St. Alban's Episcopal Church April 5, 2008

The St. Alban's Bishop's Committee met on March 29 at noon, after working on highway 32 cleanup.  Those present were: Bob Wagnon, Barbara Huddle, Carey Kaltenbach, Brenda Sickler, Deann Megonnell, Michelle Morgan, and Lynn O'Brien. Deann reported on Share Your Christmas.  St. Alban's is the smallest congregation but has the largest group of gift recepients. We need more money to fund this project and perhaps another smaller church to work with us.  This year we will provide larger, more substantial gifts rather than a lot of little items. Michelle gave the treasurer's report.  The balance of the mortgage is down to $59,500.00.  There was considerable discussion on what fundraisers could be undertaken to further reduce the mortgage.

Outreach disbursements There was $5,746.48 available for disbursement. These monies were from the 10% off the top of everything received in 2007. Share Your Christmas  ------------------------------------------------------67.00 Bolivar Area Ministerial Alliance ---------------------------------------------600.00 Hope's Bridge -------------------------------------------------------------600.00 House of Hope  -----------------------------------------------------------600.00 Crop Walk   ---------------------------------------------------------------100.00 Navajoland    -------------------------------------------------------------750.00 Maison de Naissance  ------------------------------------------------------250.00 Episcopal Relief & Development ---------------------------------------------250.00 United Thank Offering   ----------------------------------------------------250.00 Camp Barnabas (2 people to help) ------------------------------------------600.00 Discretionary Fund  --------------------------------------------------------300.00 Reserve funds --------------------------------------------1379.00 Reserve funds may be used for House of Hope, Hope's Bridge, Aids Quilts, Share Your Christmas, or any other need that may arise. Maison de Naissance funds are in addition to the Mother's Day gathering of funds.

Romain Morgan suggested that St. Alban's start a community garden and possibly establish a canning day as an educational tool as well as a means of utilizing all the vegetables that will be raised. The Photo Shoot fund raiser needs to be signed up by April 21st. For every photo shoot sold the children of St. Alban's earn $10.00. If our congregation can sell 100 photo shoots the children will earn a $1200.00 bonus. Michelle has agreed to teach the younger children in Sunday School next year.  Deann will continue with the older kids. There was discussion of the Bolivar city-wide garage sale to be April 26.  We are not selling items this year but will be selling lunch.   It was suggested that we contact First Christian to see if we could use their parking lot since it has much more visibility. This report was taken from the minutes of the meeting submitted by Lynn O'Brien.