(Highlights of recent Vestry meetings)
Zooming: Your Vestry continues to meet via zoom. In May the Vestry transferred $20,000 to the Haiti Outreach Mission from the Haiti Outreach Mission account where wine auction and other funds designated for Haiti were being kept.
Genesis Budget: The operating expenses of the Genesis Corporation, the building management company that maintains our building, are paid by Saint Clare and Temple Beth Emeth. Thus, when the Genesis Board (made up of an equal number of representatives from each congregation) develops a budget for the next fiscal year, both congregations’ governing bodies must approve. The Vestry did that at its May meeting.
Reopening: Genesis and the Temple have formed committees to examine the prospect of resuming some form of in-person worship services as the pandemic wanes and the Governor relaxes the stay-at-home order. In its May meeting the Vestry also created an ad-hoc reopening committee. Saint Clare is not only constrained in any reopening by the orders of the Governor, and those developed by Genesis and the Temple; our congregation is further constrained by the orders of our Diocesan Bishop, the Right Reverend Bonnie Perry. Stay tuned. This may take some time.
Week of Hope: Five families had committed to their teenagers participating in the Week of Hope mission trip, each paying a non-refundable deposit. Two of those families paid the entire program amount to St. Clare’s, and St. Clare’s paid Group Mission Trips, the company that organizes the trip. Then, along came COVID-19 and hope was lost. Group Mission Trips has suffered financially as a result of the pandemic, and is unable at this time to refund St. Clare’s payment. At its June meeting, the Vestry voted to provide those two families a refund of their payments in excess of the non-refundable deposit.
Genesis Again: The Genesis Board has been meeting electronically nearly every Saturday, trying to develop procedures that will minimize or eliminate the probability of individuals contacting SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the building. Some of the proposals include evaluating building systems in terms of avoiding having them spread virus particles, providing hands free systems in bathrooms, designing guidelines for reentry into the building by staff, congregations, and renters, including: requiring masks and keeping lists of people in the building at various times to assist contact tracing.
And Yet More Genesis: After the June 2 Annual Genesis Meeting, the Genesis Board organized itself for the next fiscal year. Murray Rosenthal will serve as President; Jack Petersen as Vice President; Lisa Perschke as Secretary and Mark Davis-Craig as Treasurer. Christine Modey will join the board as a representative from St. Clare.