Committee Reports for Congregational Meeting 01/30/11

Annual Report 2010 Rev. Stephen Glauz-Todrank

It is a pleasure for me to report that my 20th anniversary will be coming up in mid-January of 2011 so this is my 20th annual report to you as your minister at Skyland Church. 2010 was a full and productive year. We have a busy schedule through the year with seasonal worship services, fundraisers and mission projects coming one after another, so I will mention just a few highlights that made this year distinctive.

I am grateful to work with our seminary intern, Yael Lachman, who we were able to engage for an unprecedented second year of field education with us during the current school year so we were blessed with her presence for all of 2010. I particularly enjoyed working with her this fall on a plan to do more of our religious education in worship rather than in a classroom setting. We have slightly lengthened and boosted the content of our Words for Children time during worship. This fall we have used a book of Psalms for children to help them think about who God is, where God is and how we are called into relationship with God. We also have worked with the Religious Education Board and the Board of Deacons to lead a third Sunday Family Sunday service for all ages including communion. These services have received many positive responses from Skylanders of all ages. We plan to keep them going in 2011.

I also wish to highlight the leadership of Julia Swayne and Kacie Clark who have planned and lead a group that draws together both high school and early college students. I don’t know of any other churches who combine ages this way but it has really worked well. The group meets every two weeks for a light supper, games and conversation. I am very pleased at the positive dynamics in the group and how some college students who are not local during the school year came by and participated during the summer. Jessy Rosen, who is also here almost every Sunday doing child care for little ones during worship, has done a great job of drawing in students in the neighborhood. This is a very exciting, student lead program.

This year we celebrated 90th birthdays of our three eldest members: Margretta Dollard, Jean Cline and Alice Schank. We are so grateful to all they add to our church community and it was a great joy to cheer them together. Congratulations!

Skyland Church has a tradition of supporting members with various calls to ministry. This April we celebrated the installation of Rev. T’Shala Olivieri in her position as Bereavement Coordinator and Chaplain at Odyssey Hospice in San Jose. In May, Patricia Wood graduated from Pacific School of Religion and in August she was approved for ordination pending call by the Conference Committee on the Ministry. Congratulations to T’Shala and Patricia!

In May of 2009 I agreed to serve as the Conference’s Vice Moderator, moving to Moderator in mid 2010. As Vice Moderator and Moderator I have had the opportunity to help plan our Conference’s Annual Gathering and to encourage participation by Skyland members. I am thrilled with how our little church reaches into the life of the conference. Julia Swayne, for example, serves on the Annual Gathering Planning Team and on the Conference Council. We have enjoyed going to quite a number of meetings together!

When Yael and I were planning our work together for the current school year we settled on a theme from Isaiah 56:7 that our church might be “a house of prayer for all people”. We have tried in worship services and workshops to offer opportunities to all Skyland members to deepen our prayer lives and we hope to continue that theme into 2011.

A final note: My covenant with Skyland Cburch provides for an evaluation of my work every three years. The Pastoral Relations Committee completed a review this Fall and I am very pleased with the results. I received many positive messages and some good suggestions. Thanks to the committee for their thoughtful work.

Thank you, Skyland members, for your love and support during these 20 wonderful years!

Blessings to you all!

TREASURER’S REPORT FOR 2010 CALENDAR YEAR

Thanks to your generous financial and personal support and the success of the 10K run, Skyland Church continues its generous mission outreach. 10K Run proceeds of $6,463 have been distributed to organizations selected by your Mission board. Special fund raisers and planned giving resulted in $23,562 of additional outreach. Total outreach of $30,025 is 17.8% of our general operating budget. See Missions report for details.

Your generosity in time and talents resulted in a joyous Harvest Festival with net proceeds of $16,764. This revenue supports 10% of our general operating budget.

Thanks to your support, pledge donations are essentially on target. However, establishing the ‘Year to Date’ target involves some guessing, due to lump sum giving and new pledges at various times during the year.

Combined income from Offerings, Hall Rental and Other is also essentially on target.

