United Church of Ludlow Executive Board Meeting - Wed., June 25, 2025

United Church of Ludlow Executive Board Meeting - Wed., June 25, 2025, at 5:00 PM EDT

United Church of Ludlow, 48 Pleasant St, Ludlow, VT 05149
Present on Zoom: Bob Malecki, Dean Alexander, Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt, Laura Creaser, Pastor Michelle Fountain
Absent:  Nancy Martel, Loren Stolp, Bill Kneebone, Andy Ohotnicky

1. Call Meeting to Order – Welcome/Introductions/Announcements - Laura Creaser called the meeting to order at 5 PM.
2. Opening Prayer – Michelle led an Opening Prayer.
3. Minutes Approval – We reviewed minutes from the May 14, 2025, board meeting.  Dean made a motion to accept the minutes, Laura seconded. Minutes were approved unanimously. 
4. Pastor’s Report and ONA update-Michelle
   1. Licensing meeting last week - Michelle thanked Lisa, Laura, and Christine, who wrote letters in support. Michelle’s license was renewed for 3 years, ending in 2028.
   2. She is taking a personal retreat July 31-Aug 2. Coming back Aug 1 to do a memorial service for former member Shirley Pratt. The family is renting the Fellowship Hall for the reception for $100. Needs a volunteer to lock it up at the end. Lisa volunteered.
   3. Karey is taking time off to become an aquatic instructor. Michelle will be doing bulletins while she is gone or will get information to her earlier.
   4. Michelle attended a Windham Union Assn meeting May 18, with information on refugee care and disaster care. She is on the Justice and Ministry Committee, and reported that last month it discussed donating money for reparations to gospel groups, but they recommended small churches combine their donations to make more of an impact.
   5. Visitations - Michelle visited Mary, Ralph, Anne and Andy
   6. There is a struggling family at church. We hope to enable them to be in a better place. Michelle is counseling them. Dean suggested Michelle have a confidant, and Michelle said Bob Malecki made sense since he is the treasurer. Bob suggested making sure the donated funds go to the minister’s discretionary fund. 
   7. ONA - signs. Michelle approached Signs of Distinction in Shrewsbury to get a sign made with our ONA/Reconciling identity. He quoted $350-$400 for the addition to hang below the current sign, $2237 for a new sign. Lisa will provide art to Michelle again.
      MOTION: Lisa made a motion to spend $350 to $400 to have Signs of Distinction of Shrewsbury create an addition to the current sign (the white version indicated in the illustration Michelle provided). Laura seconded the motion. Discussion: Bob mentioned that this amount was added to the marketing budget for ONA support, so we have the needed funds. The motion passed unanimously. Michelle will contract with the sign company to get the sign created.  
   8. Books have been moved into the Sunday School room. Disaster kit remaining money should be spent so that we can send a photo to the conference. Michelle will do that this summer, as well as looking over historical records.
   9. This Sunday is Communion Conversation Church in Fellowship Hall. Lisa volunteered to help with the kids.
   10. Michelle will be on vacation in Portugal June 30-July 13, and has Springfield Congregational Pastor Michael Mario filling in to cover pastoral needs. Deacons have the pulpit covered. 
   11. Wild Church will be held at Fra and Carol’s on July 20. 
   12. Michelle is thinking of doing an afternoon VBS in August, with crafts, songs, activities, stories, followed by an intergenerational potluck in the evening when the kids can share a song or story. She wants to spend $100 on supplies; Bob says there’s enough in the Christian Education budget.
   13. Bob Kottkamp is having the celebration of life service for Ginny on Sept. 27. He will be here this weekend in Ludlow. 
   14. Some folks are interested in becoming new members. She will put together a new members' class in August.
5. Deacon’s Report - Laura. 
   1. Deacons are set through September. Pulpit coverage includes Laura, Bruce, Jeremy in Aug, Hannah in September. 
   2. Deacons are asking people to stay in their seats in silent reflection during the postlude, and Deacons will extinguish the candles during the postlude. Dean mentioned it’s important to tell people to leave quietly if they must, and that Terry play something appropriate for reflection and to leave the fun tunes for after the postlude.
   3. Laura said her son-in-law Drew is doing badly, and she will be going down to Texas on July 21 and will probably stay the rest of the summer helping the family. She may need to pull back from her role in the church for a while.
6. Trustees Report-Dean
   1. Work has begun on furnace replacement and tank removal. Should be done this week. 
   2. He is waiting for the finalizing date for painters.
   3. He asked Laura about the handrail guy, waiting on the report.
   4. He said fire extinguishers were out of date, because the company that took care of them went out of business, and we missed inspections. George Thomson got them repaired and back in place. 
   5. George is working with Countryside Alarm to get the alarm system beep error repaired.
   6. Wayne Hammond put in the parking sign with a permanent post as a donation. Michelle will send him a thank you.
7. Communications Report-Lisa. 
   1. Nothing unusual. Website and social media maintenance. 
   2. Michelle said we could plan the Ring the Bell celebration, a community celebration/ice cream social, for after the new sign is in place. 
8. Treasurer’s Report -Bob
   1. He, Fra and Laura are going through the bylaws for revision.
   2. Insurance - Bob finally heard back from underwriters, and changing to their Flex plan for small churches will save us $1,600 annually. A new service or monitored fire alarm service would save us more, so we’ll ask for another review in the fall to get more savings.
   3. Operation cost savings - he suggested writing policies for various things, including a safe church policy for abuse prevention, in the next year. Michelle said there are model safe church policies. Bob wrote the safe church policy for his prior church, recommended a 2-3 person team for that, and volunteered to be involved. Michelle also volunteered. 
9. Old Business - none 
10. New Business - none.
11. Set next meeting - The next meeting was set for Aug. 6 at 5 PM. In case Laura is in Texas, Michelle will set up Zoom, and Dean volunteered to create the agenda and run the meeting. 
12. Adjournment - Lisa made a motion to adjourn. Dean seconded. The motion was unanimously approved. Laura adjourned the meeting at 545 PM.. 

