Mindy, Joel, Louise, Ross, Katharine, Rick, Michael, Jenny, Rita, Tim.
Susan Sell called Bernardo and relayed that we have a new pastor. Bernardo said he was glad and that TN2 would discuss sending a letter of welcome. He said he and his family are doing well. He also mentioned that the bible study group will continue communicating with SJA. Tim agreed to call TN2 approximately monthly in an attempt to improve and personalize communications.
Mindy distributed the Scholarship Committee Report received from TN2 and the group discussed it at length. We observed that there are equal numbers of girls and boys receiving scholarships. The committee voted to approve funding the plan outlined in the report. The question was asked whether the amount of the scholarship per student is optimum. Michael agreed to compile a list of possible agenda items for discussion during the delegation visits with the scholarship questions included in the list.
We discussed the list of people who are currently planning to go on a delegation in 2006. There are 12 people currenly signed up. This likely means two delegations - June 16-26 and August 4-14 are the proposed dates. Once we have finalized the list we will plan the pre-delegation meetings. We discussed inviting a staff member or two to participate in the delegations this year. The names suggested were Jim Cassidy, Julie Madden, Dan Chouinard and Peter Eichten.
We reviewed the budget summary distributed by Mindy. We voted to approve sending the annual linkage fee to Sister Parish, Inc. We discussed budget perspectives including the role of Ministries International. Joel will call Julie to discuss.