Everyone has helped to keep a lid on our operating expenses. The result is an operating net of $4,778 above the planned amount for the first seven months.

Following is a quick summary of our finances at the start and end of 2010 and the June 1 start of our current 10/11 fiscal year.

Year 2010	January 1	June 1	December 31
General fund Balance	16,116	-1,075	16,270
Special Funds	126,596	129,426	133,309
Total Assets	142,713	128,351	149,579
Earthquake rebuild loan	30,167	29,102	27,582

Change in assets from Jan 1, 2010 to Dec 31, 2010 is $6,866.

A summary of our June through December income and disbursements along with year-to-date and annual budget is presented on the next page. Our special fund balances are shown on the succeeding page.

Note: Once again several items are not in agreement related to general fund balance and net operating balance. I hope to have answers by annual meeting.

Gerald J. Alonzo

Board of Deacons Report for 2010

The Board of Deacons is responsible for planning and facilitating church

services, including setting up and serving Communion, welcoming new

members into the church, arranging for greeters, ushers and collections,

and arranging for guest preachers. In the fall the deacons host a special

Deacons potluck. A key responsibility of the Deacons is to support

Persons in Discernment, previously called Persons in Care, and persons

in a Four Way Covenant with Skyland Church, UCC, the member and their

place of employment.

The Deacons were happy that our student intern Yael Lachman was able to

continue her relationship with Skyland Church for a second year, doing

advanced field studies through Pacific School of Religion. Yael has been

very active in encouraging children and youth to participate more in

church activities. The front pew of the church was set aside for children,

and was equipped with art materials that they could use during the church

service. Yael and Stephen proposed the idea of family Sundays to the

Deacons. We agreed that it sounded like a valuable enhancement of our

services, and approved having the third Sunday of the month designated as

Family Sunday. This service includes activities for children and a special

Communion service focused on participation by the children, and designed

to enrich understanding of the meaning of Communion.

For the third year in a row, the Deacons served as greeters for the

Harvest Festival. We distributed reusable shopping bags decorated with a

fabric image of the bell tower with a real bell at the top. Deacon Glenda

McCalla designed the bags and prepared kits of materials for volunteers to

use to complete the decorations. Visitors enjoyed receiving the bags, and

as they filled them with purchases, the jingle of the tiny bells could be

heard among the festival booths.

The Deacons were pleased to host a celebration on January 16, 2011 to

celebrate the 20th anniversary of Pastor Stephen Glauz-Todrank’s ministry

at Skyland Church and his 30th year as an ordained minister. The event

took place at Whitaker Hall. Attendees enjoyed a potluck meal and several

Skyland members and the Skyland Choir provided music, including a special

song for Stephen.

Membership of the Board of Deacons in 2010 included: Jennifer Busam, Ruth

Dawkins, Glenda McCalla, Marcia Rollins, Christina Schwabecher, Fern

Thompson, and Julie Victorine.

Submitted by co-chairpersons, Jennifer Busam and Marcia Rollins

Mission Board Annual Report – 2010

Our wonderful members were : Nancy Jo Lopp/ Jan Parker Co-Chair, Larry Lopp, Harold Hoyt, Angela Patterson, and Linda Heyes.

Our goals for this year were as follows:

· To help the church realize their “vision” goals of outreach to the community

· Including a Caring Connection

· To do another library either to Fiji or Africa

· To continue the work of the missions board.

In January the mission’s board we seriously talked about another Library and because of needs in the community we came up with a CARING CONNECTION.

In February we planned bread for the world and Harold was going to be the lead for the Heifer Project, Larry for Migrant Workers kits, Linda for the caring project. Everyone works for the Skyland Run. We decided on a 7 ½ % of the budget for the UCC. $1,625 was collected for the Haiti earthquake.

In March, an updated version of the giving book was recommended to do in the fall. Lots of thought and discussion on what a Caring Connection would look like. A card was designed to help figure out who can help and who needs help.

