Minutes of the Subud PNW Conference Call Board Meeting September 13, 2017.
Members Present: Aaron Mann, Chairman PNW, Sherwin O’Bar, Treasurer, Lydia Tedrow, Recording Secretary, Oswald Norton, Elizabeth Flanders, Regional Helper Liaison, Camille Hofvendahl, Chairperson Subud Portland, Honora Hildreth, Subud Seattle, Michael DuBois, Skagit Valley.
Reading of minutes of last meeting: The minutes of the last meeting were approved.
Treasurer’s Report: Sherwin gave a brief report. The money that came in for the Great Create came to $5,400, roughly, and Pilgrim Firs was paid $4,200 – in round numbers. We are positive by about $1,200 now. There was a discussion that people incurred expenses for supplies that they may need to be reimbursed for but Aaron said people paid him directly for supplies and he had no need to be reimbursed. Michael said, regarding marbling, people also paid him so money found its way back into our coffers and he didn’t need reimbursement. All were pleased that $1,200 was realized.
Center Reports: Seattle Honora reported that a volunteer celebration is coming up on October 15th. Lorraine, Hadiyah and Debbie are doing most of the work to organize the event and getting it rolling. She explained that the celebration would be a potluck to celebrate all of the people who have put time and energy into Subud Greater Seattle – people who served on the Committee, people who work, people who show up all the time. This will take place on October 15th. Seattle will be having its General Meeting on Friday, September 20th, at the Eastside latihan hall, right after the regular latihan at 8:00 p.m. She reported there recently was an update – December 9th might work for everybody for the Regional Helper meeting but that has yet to be confirmed.
Portland Camille reported Portland was having a fund raiser on Saturday that Marius Harold is putting together – music and a meal. He and his daughter, Hermina, will be playing and singing, as well as Emile and Brina. Iliana will be reading poetry and she thought Mo would be playing. This will be a dessert event to raise money for Cuban youth, in Cuba, to travel to the Youth Gathering in December. So, hopefully, it will raise a lot of money and be a fun event as well. Camille also reported that services for Stephanie Schurik would be held on Saturday, September 14th. Portland’s core members feel that the center needs new chairs to be more attractive to renters. The new chairs will cost $5000. They also need a new roof and, the area above the women’s latihan hall needs to be rebuilt so they think that will cost at least $26,000 to $30,000. She looked into an MSW grant and that’s not going to happen until next June and she thinks the goal for the re-roofing has been set for next summer. Also, because they have already had an MSW grant, they are not sure they can get any money from MSW. It may well depend on how much money they have. They also have a promise of a loan for $20,000 from the region that they plan to use. She wanted to know if it would be fairly easy to get more than $20,000 if it was needed. After some conversation, Sherwin reported that right now the building fund has about $75,000 in it and so, if a decision is made to go above $20,000, then, yes, there is capacity for that. The loan apparently was committed four years ago – that money is still in the housing fund as nothing has, as yet, been forwarded. The money was made available but was not collected. At that time, it was promised for a handicap ramp and Portland painted the house and performed some foundation work but that was all done without the loan. Right now, Camille reported there is about $15,000 in the housing fund but they need about 100 chairs. Camille reported they were having a problem with the bank. They need signatures so that Maria Baker can retire as treasurer. She is trying to arrange for everyone concerned to go to the Credit Union together when they are at Menucha to sign the necessary papers. Oswald wanted to ask a question, just as a member of the region. He wanted to ask “how can we not provide for this roof”? He asked for a motion to move this forward. A motion was made to approve any additional funding for Subud Portland’s roof project over and above the $20,000 loan that is already committed to them. Isadora seconded the motion. However, Sherwin stated he would like to amend the motion as he felt it was too open-ended. There was no limit and he felt it needed a limit. Camille stated she needed to get an estimate on the rebuilding part of the roof (above the women’s latihan hall) and bids are needed from roofers. Sherwin stated that policy required three bids to support the loan. The motion was changed to “moved that we approve funding up to $30,000 for repairs to the Portland Subud house roof”. The motion was seconded. There was a discussion and it was decided that they were approving $30,000 in total.A conversation ensued about the amount of money in the housing fund and Sherwin reported that, when he took over as treasurer, the housing fund was a little bit less than $50,000. Now it is up to $75,000. Apparently, 10% of the contribution from the Centers go to this fund and, also, the loan repayments from Seattle and Skagit Valley also go into the housing fund. Camille reported that Portland donates 10% of its donations to their housing fund so their housing fund is building up as well.Finally, all were in favor of the motion to fund Subud Portland up to $30,000 for the repair of the roof and the motion was carried.
