Minutes for the 181st Meeting of the Community Miracles Center
Board of Directors (**Public Copy)
05.24.20 12:45 p.m. Held via Zoom Video Conferencing
Directors Present 7: Rev. Tony Ponticello, Rev. Dusa Althea Rammessirsingh, Rev. Vincent Fuqua, Rev. Peter Graham, Rev. Tedosio Samora, Rev. Rudy Colombini, Rev. Kelly Hallock
Directors Absent 0:
REGULAR BUSINESS
Minutes for 180th Meeting Read and Accepted as Amended.
Financial Reports:
1st quarter 2020
Profit and Loss: Jan. 1 2020 to Mar. 31 2020
Income $55,329.14, Expenses $50.743.50 Income Remaining $4,585.64
Equity Report: Mar. 31, 2020
Mar. 31 2020, $110,094.68 Jan. 1, 2020 $105,266.53 Gain of Equity $4,828.15
As of Sat. 05.23.20
J.P. Morgan: $ 82,245.54
Bank of America: $ 31,483.87
Omni Hotel check:$ 30,000.00
Other checks: $ 423.00
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TOTAL ..... $144,152.41
We are carrying a $95,467.03 predicted liability for the Los Angeles Conference. Refunding the registrants and transferring registrations to Washington DC 2021 will come out of this amount. In other words those "expenses" have mostly already been accounted for.
We have a few who have not cashed their refund checks. We will follow up on them.
Supporting Member Report:
Currently 93 Supporting Members — $5,121.66 / month pledged, average $55.07 / member (net loss of 1, loss of $35 / month)
Gained 2: Theresa Covington, Carol McLaughlin
Lost 3: Mary Linkletter, Rev. Alex Melgarejo, Ester Gorsky
We cleaned up the list a little and there are still a few we need to contact.
Healing Team Report:
Currently 53 Members - 57% of Supporting Members
Rev. Tony commissioned a redesign of our Healing Team Logo to make it more inclusive and he encouraged the Board to make note of it. Rev. Dusa Althea donated the $350 to pay for this.
Associate Minister Report:
Currently 16 Associate Ministers
Gain of 0
Loss of 0
Class Report:
25 students in paid classes - gain 2
5 ACIM Circle of Atonement Students - Rev. Tony
1 ACIM-1 Students - Rev. Paul
4 ACIM-1 Students - Rev. Kelly
4 ACIM-2 Students - Rev. Tony
1 ACIM-2 Students - Rev. Paul
5 ACOL Students - Rev. Kim
5 ACOL Students - Paula
Marvelous Monday Miracles Meeting (M4) continues on Zoom - Rev. Dusa Althea
Thursday LGBTQ & Beyond continues on Zoom - Rev. Peter
Saturday ACIM Class continues on Zoom - Rev. Rudy
Some of the facilitators are getting their people to contribute, and some are not. Rev. Rudy requested that we try to determine if Zoom has a feature that will allow class participants to click on a button that will automatically take them to one of our methods of contributing. Rev. Tony requested that all teachers of the drop-in classes remind the class attendees of the various options to contribute.
Rev. Tony's regular Friday Meeting for ACIM Gather *The Bridge to Heaven* is now officially a CMC hosted meeting. ACIM Gather continues to broadcast it like they do our Sunday Gathering. This is a free 1 hour free meeting every Friday at 5:00 p.m. It will continue on Zoom even after Shelter-In-Place is over. The Zoom account is the CMC's now and not ACIM Gather's.
All in-person classes will continue using Zoom Video Conferencing while we have "Shelter-in-Place" in affect.
ACIM-2 Ministerial Projects
Margarita Marinkovich – She is done with our program and ready to be ordained
Deb Canja - New "Teacher Certification" program. Deb is still busy with some personal demands
David Brunn – On San Francisco Sunday Service Committee / AV Team
Garrick Wilhelm – On San Francisco Sunday Service Committee / AV Team and doing YouTube videos
Anthony Bopp - Posts regularly in Healing Team Group
Paula Carpe – Successfully started her ACOL class
Brian Patacca - Is doing Facebook Live videos. He has agreed to do 12 during the year
Elaine Turner (new) – Will write short articles about long term CMC Supporting Members for Miracles Monthly.
There will be several people ready to be ordained by the end of June. Many would come to San Francisco or are already local. Anthony Bopp and Garrick Wilhelm would both like to be ordained in person. It was discussed that in order for this to happen in San Francisco we would have to wait for the restrictions on larger gatherings to be lifted. It was discussed that some Bay Area counties may lift these restrictions earlier and we could consider holding the ceremony in a place like Nick’s in Pacifica as we have in the recent past. Some Board members had concerns about this. We will table for now.
Sunday Gathering Report:
There have been no in-person meetings since the last Board Meeting. The Zoom Meetings are having between 18 and 28 people. Some money has been collected but it is much less than in-person meetings.
We are getting better with the Zoom technology but issues still remain. The challenge of music was mentioned and noted.