In April Lots of planning for the Skyland Run.. One great hour of sharing collected $1902. Anne and Jan will take publicity to Girls on the Run and Anne, Paula, Jennifer and Bill will organize for the Skyland Run

In June Skyland Run hand-out cards were given out at the Annual Firemen’s BBQ and Girls on the Run event in Los Gatos Run banners were ordered and placed as well as posters around the local high schools. Local businesses were also approached to give prizes for the raffle at the Run.

The Mission Board supported the Skyland Run, which had almost 300 runners this year, and everyone had a great time. The net profit was ~ $6,463

In October the Mission Board decided on the distribution of the monies from the Skyland Run. $6463was divided up between 21 non-profits and charities including mailing our African Library Project. We also wrote a letter to be sent with the contribution so that we could learn how the money is spent by the various organizations.

In November the Mission Board began collecting toiletries for the migrant workers to be distributed through the Davenport Resource Center. They were gratefully received. We offered to give community service hour for students helping to pack African Library Project.

In December we collected $1625.00 during Blanket Sunday. We collected $268 in quarters in the Heifer tube and the monies were sent to Heifer International. The giving book should be ready by January.

We packed many boxes of books which we are sending to Swaziland in March 2011.

We are most especially proud of our church members who has contributed to our Mission work this year! Also we are proud of the generous individuals who have done their own projects that have contributed so much to end hunger, poverty and ignorance both locally and world-wide.

Special Mission Giving  for 2010
$2,865        about Jan 17, 2010        Haiti Earthquake Relief

$181        about Mar 7,2010         Amigos


$1,625      about Dec 12, 2010        Blankets (Church World Service)

$1,902    April 2010                OGHS (One Great Hour of Sharing)

$268        April & Sept, 2010        Heifer Project

$989        throughout  2010        Local Relief through Pastor Discretionary Fund

(does not include 676 from 10K Run)

$1,724        Nov & Dec 2010        NCNC-UCC special support

$6,463        Nov, 2010                10K Run Outreach (includes $676 given to Pastor Discretionary Fund).

$703        Nov and Dec 2010        Collected for African Library Project

( does not include $250 of Run gift)

$500        Dec, 2010                Students in India (special contribution)

________________________________
$17,220 Total Special Mission Giving

$12,805 throughout 2010                Our Share to NCNC-UCC (budget item)
_______________________________
$30,025 Total Mission Giving

ANNUAL REPORT- ENDOWMENT COMMITTEE

The major portion of the endowment account is currently invested in Vanguard funds that track the S&P 500 and investment grade short term bonds. Another twelve percent of the money is invested in the Tocqueville gold fund. The account grew by 11.4 % in 2010 to a total of $40,380. No new endowment gifts were received. Lucy Lofrumento, Jan Swayne, and Don Law, chairman

ANNUAL REPORT- PASTORAL RELATIONS

In accordance with Stephen’s contact the congregation must provide him with an evaluation every three years. To meet this requirement, the Pastoral Relations Committee, consisting of Julie Victorine, Gina Wetherill, John Gaffney and Don Law sent out questionnaires to all of the church members in the fall of 2010. The responses were tabulated in December and reviewed with Stephen.

Thirty six members responded. The results were overwhelmingly favorable and the accompanying suggestions were presented in a very positive manner. In summary, I would say that the congregation is very happy with their minister.

Don Law, Chair

BCS Committee report for 2010
 
The BCS put most of its projects on hold for 2010 in order to help with the
budget constraints caused by the pledge shortfall. Those included
adding a sound system to Whitaker Hall, a monitor in the nursery so that the
service can be heard, and an amplification system in the sanctuary
for the hearing impaired.
 
We continued with the ongoing activities such as the newsletter, web site,
and printing of pew cards, etc. The main accomplishment was the conversion
of
the newsletter to a primarily online publication. Through consultation with
Stephen and mass notification of everyone currently on the mailing
list we were able to reduce the number of recipients of the printed
newsletter to ~ 20. This enabled us to forego the restrictions on content
and the minimum number requirement of the non-profit bulk mailing permit
that we have used for many years.
 
