealing with there's just a lot to deal with so so Joe if people do want to get involved in the various different committees what's the avenue that they would take to do that yes so either you could rob savage who will stand up you can attack him or as some have done you can send an email to me which will be the next presidency email it's just f us pr s f us pres at gmail.com and you can always see that after my article in the monthly newsletter at least hear him out so meeting house restoration Dave what do you think I'm excited to learn well there's a little more to see if you look on the other side of the parking lot on the edge of alosia you can see eight feet of shiny copper on the soffit and beyond that there are three rows of fresh copper that is the mock-up model that we had the roofers make to that we could approve and say yeah this matches the profile that we're used to the biggest concern in restoration is making sure that it looks the way we expect it to look we're making some assumptions that nobody really cares if we change some of the invisible structure that's between the ceiling and the roof thank you so the we've contracted with interstate roofing it turns out the epic systems has made dain county a real haven for copper roofs and interstate has moved a large chunk of their operation from lacrosse to madison and they're raring to go and fendorf is writing up a more specific contract for them and as soon as that's done they will they will be here tearing up roof and putting on new roof starting in the loge's side and that's because the loge is structurally stable the good news is all the wooden decking that's underneath the copper is in good shape so it's a major of pulling it up putting in new batten strips which are the angles that go underneath the edge of the horizontal and covering it with two layers of waterproof stuff and then the copper meanwhile planning is going on for the structural work underneath the roof and the prow and so there's a couple of visual exercises that i recommend to everyone one is to go out and stand on the grass between f us and the children's hospital look at the prow from that angle and look at how much roof is sticking out beyond the stone pillars and think about how much it weighs and how much that weight is being supported by glass so that's an engineering issue is making sure that's strong enough to support the roof before we start getting in and going up on the roof the the other thing with the roof the more i think about it the more complicated becomes and the well accepted story is that first they built scaffoldings to where the roof would be they built the roof on the scaffoldings they built the stone up to support the roof and then they took out the scaffoldings and as i thought about that i realized well that was because this roof couldn't support itself until every single plate board was in position and that means we have to think very carefully about which boards we remove as we try to slip in pieces of steel it also occurred to me that after he did this marshal erwin went into prefab and that's where he made his money okay the the nitty gritty is so within the next two weeks the roofers will be here before that happens there will be peripheral fences around where they're working they will the all our entrances will be preserved so people can get in and out and you know they'll have roofs roofs over the doorway so nothing can fall on people eventually there will be scaffolding on the inside and outside of the prowl so take your pictures of the prowl now if you don't have any there are thousands on the internet up as well the roofers have a very good safety record so we aren't real concerned about that we've talked to them about how limited our parking is and they're aware of that and we're looking at places on the grass where we can park they may bring in a big trailer to shape the copper essentially the copper process is not much different than what you see in these in your neighbor when when somebody gets continuous guttering and the metals on a roll and then they set up a series of dies and they shape these long strips that's what it's going to be it's going to be eight foot strips interesting factoid is there's over 9,000 feet linear feet of copper up there so that's almost two miles and and and I would emphasize in terms of parking and access they aren't going to be here on Saturdays and Sundays we've reserved the auditorium for nothing but construction through till September and but because of that timeline there you know there's going to be a big push when we start start getting going on this and but I think the major suffers will be the staff that's that's trying to work in the loge of while guys are walking up above their heads and that's about all I can say yeah harry this actually we're just talking about this on Thursday this is what the experts call the historic fabric and the bathroom is gone for those who didn't know one of mr. Wright's innovations was he wanted to put a bathroom behind the pulpit back where the organ pipes were in well you know he was in his 80s and he knew what men need to do and he wanted to offer relief to the minister all that's left of that is a chrome pipe that was for the wash bowl but I would like to keep it if on one wall there are the marks where the cleats for the steps were for choir members to climb up into that balcony that overhangs the pulpit I kind of argued maybe we shouldn't even paint that we should leave that so we can see it no new steps the the floor that they stepped on was three-quarter inch plywood march it's a question of an opening that actually I think that was the bathroom door I think is what you're talking about and so that's up for debate you know we probably should leave some wrecking I think anything that we think was there in 1950 we're going to try to leave and we're in the process a hole what's an opening yeah I know what you mean yeah I don't think we'll I don't know we'll see how it looks um hi David I was on the capital campaign telephoning event and I relayed the story to David at Cabaret that one of the people I talked to was not happy with the expense of a new copper roof thinking we should look at saving money and maybe doing shingles or something and I came up with a fairly good off-the-fly reply is that we as a congregation have said we are going to maintain the integrity of this Frank Lloyd Wright design and I offered the opportunity that your money in the capital campaign could go to a different project because we have lots of other things going on told it to David he told