Minutes respectfully submitted by
Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt

ADDENDUM
​
Pastor’s Report
Date:   June 25, 2025
Professional Development

1. I had my license renewal meeting with the Ministerial Standings Committee of the Vermont Conference UCC on June 16th and my license to the United Church of Ludlow has been renewed for three years. Thanks to Lisa, Laura, and Christine for filling out the required forms for our church. 
2. I will be on a personal planning retreat from July 31-August 2 at the Mercy Eco-spirituality Center in Benson, Vermont. EcoMinister Heather Wolfe, who hosts Wild Church in Woodstock, will join me for part of that time so I can learn from her. 

Greater United Church of Christ Connections

1. I attended the Windham Union Association Meeting on May 18 at Westminster West Church. We had a vibrant worship service centered around the history of certain hymns. We then had a presentation from the Interfaith Youth Group on their trip to Asheville, North Carolina. Twelve youth from 13-22 participated. They have Christian, Jewish and Muslim members. Their group includes refugees from the Congo. They worked on hurricane and poverty relief. They worked with Asheville Youth Mission and many other organizations. It was a very moving presentation. Our church gave them $100 for this mission. We also heard from Joe Wiah, the Executive Director of the Ethiopian Community Development Council of Brattleboro about their refugee resettlement work. . They have the lowest out migration of anywhere. The refugees stay in the area rather than going to other states. They have said that they feel at home and welcome. There are about 375 refugees in Brattleboro and about 450 in Bennington. Currently, they are supporting previous refugees through private donations as the federal program and grants have stopped. 
2. I continue on the Justice and Witness Ministry Committee. Right now, they are working on upcoming webinars on justice topics and seeing if those who passed the motion to support Black composers and musicians want to pool funds annually to make a greater difference. The Green Mountain Gospel choir may be the first recipient. 

Visitations

1. I visited Anne and Andy. Ralph Pace and Mary Owen and keep in touch with others via phone and email. 

Church Activities

1. I have worked to coordinate support for a church family who was struggling. I am pleased to report that many individuals in our church have come forward with donations to support the family and it looks like they are in good shape as a result. 
2. I worked with Signs of Distinction in Shrewsbury for more welcoming sign options due to our Open and Affirming/Reconciling Vote. Our Building Inclusivity Team reviewed the sign options and recommend that we go with an addition to our current sign (option #1 attached), which can be created for $350-400. The Team also recommends creating a rainbow welcome sign as a group project to place near the front door of the church. I do not yet have estimates on what that would cost but believe it would be fairly minimal. We would also like to consider adding a small sign noting the church name on the back of the church somehow but did not consider what that should be yet. I have also included the designs for a brand new sign created by Signs of Distinctions for your reference although the committee is not recommending that. The estimated cost for a new sign would be $2237.50.
3. Karen and Tim Williams organized the books from the lending library table onto shelves in the Sunday School room. 
4. I will work to further organize the Sunday School room and make sure our Disaster kits are complete this summer. I plan to also work on some of our historical records.

Upcoming Events/Plans/Requests:

1. Communion Conversation Church in the Fellowship Hall with a Potluck brunch this Sunday, June 29. We will still have Zoom but they will converse with each other when the question portions come up. 
2. I have several people interested in membership so will plan a new member class for after I return from Portugal. 
3. Russ and I will be on vacation in Portugal June 30-July 15 -Michael Mario from the Springfield Congregational Church is available for emergencies.He can be reached at 802-579-5230 or [email protected] Laura is leading a Hymn Sing July 6 and Bruce Bishop is covering July 13. 
4. Wild Church will be July 20 at Fra and Carol Devine’s property in Belmont. 
5. I have a graveside service for Shirley Pratt on August 1 (I am returning from the retreat to do this). They are renting the Fellowship Hall for a reception after. Can someone cover that portion (the service is at 11am but they want to set up before) so I can return to my retreat?
6. I hope to do a one-afternoon Vacation Bible School for the kids sometime in August. My thought was to do a few hours with the kids then have a Potluck dinner for anyone in the church who wants to come and the kids can share a song and some crafts they made. Do we have some funds for this? (no more than $100).
7. The Celebration of Life for Ginny Kottkamp will be Saturday, September 27 in our church.