Present:  Janice Zerfas, Dorothy Long, Chris Sirotiak, Amy Eklund, David Sarra, Lisa Dalgleish, Emily Hecht, Jim McConnell

Chris moved, Dorothy seconded to approve as December minutes as submitted and motion approved.

Building and grounds:  The water heater has been replaced up front. There is a slow leak into the drain but it is working. The water fountain has now been fixed.  Jenifer and Charles will be trying to fix the microwave today. Dave suggested putting a gravel zen garden over the septic tank. Dorothy will submit the idea to the building and grounds committee.

Copier policy:  Simple copies can be made for BUUF purposes by members. If members need to do anything other than simple copies, such as scanning etc. then they should see Gretchen or Dave to request they do the copies or they become trained for it. Consider changing the lock on the office door so that tenants will not have access to the copier. Dave will check with the tenants to see if they have office keys right now.

Old business:

Treasurer’s report:  Dorothy did not have a formal treasurer’s report.  She looked at the balances on the bank statement.  The $20000 gift we received put our savings balance in a good place.  Checking is currently down because we had some larger amounts going out recently.

Bob Milne:  Piano tuning January 19th and Dave will be here for that.  We need a plan for putting up posters for events that we want to publicize.  Janice will email the posters to all the music places in the area. Emily will do Benton Harbor library and other locations and Bagatini’s. Chris will ask Fitzgerald’s.  Amy will email music faculty. Food:  Cookies, coffee, juice. Janice will be here Friday. Chris will come and help set up on Wednesday and will have cookies for both nights.  Dorothy will get a couple large containers of juice.

Office administration:  Snow emergency plan:  List of people who do not get the BUUF announce is only about half an dozen.  We can send out the announcement and just call those few who are not on the buuf announce list.  Dick will call Dave if the conditions are really bad and things need to be cancelled.  If he isn’t going to be in town then he will let Dave know and Dave will seek input from someone else.

RE:  Kids provided a thorough service on Kwaanza.  Dave realized he needs birthdates to do his background checks so he is gathering those now.  We can get this done for free as a non-profit with an agency number so he will be seeking those.

Minister’s report:  We still have all the pizza ingredients so Jim is suggesting a movie/pizza night sometime soon, maybe this weekend, or it could be used for Cabaret.  Or both.  He will be gone from 1/17-1/23.  He has spoken to people about getting into the Lakeside Ecumenical Association and he is welcome and there is also interest in forming a Liberal clergy group.  He would like us to form a more clear identity and mission. There is interest in getting involved with the soup kitchen.

Membership:  Lisa has the new brochure for printing.  Attendance has been waning to an average of 23-24 lately.  We do not know how that tracks with last year.  Lisa will check for a date for cabaret and then will announce. Pledge dinner date:  need to work around spring breaks and Easter.  No progress thus far on putting together a UU class.  Lisa put together a ways to be involved at BUUF brochure to have on the member table.

Next meeting, February 13
Amy moved to adjourn, Emily seconded.  Passed.