Thursday and Friday of last week, the National Council met at the National Office. During the meetings, both regular and executive session minutes from previous sessions were reviewed and adopted. The new council member, Michael Erickson, gave an icebreaker and was assigned to work on the Strategic Planning/Finance Committee. The Governance/Ethics/Pastoral Committee selected Patrick Read to be chair of that committee.

 

Director of Operations, Anthony Wasilkoff, gave highlights of a recent Charity Law Seminar that six staff members attended. Following that, Edwin van Pelt presented a PowerPoint showing the latest trends for the church.

 

Dennis Horlick reported on behalf of the Office Relocation Task Force that a potential new office has been found. The Council then had a tour of that office.

 

Thursday afternoon began with a discussion of council members’ impressions of the potential office. After sufficient time for questions and suggestions, the Council unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the Director of Operations to enter into a lease for the new office. If all final documents are signed, the move will take place in early January and will end a year and half of searching.

 

During the Ministerial Services Team report, Anthony Wasilkoff mentioned that two festival sites might be relocated next year. Details will be announced later as negotiations are finalized. Committee meetings took place most of the afternoon.

 

Friday started with the Media Team report. David Palmer reiterated that the goal of the team is to use the best possible medium to reach people. Regardless of what we do, it is God who does the calling and He can reach people in very unusual ways. A real life example was given of a person walking down the street on a very gusty day when the church magazine blew into her face! Council saw the statistics from the ad-word campaigns on the Internet and an interesting graph depicting how many views each of the congregational web pages receive. A PowerPoint presentation gave an overview of the most recent statistics for responses.

 

Next year, with the recession affecting more people, we anticipate no increase in income. However, we know that some expenses will go up. That necessitates cutting back in some areas to balance the budget. The Council unanimously approved the budget as presented by the treasurer, Edwin van Pelt. The next step is for the National Conference to ratify the budget in March. We all need to pray that more funds than anticipated will come in so that current programs will not have to be cut.

 

The Operations Plan for next year was presented and discussed. A new template makes the plan much easier to read and understand. After discussion, the 2011/2012 Operations Plan was unanimously approved to be put forth to the National Conference for ratification in March.

 

The Strategic Planning/Finance Committee discussed strategies they looked at for cutting expenses. One major one is to utilize the Internet more to cut down on postage costs. Additional savings will be made by holding only one face-to-face council meeting per year. The committee then presented and the council approved an investment policy.

 

The Governance Committee presented amendments to three human resource policies. The changes to policies for outside employment and conflict of interest were approved. Amendments to the Vacation Time for Full-Time Employees policy will require further research but should be ready for approval in June.

 

The last business item was to approve the agenda for the March 2011 National Conference. 

 

Victor Kubik spoke to the Council about Biblical eldership prior to opening the floor to questions regarding what is happening at Home Office and in the church.

 

On Friday evening, the council helped to host a dinner reception at the National Office for ministers and wives arriving for the ministerial conference, which started the following day.

 

Council Secretary