OLD BUSINESS
CMC Publishing Inclusive Language Version of ACIM (The Original Edition):
Rev. Kelly has produced a sample of some of Chapter 1. Rev. Tony hasn't had time to look at it in-depth but a casual review of the chapter suggested that it looked good.
Staff Situation:
James Sims came to San Francisco, met with many, and then mysterious and abruptly left after a little more than a week. Several attempts were made to contact him but none were successful. He has also quit ACIM-1. The staff situation has improved as David has been able to return to work and help relieve some of the workload on Rev. Tony.
NEW BUSINESS
2020 Conference In Los Angeles:
The Omni Hotel in L.A. canceled the May 2020 Conference. We have a counter-signed "Group Cancellation Letter" dated March 27 (5 days after our last Board Meeting). On Sat. May 23 we received our $30,000 deposit back from them. This was earlier than expected.
Rev. Kelly and Rev. Tony proactively worked at getting refunds back to those who wanted them and also encouraged registrants to transfer full payments to Washington DC 2021. Rev. Kelly and Rev. Tony also actively encouraged registrants to donate part or all of their refunds or excess payments to the CMC to help us offset expenses and loss of income. They both did an exemplary job at handling the messaging, creating forms to be filled out, and getting the refunds to those who wanted them. An extra "Thank-You" to Rev. Kelly for handling all communications with registrants and getting the checks out with the correct amount back to the registrants. The CMC Board would like to extend a gracious thank you to both Rev.'s Tony and Kelly for an outstanding effort to process these transactions in such a fair and efficient manner.
We are happy to report that we received $6,830 in donations from the Los Angeles registrants of which 92 fully transferred to Washington DC for 2021. This does not count Presenters and Staff.
We were predicting and accounting for a 12% profit margin on the income for 2020 Los Angeles. The donations do not to come to 12% of the income. However an additional $907 was made for resold tickets in our ticket block. Additionally, there will be income remaining from those who canceled earlier and didn't get their $149 deposit back. We will have to see how the 2020 Conference bookkeeping comes out in the end. However this should not be a big loss for the CMC and we may profit though not as much as we hoped.
2021 ACIM Conference:
After a discussion it was decided that we will keep the same theme for Washington DC, "20/20 Vision for the Real World." Conference dates are: May (27), 28, 29, 30, 2021 (Thu. - Sun. Memorial Day Weekend 2021)
Rev. Tony's and Rev. Kelly's visit to the Washington Marriott Wardman Park still has not been scheduled because the hotel is currently closed.
As mentioned for the 2020 Conference 92 people have transferred their registrations. Remember these are already paid in full. We need to formally get commitments from the Presenters but Rev. Tony believes we should wait a little longer and allow the travel climate to seem more hopeful. Rev. Tony believes as an incentive/concession to the Presenters and to acknowledge the different travel environment we should not require them to buy 10 tickets. He believes this will be prohibitive. Maybe 5 or 7 is a more realistic number. The majority of the Board supported having the Presenters buy a block of 7 tickets.
A few Presenters have already said to not count them in for 2021 in Washington DC. The Board recommended that Rev. Tony informally contact Presenters and get a more definitive commitment from them for the 2021 conference.
Do We Want To Be An "Affiliate" For The Circle of Atonement Course Companions Program:
Robert Perry has asked us to be an affiliate for their Course Companion program. This means we do publicity for the program and then we get a percentage of the enrollment money that comes from our publicity. We have not done this in the past. We told Robert this would be a Board decision. The CMC Board agreed that we should not become an affiliate with the Circle of Atonement program or classes as we have not endorsed other organizations programs or efforts in the past because it can create an appearance of favoritism which could impair our ability to present ourselves as fair arbiters in our decisions related to Conferences.
Three Board Members Sent An Email on May 1. They Want to Discuss Several Things:
1. Discuss the impact that Rev. Tony's Facebook postings are having on the larger CMC as they do not reflect the CMC membership. How does this impact our image and membership?
2. Discuss work related issues brought to our attention.
a) Need to discuss openness and collaboration when discussing edits/changes/ideas to work tasks.
b) Emotional health of CMC staff.
c) Stereotyping of women.
A healthy discussion was held on Rev. Tony’s personal Facebook posts including those that quoted controversial figures like Ted Nugent and others. His comments have mostly been related to the government’s Shelter-In-Place related to the Covid19 pandemic. Rev. Tony responded that he never posts his personal political views on the CMC Facebook page, but since this is his own page his right to free speech was as protected as any other persons. Some Board members requested that his future talks be more in line with spiritual principles as related to A Course in Miracles and less related to politics. Rev. Tony stated that his views were consistent with ACIM teachings about freedom, and there are several references to support this. On the issues related to work culture, Rev. Tony listened and committed to be aware of how he communicates at work and consider Rev. Kelly’s views carefully. He also felt that Rev. Kelly can become very strong in her positions and could benefit from some flexibility about them. Rev. Tony pledged to be more conscious of his remarks as they related to women though he did not see his comments as being sexist.
Meeting Adjourned: 2:40 p.m.
Next Meeting: July 26th, 2020
Respectfully Submitted: Reverend Peter Graham, Secretary
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