March 8, 2007 Meeting Minutes

1) Kathi Gallup opened the meeting at 9:50 a.m. with a Lenten devotion.

2) Board Reports:

Secretaries – No report.

Education – Brian Molohon from Feed My Starving Children joined us for today’s membership meeting Next time (May 10), Judy Urban will speak on job descriptions. (Reminder: On November 8th a retreat will be held at the Christos Center for Spiritual Formation in Lino Lakes.)

MAVA –The MAVA Conference will be held on May 2, 3, & 4th at the downtown Minneapolis Radisson Hotel. There will be about 38 workshops to choose from. The early bird registration rate has been extended to April 1; check the website for scholarships. Faith based workshops will be offered by Judy Urban (“Leading from the 2^nd Chair”, Thursday morning) and Virginia Stillwell.

Publicity – Send all information, updates, and other news to Gail Yost (gaily@stlukes.ws) or through the link on the MAVA website. Barb Orzechowski is continuing to work on the brochure, which will be circulated to @ 1000 area churches.

Finance-The board met in February to discuss becoming more strategic in supporting MAVA. Some ideas put forward were: 1) Ask those within our communities and churches to join us in MAVA membership; 2) Hosting the “Action Auction” at the July DCVM membership meeting; and 3) Hosting the upcoming retreat on Nov. 8 at the Christos Center in Lino Lakes, as a membership incentive event as well as fulfilling our membership goals.

Open Positions – Anyone interested in taking one of the open board positions is encouraged to do so! They are Chair, Vice-Chair, Co-Publicity, and Co-Education. The board meets at 10:00 a.m. on the 2^nd Thursday of each month that the DCVM membership meeting doesn’t meet, at Diamond Lake Lutheran Church in south Minneapolis. If you have any questions about a board position call or email Barb Orzechowski at barbo@sjn.org or 651-454-2079 x2212.

3) Other Business –

-- Local DCVM networks have begun to meet. Currently they are the South Metro, on April 11, 12:15 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church in Apple Valley (contact: Laurel Jacobson, laurel.jacobson@glcofav.org, or (952) 432-7273); West Suburbs, on March 22, 1 p.m. at Caribou Coffee at Shady Oak & Crosstown (Hwy. 62); and North Metro, in April (check the MAVA website for more info).

-- Other resources for church volunteer coordinators:

4) Guest speaker: Brian Molohon from Feed My Starving Children talked about his organization’s successful volunteer-run program. He passed along many ideas that we can use in our settings.

Closing prayer was led by Jan Frederickson, using a beautiful litany praying for FMSC’s global mission.

Respectfully submitted,

Laurel Jacobson, Co-secretary