Our Vestry met on Wednesday, September 20th for its monthly meeting. As always, the minutes for the meeting will be filed and available for your review. As this was the last regular meeting for the “senior” Vestry class, we celebrated their dedicated service and we thanked them for their hard work and for the many hours of extra time spent at Trinity over the past three years. Our new Parish Administrator, Jane McGee, was in attendance, much to the pleasure of all. The Vestry gave Jane a seat and voice at the meeting which means she could contribute, but not vote. It is a tremendous help for her, and for those of us doing the follow up actions from the meeting, to be present and hear what was actually discussed. This level of coordination will help all of us communicate and engage more effectively.
Our Treasurer, Carol Miller, presented the financial summary for the year. While our cash position was still down mostly due to the normal summer pledge payment slump, our year-to-date income was on budget and we anticipate our cash position will recover by year-end with continued pledge payments and our final endowment draw. We were told that the final tally for the Stable Tour was $57,024- Bravo!! The Organ fund has received $80,000 and continues to seek additional contributions. We continue to make significant progress in the quality of our music offerings through this effort. The better we are able to make these repairs now, the longer they will last into the future. Please consider a contribution.
Other business included updates to our new Vestry candidate list. We eagerly anticipate our annual meeting and the election of four new Vestry members. With the current list of candidates, the upcoming elections are sure to bring a highly talented team to join our important work. Vestry already has our first retreat scheduled for the last weekend in October (27/28) where we will continue working on the vision/planning effort that I’ve mentioned in earlier reports. We will be discussing many short and long term plans for Trinity at the retreat that will help us set the overall agenda for the new year. Please keep us in your prayers as we undertake this endeavor.
We discussed the previously approved distributions from Outreach in the wake of the two devastating hurricanes that hit Texas and Florida. In case you were not aware, Trinity provided $5000 to the Episcopal Relief and Development Fund and another $5000 to the Salvation Army. While that may be just a drop in the bucket, we are confident that both are good stewards of the monies they receive and will be using them to provide as much direct assistance as possible. Vestry also approved additional Outreach distributions to various worthy causes in our area. These will be detailed in the minutes.
Of course, we spent a fair amount of time preparing for the Annual meeting which is likely to have occurred before you read this. If that’s the case, hopefully you were in attendance, were able to cast your vote for new Vestry and shared our enthusiasm for the coming year. We continue to thank you all for your prayers, support and assistance in our work.
Finally, this is the last Vestry note that I will write, at least for the near future. I am one of those “seniors” I mentioned in the opening paragraph so after the new Wardens are elected at the first meeting of the new Vestry in October, I’ll be done. I have truly enjoyed my time on Vestry and I am grateful for the support that the whole congregation has provided to me and to all of Vestry. There are three people I wish to thank by name… Rob, our Rector, for his friendship and trust over the years; Ellen, who I was blessed to have as my Junior Warden and who has become my confidant and my friend; and my wife, Kat, who lovingly supported me, as she always does, and regularly served as my sounding board, coach and cheerleader all rolled up into one. Thanks to all of you.
In faith,
Jim Gemmer
Senior Warden