Our Vestry met on Wednesday, April 19th for its monthly meeting. The minutes for the meeting will be filed and will be available for your review. Your Vestry wants to sincerely thank ALL of the many people and groups who helped with this year’s Holy Week and Easter Sunday. We are blessed with a beautiful campus and a wonderful membership who pulled together this year to ensure it was a success. The Sunrise Service was one of the best ever. If you missed it, please consider joining us next year and of course, also for the many special events that happen around Easter… Thank you Trinity!
In case you have not been made aware yet, Trinity has secured a weekend at Shrine Mont for another congregational retreat! It will occur the weekend of October 14/15. More information will be forthcoming, but if you can, please put a hold on that weekend and join us for Friday and/or Saturday night. Depending on the weather from now until then, it may just be the peek weekend for fall foliage viewing.
We had a fairly regular Vestry meeting this month. We received the Treasurer’s reports. Our cash position is good. Pledge income was a bit down for the month, but with our impending draw from endowment, we will remain in good standing through the next several months. Pledge income for the year was up compared to our budget so we’re looking okay.
A couple of items from the Finance Committee to report are 1) the Spending Authority policy was updated to reflect changes approved by Vestry last year- mostly dealing with the approval of funds by Vestry and acquisition of bids; 2) upon discovery that there was no formal oversight of the Food Closet, Vestry approved that the Food Closet be formally assigned to the Outreach Committee for financial oversight; and 3) Vestry unanimously authorized the Parish Administrator to enter into a new contract for a leased printer/copier as described in the Finance Committee Report.
Vestry received a Proposal for Organ Improvements submitted by Mann & Trupiano Organ Builders in partnership with Bard B. Wickkiser Organ Builder. Trupiano and Wickkiser are two of the most skilled organ builders in the country, especially for Aeolian-Skinner organs and Wickkiser is the curator of the National Cathedral organ- also an Aeolian-Skinner. Considering the funds already in our recently created Organ Repair Fund, Vestry concluded that it could not approve a contract until the additional funds have been secured. Vestry formally accepted the proposal from Trupiano and Wickkiser as presented, and voted that a contract for the work be ratified upon receipt of the required additional $50,000.
We received the Stable Tour update. Thanks be to God for the remarkable response to this year’s donor campaign which was reported to be at $25,000 already. I won’t go into a lot of detail here as more information will be given elsewhere, but I will ask that everybody please consider how you can pitch in to help. Our Outreach efforts for the whole year are dependent on a successful Stable Tour and as Rob has been telling us, Vestry has been considering ways that we can have a greater impact with our Outreach activities as we attempt to clarify and carry out our purpose and mission.
We briefly discussed the need to identify new Vestry candidates. This month we have identified a list of eligible candidates and the outgoing Vestry members will be taking this issue for action. You may start seeing reminders that we are seeking candidates for nomination so if you interested in learning more about what it takes to be on Vestry, please let us know.
As always, thank you again for your prayers, participation, engagement and support.