This change to the newsletter process will allow us to include information
in the newsletter that was illegal before, e.g. anything that was not
strictly church related information, like Pippa's concerts (yes, those were
probably not legitimate if we had been called on it). It also greatly
reduces the cost of production and mailing. It is estimated that switching
to the online newsletter will save about $900 a year.
 
Mike Mahrle
Co-Chair BCS
 
 
 

Board of Religious Education

Members: Gina Adams, Deana Arnold, Carol Carre, Jeremy Cole, Kim Gautho, and Joan Law

The Sunday School started in its usual way in 2010. Many wonderful teachers and helpers gave generously of their time and energy. But as the year went on the Board of Religious Education became more and more aware that something needed to be done.

Under the guidance of Stephen and Yael a plan began to emerge and the board decided to introduce it on a trial basis. For the time being the Sunday School has been closed and it is being replaced by a worship-based education program. The children and young people are encouraged to attend church and the children’s stories are tied in with the message of the day. If they prefer, they can sit up front with Jessy Rosen and Willow Karow-Digangi (The Board of Religious Education thanks these wonderful helpers who love the children and work hard to keep their craft projects interesting). On the third Sunday of each month a special communion service is held for the children, who will be learning what Jesus meant regarding the breaking of bread and serving the cup, a meaningful experience that will go with them the rest of their lives.

Another new program began this year that includes high school and college students. Julia Swayne, who helped with the book collection project and who went to Africa to help with their placement, is spearheading this group. They meet every other week and meetings include food, games and conversation.

Plans for 2011 include several new ideas to emphasize adult religious education.

Annual Report – 2010 Skyland Church’s Women’s Group

The Women’s Group of Skyland Church is a volunteer organization that meets the first Tuesday morning of each month (except December and July – September) for the purpose of providing support, enrichment, and planning special projects to raise funds for local and global needs. All women are invited and encouraged to participate in whatever way they can even if they are not able to attend the meetings.

In addition to the responsibility for organizing monthly potlucks, co-ordination of kitchen supplies, and organizing the sign-ups for altar flowers, the Women’s Group provides many activities that enrich us and bring us closer as a church community.

In January, the women hosted our fourth annual Spaghetti Dinner. This was a major effort providing delicious food as well as an opportunity to gather socially and strengthen our community bonds. It was our most successful dinner to date earning us $419.

In February, we hosted a well-attended, all day spiritual retreat at the Sisters of the Holy Names Convent in Los Gatos centering on “Holy Listening”, led by Yael Lachman. This was a time for the women of the church to gather for spiritual contemplation and enrichment.

In April, we hosted both Easter service coffee hours. We also met to discuss a book we read, “The Faith Club” which explored and challenged our views of the dominant faiths in America -- Christian, Muslim and Jewish as well as challenging our personal beliefs.

In May we hosted two events for our social enjoyment – a train trip to Mountain View for lunch and a very enjoyable garden tour led by Pippa Siersema.

In June we distributed $650 of the funds that we had earned to the following groups: Center for Healthy Development, Rebele Family Shelter, Women’s Crisis Center, and Valley Churches United. Also we set aside $200 for possible kitchen needs

To raise money for our giving projects in 2011, the women’s group held a gift boutique/sale in December, raising about $420. Also in December Christina Schwabecker and Diane Cooke organized our annual giving tree gift donations for a family from the Families Outside organization. The women’s group also sponsored the well-attended Christmas Potluck.

In the 2010-2011 year, the women decided they wanted to include more time in their meetings for spiritual based discussions. Our first topic was “Is there life after death?” and the second discussion was on prayer. This has given our meetings a more focused and deeper level of engagement as we wander down our spiritual paths together.

Skyland Church Board of Trustees – Annual Report for 2010

1. Bell Tower Door lock replaced and a handle was put on the bell tower door.

2. Downstairs Sink unclogged.

3. Caulked the cracked firebrick in the Whitaker hall fireplace.

4. Installed 2 drip 180 degree sprayers in the area where the variegated Vinca was planted.

5. Installed the drip tape in the planter box.

6. Installed 4 drip half circle sprayers in the bed at the rear of the church.

7. Downstairs Whitaker Hall - broken window replaced.

8. 2010 phone book based on the church database published.

