At the recent October meeting of Vestry we elected new officers and wardens. I am pleased to report that Jolly de Give continues to serve as Registrar and Carol Miller continues to serve as Treasurer. We are extremely fortunate that these two parishioners are willing to be of continued service to our church. I was elected to serve as Senior Warden and was willing to serve because I knew I could rely upon the able assistance of our re-elected Junior Warden Ellen Hall. Jim Gemmer provided extraordi-nary service to Trinity and leadership to Vestry over the course of his two years of service as Senior Warden. He certainly set a high bar but I will do my best.
Your 2018 Vestry, pictured from left to right, top to bottom: Mark Thompson. Sanford Diday, Ellen Hall, Debra Latiolais, Johanna Jackson, Melissa Neal, Kathryn Gemmer, Martha Williamson, Jim Hoecker and Matt Blunt (not pictured: Troye Plaskitt and Kevin Fox).
At the October meeting the Treasurer provided a financial report. We remain slightly ahead of budget for 2017 though the final months of the year are extremely important to Trinity. Both the Christmas auction and year end gifts to the church are vital.
You may have heard that recently Trinity decided to transition the endowment to the financial manage-ment of the Trustees of the Funds (TOTF). The Trustees of the Funds is a related organization of the Diocese of Virginia and provides its services to Episcopal churches and entities in all three of the dioceses within Virginia. Overseen by an elected board of trustees, TOTF currently serves nearly 150 churches and organizations with the management of almost $140 million in assets. The Trustees will manage our endowment in trust for us and Trinity will retain the same legal control over the endowment that it has today. Vestry and appropriate committees will continue to monitor the endowment’s performance. This was a significant decision and one that was undertaken after a great deal of due diligence and consideration by both the Endowment Committee and the Finance Committee. The chief executive officer of the Trustees of the Funds, Mike Kerr, will be at Trinity at 9:30 on December 10, 2017 to make a presentation and answer any questions you may have. I urge you to attend. It remains important that we continue to increase the size of our endowment for the long term maintenance of our campus and the fulfillment of our mission.
In the coming weeks we will prepare our budget for 2018. Jim Hoecker’s excellent message on stewardship was a great reminder of our obligation to be good stewards of God’s blessings. He also did a great job pointing out how important it is to Vestry to have a record of pledges so that we can appropriately plan for 2018 and craft a budget that allows for Trinity to fulfill its mission.
As we finish 2017 and head into 2018, I hope you will feel free to reach out to any member of Vestry if you have thoughts or concerns. November and December will be busy months at Trinity!
In faith,
Matt Blunt
Senior Warden