ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD MINUTES
January 13, 2008
Kim Hawkins, chair of the Administrative Board, opened the meeting with prayer, followed by a call to order, approval of the previous meeting’s minutes and introduction of new church members who were guests of the Board. The calendar of meetings for 2008 was posted and the chair brought to the Board the names of three persons nominated to be members of the Finance Committee: Todd Jackson, Bryan Seely and Phil Cramer. A motion was made and seconded to accept these names. The motion passed.
ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD 101: Ken Edwards, senior pastor, explained that a church’s apportionments are based on a three-year average of the church’s expenditures, excluding mission expenses, capital expenditures and apportionments, divided by the conference’s average expenses for a percentage assigned to the church. There is no correlation to membership. For the past four years, Belmont has paid its full apportionment.
PASTOR’S REPORT: Linda Johnson, associate pastor, shared the wonderful news that Belmonters contributed over $16,000 to the Christmas Miracle offering for the Golden Triangle Fellowship in addition to gifts of socks, diapers, etc. And, that the Outreach Committee has sent the Malawi Methodist Church funds for12 bicycles, 12 sewing machines and a Celtel booth. She read a letter of appreciation from the Malawi church for these gifts.
Ken Edwards reported that Belmont hascompleted the $10,000 gift to Martin Methodist College to establish a permanent, endowed scholarship in memory of Ida Long Rogers and Frankie Graham, thus making Belmont a partner church with Martin. He also reported that Belmont had 106 new members and 54 baptisms in 2007.
FINANCE COMMITTEE: John Pearce reported a tremendous financial end to 2007 and that the Trust Fund grew $150,000 on earnings. He stated that growth in the corpus of this fund is needed since we are relying on income from it to finance some of the capital expenditures. A proposed budget will be brought to the February meeting and he encouraged the Board members to turn in their estimate of giving cards.
BUILDING COMMITTEE: Hayne Hamilton reported that the new building is going up; it should be dried in by the end of February; it should be completed in June! Restroom renovations on the current buildings should begin next month; Iris Room and Covenant classroom should be available again next week; new heating and air condition units are situated on top of old building; paint and carpet for older buildings will be last thing done. Since water pressure from the current main is inadequate for fire sprinklers, Belmont has to tap into another water main for an unbudgeted expense to be paid from the contingency fund.
MINISTRY MOMENT: Heather Harris, children’s pastor, told about the new Children’s Church for kindergarteners, 3- and 4-year-old children. Bruce Williams shared a brief video of the first session.
LIVING THE LEGACY: Kim Hawkins presented “The Results” of seven month’s gathering and distilling ideas from Belmonters for Living the Legacy. The suggestions are grouped in nine areas: The Aging, Homeless/Displaced, Golden Triangle, Relationships, Mission, WNAB, Children and Youth, Environment and Community. This information has been provided to the ministry teams.
NEW BUSINESS: Bill Cooper was appointed chair of a Building Transition Task Force.
The meeting was adjourned.
Betty Jane Taylor
Secretary