9. Fixed linoleum in the kitchen at one or more of the seams. The contractor (Delamore's son) fixed it at no charge.

10.Adjusted Storage Shed Door’s Torsion Springs. The shed door was checked out.  The spring is not broken but needs adjustment.  All the wheel bearings were lubricated with white grease and the shafts were sprayed with WD40. The door works better but still needs a manual assist.  It was determined that a 1/2" rod is needed for adjustment.   It was noticed that the switch inside the shed was not working.  The switch was disassembled and the contacts were filed. It was reassembled and is now working. The Torsion Springs were adjusted.

11.Marked in English both fan controls in Whitaker Hall for those who do not understand international symbols; also taped the slider switch on the master unit by the fireplace to the ON position (it was in the OFF position). Checked out both controllers.

12.Repaired the downspout by the planter box

13.Annual pre-Easter cleanup of the church grounds:  leaf raking, checked the gutters

14.Built the Memorial Garden retaining wall.

15.Prepared Skyland Run mailing labels.

16.Held auction for donated wine.

17.Removed vent pipes from three gas heaters and replaced with vent caps.

18.Extended wall around west lower floor entrance. Installed water block on same entry.

19.Built cinder block retaining wall with concrete base in area between sidewalk and hall --- filled with rubble and topped with drain rock.

20.Reinstalled railing at relocated location of stairs.

21.Skyland Run Set Up:  Met at Radonich Ranch - picked up the Run Banner and Finishing Chute equipment at the church and set it all out at the ranch. Laid out picnic tables for the Pancake Breakfast

22.Skyland Run photography for the Runs Webpages on the Skyland Church website

23.Church Window leak repair – triangular window above the altar

24.Whitaker Hall main door’s Emergency Exit (Crash Door) hardware replaced.

25.Harvest Festival signs, setup, and taken down. Harvest Festival Booths set up one week prior to the event and taken down and stored one week after the event.

26.Porch repairs completed.

27.Parking Lot Cleaning and coffee hour schedules established.

28.Reviewed and Discussed Insurance for the Church, Church Building and our activities through the year. Policy renews annually in October.

29.Cleaned out ½  of the gutters on the sanctuary and all of the gutters on Whitaker hall and the nursery.

30.Ran the prematurely terminated vent pipe through the roof  leak-free.

31.Response to Kitchen and bathroom remodel code violation.  

A letter from the county planning department alleged that the handicap bathroom and kitchen remodels were in violation of the code as they were done without permits.  Arranged for a site inspection on Thursday the 21st at 10 a.m. The inspector (Jacob Rodriquez) says that we'll need to apply for the permits and submit plans showing the as built and previous configurations.  He also noted that the last permit we had was in 1990 for the earthquake repair but that it was never inspected!  Met with Jacob Rodriquez, the county code compliance investigator at Whitaker Hall.  Whitaker Hall has been red tagged.  We're estimating that it will take about $3,000 to $5,000 to clear the red tag.  This includes the architect's fee to draft the as-built plans, the permit fees, the penalty, and staff costs at $170 per hour.  This does nor include the cost to repair any walls that have to be opened up to inspect electrical and plumbing. The first step in this process is to have as-built plans drawn up for the kitchen and handicap bathroom remodels to recognized architectural standards that contain all the information needed by the review agencies.  Some plans were tracked down but it's obvious that they will not be accepted by the county  planning department.  The trustees approved to have local architect Guy Denues draw up the as-built plans for the kitchen and handicap bathroom remodels such that they are acceptable to the county  planning department.  Met with Guy Denues at Whitaker Hall  to take measurements and photos needed to draw up the as-built plans for the county.  Made some measurements and crawled around the crawl space above the hall.  From our measurements in the kitchen and observations in the attic we concluded that the window header is a 4x8.  Also we saw the beam at the North wall.  It's a 4x12.  Called the building info line.  We need to have 6 sets of drawings.  We need to make an appointment first (831 454 3252). We start with zoning.  To be continued in 2011.