me a little bit about the difference between asphalt and copper and could you summarize that response the most important fact about asphalt versus copper is asphalt weighs over twice as much so it's kind of a non-starter in a roof that's barely that is not supporting its own rate own weight that's that's the other visual exercise that I meant to say is go to the right side of that gable that's over the hearth room doors and stand at the eaves and run eyeball along the eaves so it looks like it's a perfectly flat plane then start backing away and as you back away you'll see more and more of the horizontal seams because they're all flat and that's the pond where the water is collecting over the J truss and where the water is running back into the room so it's it's not holding itself up now and the shingles are very heavy also it's sort of short-term and long-term investments because the shingles are cheap initially but a copper roof may last for the lifetime of three sets of shingles and then it looks very different David thank you very much for all the work you've done on this one of the things that you mentioned was you know like is it supporting the weight and it looks like there were things that were taken out when the organ was put in will those be replaced before they start to actually work on the prowl good preservation question we're still debating it because yeah we looked at it we thought oh yeah you know there's all of there's slots datos that are cut into the angular things in the prowl that look like they ought to have had supports at the at the monoteras there are all those Pedro Guerrero Frank Lloyd Wright photographs there's one of the interior of the prowl and looking at that which was taken in 1952 it looks like those slots are just there so there may never have been braces in those and that's you know and that's kind of that's a question for the structural engineers as well if they were never there do we need them i'm not a chemist but it's my understanding that copper will blend with the elements of nature and form compounds which accounts for the green patina that forms on copper i guess my question is this is there anything to be concerned about since most copper compounds are poisonous about leaching into the ground or coming off in the rainwater i mean there you see some green stains as you come into the building is that in any area for concern well uh no it's not you're absolutely right the copper copper is a problem to green plants um and that's why we have a gravel drip line you know i'd point out that the grass and stuff is doing quite well it will never be green and that's the plus and minus of cleaner air nobody's burning high sulfur coal these days there's less sulfur and hydro sulfuric acid in the air and so copper just doesn't turn green like it did in 1950 it will patina to kind of the black the blackish green that you see now on the on the big slope of the auditorium roof other question here so a little bit selfish um i've been around for about 40 years and i've never seen the area beneath the prow and i just wonder if there might be an opportunity to take a peek before um things get all messed up i guess so i i don't know it you know it's an awful tight and kind of it makes you nervous taking people there because it's so full of junk you know it's a i'll happy to give one-on-one private tours that the door is always unlocked anybody's welcome as a member to open the door and walk back in there and and see what you can see a movie yeah i i think most of us would agree that actually the number one priority for the roof is that it remain leak free for a long long time and remembering that the prior installations had serious errors in terms of the choice of underlayment and installation what evidence do we have that the two layers of membrane that you referred to will in fact last for a long period of time what are those materials and what is the real evidence to support that um good question mark i think the real evidence is empirical that it's been used for 10 or 15 years and it seems to form a good seal it seals around nails much better than tarpaper does um and we're going from zero to two which is a plus we're changing the slight angle of the batten supports so that they shed water a little better and we're putting the batten supports underneath the waterproof layer instead of on top of it which was one one of the big errors of the last restoration is their consultant was adamant that things be done exactly the way mr right did it which involved thousands of nail holes through tarpaper you know i i think the other thing and what fills me with hope is the engineering work and that's something we never did in all those meetings when we talked about you know the leaks in the loja and the the leaks in the roof we we talked a lot about you know how do we make this copper watertight and we're abandoning that we aren't going to try to solder any of the joints in the copper we're going to have it overlap and count on the engineering to have the copper shed water and we're counting on the engineering to create a less mobile roof so the copper doesn't get bent and distorted you know and when you think about it people talk about the flexibility of the wood roof and the problem is when wood flexes it tends to pretty much return to where it was when it flexes copper the copper stays where it got left and that creates a lot of gaps and problems will there be a change in the number of soldered joints or the treatment of those joints because that was another failure area yeah we aren't going to solder there'll be no solder no it's just going to lap Tom Garver he's right behind you mark well excuse me I think one of the major factors here is the finally at last the remarkable amount of work that has been done on the substrate on the substructure so in other words it's as though we had been putting wallpaper over a defective plaster wall for years and and wondering why it kept peeling off you know why why does this roof keep leaking and when this when it was repaired in 1994 one section was repaired but because the the Wisconsin State Historical Society said you could only make these repairs on critical areas the major the famous trust jay was not reinforced and I think this is the critical area that the the entire auditorium roof not only is there going to be sister trusts and so on on a couple of places but there's going to be also plates bolted on all the joints and so that the the wall underneath the the wallpaper the the roof under the copper is going to be reinforced in a way that has never