Skagit Valley Michael DuBois reported that Marius Hibbard, and Julia and John Hurd, will be out of the country for three more months. The group sees Luther Schutz on occasion but he travels quite a bit during the summer. About the only people coming to latihan nowadays are Michael, Serena, the Woodcocks, Rosalyn, Roosmiwati and their outgoing chair. People have been talking of going to Canada for the weekend as the international helpers will be there. Meanwhile, there are three solid bids on repairing the windows on the south side of the house; there is some rot creeping in the frames and they want to do that while the weather is good. They also have three solid bids for their gutters which will solve the water problem on the back porch and protect the house. He reported the gutters can be repaired for around $700 and the wall repair will be anywhere between $3,200 and $3,400, depending on what the contractors find when they take out the old windows and find out what’s going on underneath there. He wants to address that now. They can pay back any loans they get on a monthly basis with their monthly stipend. They are asking the Region for $700 now for the gutter work and he will come back and ask for the $3,500 or whatever it will cost to fix the window frames. There is no outstanding loan at this time although the Region bought their mortgage a while ago and they have been paying it back into their housing fund.This sounded reasonable and a motion was made to approve the $700 for new gutters for the Subud house. It was seconded. All were in favor and the motion to lend Bellingham/Skagit Valley $700 was carried. Michael asked that the loan for the window repair also be approved; he thought it might be closer to $4,000. It was moved to approve a loan of $4,000 for window repair to the Bellingham/Skagit Valley Subud house; the motion was seconded. All were in favor and the motion was carried. Michael mentioned his group really wants to have a weekend with the international helpers and he is not sure which weekend they will be coming up. The helpers will report. Michael also wanted to know about sending money to Cuba for Cuban youth to go to a gathering and stated that their Treasurer, Rosalyn, wanted to know how to transfer that money. He will ask Rosalyn to research that.
Helpers Report: Elizabeth Flanders reported that she and Oswald went to the Great Create at Pilgrims Firs and the latihans were really strong. A lot of wonderful Art was created – every kind of Art you can think of – and, as usual, the women spent all day Saturday with personal testing. They did lots of walking and boating. Some people swam. She stated she would need gas money to Oswald’s and back as he drove from his place. The Regional helpers met at Oswald’s and were able to plan for Menucha, go to latihan at Eastside Seattle on Friday and Seattle on Sunday. It was a good weekend. Margarite and Beata will be helping at Menucha but they need another woman helper so she asked that the word be passed. They will visit Seattle in early December. Elizabeth was told the international helpers had talked with Skagit Valley and Portland and they wanted visits in early 2018. She thinks they want to go to Skagit, Seattle and Portland. There were five women and one man for the latter Regional latihan but she is not sure about the numbers for the earlier one. She mentioned to Lydia she had emailed her the report for the Regional latihan and might be adding the numbers for the other one later if the helpers respond.
Other Business: Aaron asked if there were any more comments about the Great Create. He wanted to say that it turned out really well and he was very pleased how everything went and about all the work that Oswald did – his help and his leadership was greatly appreciated. For Aaron, his part of it, the glass fusing went really well. A lot of people were interested and he was busy doing that pretty much the whole time until 7 or 8 o’clock at night. His only concern was about the location. He thought it was beautiful with the lake and all of that but it seemed kind of spread out and they ended up having to do a lot of walking back and forth from the lodge to the cafeteria where they were doing latihan. That is something they might want to talk about if they decide to go back there next year. Camille stated if they were to do that again, she would like it to be more family friendly, cost-wise. Michael stated if that could be addressed, it would be a good idea. Meanwhile, he said he had a really good turnout for both days for marbling. People had fun. There are a lot of people walking around with marbled shirts now. It worked out really well. If a way could be figured out for a family of four to come, it would be nice. He said: “Let’s face it. A thousand dollars is pretty much what we’re looking at for a family to come to this kind of thing and that’s kind of “spendy” these days. Maybe that can be addressed for the next one. As for the spread out thing, there are ways. You can drive – he did that for Serena and it worked out pretty well. Maybe somebody with a golf cart could put a trailer behind and have little trips from the cabins to where the main lodge is. Just a thought. Aaron stated that his plan at Menucha is to have a discussion group for the Great Create so issues like cost, families and things like that can be discussed at that time.
Menucha: Aaron wanted to talk about Menucha. He stated that registration is out there now. Apparently, the fire got really close to Menucha and there were worries about that. It seemed to be in the line of fire. Registration is out. All the deposits have been paid. We’re ready to go. He asked for comments. Camille said Maria wrote a really good letter about trying to get the snack bar back and it was well received but another person gets to weigh in on that decision and Maria and Leanna will go up a couple of weeks before the gathering, talk to them and try to get our snack bar back because we make a lot of money there for SD for our matching fund. Also, they will be having a silent auction. They will not be doing Juliette’s Balcony again because it’s a huge amount of work and the clothes don’t see that well. They are encouraging people to bring really nice items for the silent auction. An email will be going out about that. Aaron had a comment about the Gift Shop. He has been managing the Gift Shop for four years and he thinks it is time for somebody else to do it so he won’t do it this year. If anybody knows anybody who is interested and willing to manage the Gift Shop at Menucha this year, please let us know. He will put out an announcement about that. He would like to be able to participate at Menucha more than he has been able to in the past. Camille said we don’t have to have a Gift Shop. However, Aaron stated it has been well received over the years so he thinks we should have one. Halima Taylor did really well last year and was happy about the money so he wishes somebody will do it this year.
New Business: There was no new business. A motion was made to adjourn the meeting, it was seconded a couple of time, all were in favor, the motion was carried and the meeting was adjourned.
Signed by the Recording Secretary, Lydia Tedrow.