been done I think that's that the real critical issue well stated of another factoid is they Fendorf has put cameras monitoring the J trust and during that last big snowstorm in April it shifted forward an eighth of an inch so and and that's the other thing we've discovered is not only did it drop and then they tried to stabilize it with a cable so it bowed it's also rolling and so it's going to have we're going to put in some sidewise trusses to to keep the the J trust where it's rolled to and not let it go any further Herman no once we get it all all buttoned up then we'll do that the big ceiling looks great to me the I don't think the auditorium ceiling has ever looked better so we're really talking about the bad spot in the hearth room where all the water came down yep yeah and all the access to stabilize the roof is going to come through the top we're going to remove decking and come in that way we serially dearly do not want to disturb the interior ceiling at all okay yeah thank you Dave and everyone who's been working on the roof and trying to figure out because it has talk about puzzles going back to the opening from today it is a massive puzzle and we don't know all the pieces so we'll see how they fit together all right and we're happy to announce we have a new music director starting July 15 Monica Drew Collins he comes to us from Connecticut where he has been the director of choral activities and coordinator of undergraduate music education for the central Connecticut University in New Britain he's also been the choir director for the All Souls UU congregation in New London he holds a doctorate of musical arts and choral conducting and composition from the Cincinnati conservatory of music he is a prolific composer of choral music he's also a professional choral singer to go along with that and he has published articles and book chapters on choral conducting and repertoire so he's really into that he's going to be coming here with his family so he has a wife Julie a son Gabriel who's five years old and a daughter Alina who's two and Drew is from Minnesota his wife Julie is from Illinois so they're really happy to be sandwiched in between where the two families are and they're they're absolutely excited to be coming back home so we're excited and and with that I want to thank the task force that spent I can't even know if we know how many documented hours they put into this but it was nine long months I believe Doug it ten months it the amount of time was amazing so really the commitment of the people who are listed up behind me was enormous and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude for this just one moment we have a question marine could you pardon yeah he does Doug do you want it just fill it in could you give him marine could you give him the the mic please he studied piano in college and plays percussion instruments and sort of thing he uses the piano in his conducting and in his coaching he doesn't consider himself an advanced pianist but he uses it as a tool in his conducting and choral work which is primary that but he has conducted numerous orchestral settings with choirs and orchestras and so forth has a has a really vast knowledge of the instrument issues pardon well he can play he can play the organ but he I think what he is most interested in doing is dealing with our coral coral setting and the pianists in the in linda and pianists in the town are jumping and ready to support this man he's a wonderfully talented internationally recognized coral conductor with instrumental experience but that's not where he wants to wants to spend his time so we're excited that he'll be coming in and obviously it's he has massive shoes to fill but the search committee feels really comfortable that we're filling it with the right person so we are happy so thank you very much another hire so it's like we've been going gangbusters is our interim minister and Rob Savage is going to give us a little update I got a picture well first I really want to say thank you to the folks on the task force again like the music search task force a lot of people worked pretty hard terry pepper scotland island lorna erinsen edzapala I'm really happy with the person that we ended up with one of the things that I did when we were starting was to try to talk to churches that were larger that had recently had or were having interims and two of them that I interviewed had our guy and they were ecstatic with the job that he did he he was in bloomington indiana some of you may remember erin macklin he's been work he worked with her and most recently he's been in an arbor and really has done a great job there so I am really happy with the person that we ended up with it's going to be two years of fun and now instead of just five people working hard it's all of us have to get together and work hard help him through this process help him help us figure out who we are where we're going how to say goodbye to michael and I'm really looking forward to the the opportunity to have him here any of you that are going to GA he will be a GA and we're going to try to get together with him while we're down there so I think that's pretty exciting so any questions where does he start he starts July 15th although he will not be doing any preaching until September his first six weeks or so he is planning to come in here get to know the staff get to know the congregation you may be reached out to as you know representative of some group so that you can chat with him help him understand who we are where we're going we will be also putting together a task force members we're trying again to get a broad representation who will help him do all those things that need to happen while he's here during the interim I think it's a real gift that he has those six weeks to get to know and that have to jump in and full steam ahead to know us it's I'm so happy to hear that thank you he's going to take more than six weeks to get to know us believe me but when we when when Joe and I talked to him about offering him a position he goes now I hope I hope it'll be okay if I don't preach for the first month or so and we said no problem Kelly Kelly said oh good he's not on the schedule until September so that will be good his experience in in Ann Arbor and in Bloomington was and this is one of the things that really sold the team was that he worked hard with more than one minister he collaborated really well with staff and ministers and the board so he has a lot of experience with large congregations congregations who are healthy like we are for the most part and he's also got a lot of experience in the policy-based governance that we've been working under for the last five or six years so I am really happy and can hardly wait for him to come we are looking by the way if anybody knows he's looking for an apartment he wants it to be convenient it has to be convenient to hear he would like it to be an efficiency or a one-bedroom he does have a small dog and a small cat and anybody that's got any suggestions can send them to me I think he's going to come here for a week right after general assembly to sort of scale the place out so that month is going to be filled in with people that the worship council has set up for the a lot of it I'm asking for your support for those people because of what often happens is that you see somebody on the schedule and think oh we're not going to come today so please be kind to them we need ushers and greeters and sound directors and all those other important jobs don't just take the summer off remember the church needs you so I'm looking forward to it I'm looking for all your help when we move forward with this so and these were the five individuals that made it happen and once again they a lot of time was put in they included me on most of their emails back and forth and they were doing a lot of work late nights often so we appreciate it thank you um and then we're almost at the end of our agenda one thing I just want to say thank you to is the team that put together uh cabaret um it sound like it was a good success I was unable to attend myself because of family issues but kelly yeah do you or molly molly kelly if you'd like to come up and just give us a we we don't have the final numbers but we know roughly where things are yeah good afternoon I've been asked just to give a quick rundown as to the numbers that we raised for cabaret but just to kind of give you the the big picture for this budget period we were hoping to raise 53k in general in fundraising efforts the gala had raised 30 000 and so that left on 23k to raise uh for cabaret uh as you may recall about 10 days out we were a little concerned about this even taking place however due to an incredible team we did gross over 23 grand so there will be some expenses taken out of that uh but the team also really kept the expenses low so the expenses are have yet to to be taken out and those are just around 4300 for the expenses uh for an event of this size I think that's pretty good uh but again I want to say the team was amazing they're listed up here but those who are here if you could please stand I just would love to have everyone applaud you so everyone brought talent and humor and dedication loyalty it was amazing so truly thank you it was a team effort and we did it yes so any question we're almost to the end we will bring up Michael for the closing but I just want to thank everyone it's this is the almost the closing of my first year as being president and it has been a wonderful experience challenging at times I won't lie but it's been a great opportunity each of the challenges that have come up as I tell us to other board of trustees and other people I talk to those those challenges are often a great opportunity for growth so it's it's as much as I've been putting in I've been getting out even more than what I've been putting in I feel I've been blessed with so thank you I really appreciate it thank you and please don't forget to sign in but next Michael oh That's perfect for the interim period. Alright, Michael, it's all yours. Before the closing, I just wanted to preface this reading with a couple of comments. When I first came here, and actually before, I actually arrived, Max Gabler and I agreed to a covenant that would define his role as the minister emeritus. And in that particular covenant, there was provision that was made for him to co-officiate at memorial services, perhaps at weddings with my permission as the successor to Max, and also perhaps to preach a couple of times at our joint agreement. And that relationship was very productive and was very cordial. There will be a covenant with me and the interim minister and with my permanent successor at some point in time. I do not know what the terms of that will be, but hopefully they will be as amicable as they were between myself and Max Gabler. There was one thing in that covenant, however, that spelled out something very specific in the sense of a prohibition. And that was that Max would not be involved any longer in the business of the congregation, of the church. And so during the entire time of my ministry, Max Gabler never appeared at a parish meeting. He never spoke before the Board of Trustees. He was never involved in the polity, the operations, the business of the congregation. He felt that would be inappropriate and that that was something that his successor was going to be empowered to do, to work with the Board of Trustees, to work with the congregation. And I say this because there will be elements or aspects of congregational life that I will be involved with moving forward. I'm not sure how long the hiatus might be before I become actively involved again. That's to be determined as well. But I can tell you for certain that there is one place that will not see me again. And that is right here at a parish meeting. So there are a lot of endings that are kind of, you know, maybe an ending, maybe a not, but this is definitely an ending. So this is my last parish meeting and it's been fun. There you go. And thank you all for your commitment. I see a lot of familiar faces who are here faithfully for these parish meetings and helping us to create the policies and to elect the people who are going to lead this congregation forward. And it's wonderful to have experienced your commitment. So I close then with these words from Howard Thurman, who was for many years a chaplain and a professor of religious studies at Boston University. He was an instructor too and a mentor for Martin Luther King Jr. Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born. All around us life is dying and life is being reborn. The fruit ripens on the tree. The roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge. Is the extra breath from the exhausted lung. The one more thing to try when all else has failed. The upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all of our endeavors. This is the basis for hope in moments of despair. The incentive to carry on when times are out of joint. The source of confidence when worlds are in flux and the future is uncertain. Look well to the growing edge. Blessed be an amen.