The Glen Waverley Uniting Church PSALTER
GLEN WAVERLEY UNITING CHURCH
MEETING OF THE CONGREGATION
Held in the Church following 10:00am worship at 11:15am on Sunday 24th November 2024.
A printable version of these minutes will be attached here.
Minutes (work in progress, please check later)
1. Welcome
JohnSnare, meeting chair, welcomed those present and explained the use of the voting cards. The meeting approved recording the meeting for the purposes of preparing the meeting minutes.
2. Prayer
IanFerguson opened the meeting in prayer.
3. Confirmation of Minutes of Meeting held on 24th July 2024
The minutes of the July meeting of the congregation are at CongMeetingMinutes20240728
The minutes of the July meeting were approved by concensus.
4. Reports and Recommendations
4.1. Ministry Team Report
Some good news about some of our programmes (for information)
4.2. Church Council Report
AlisonClarkson, ChurchCouncil chair presented the ChurchCouncil report.
1. Alison summarised the key duties and responsibilities of the church council. More information can be found under 'Council Regulations' in the church wiki (see http://wiki.gwuc.org.au/gwuc/CouncilRegulations)
2. Alison outlined some of the Advent and Chistmas activities coming up and encouraged people to attend them.
3. Alison encouraged people to consider either standing or nominating someone for the election of Church Councillors in March 2025.
DavidMorgan, ChurchCouncil secretary presented an update on the Uniting Church safe-church policy (see http://wiki.gwuc.org.au/gwuc/GwucServingSafelyPolicy). He explained that we take our safe-church policies seriously because not only is it the right thing to do but also because we have legal obligations to meet. One aspect of this is that some members of the congregation require working with children checks and on-going training. David encouraged all members of the congregation to cooperate if asked to undergo a working with children check or participate in safe-church training.
4.3. Finance Report
4.3.1. 2025 Budget
For Decision
The treasurer, KenCoutts presented the proposed 2025 Church Budget.
In summary, he observed the following.
We have adopted processes similar to the previous several years, with a review of all revenue and expenditure sources and finance committee has made adjustments to reflect areas of change to reflect new or discontinued programmes, to also account for the movement of people, through a variety of situations and circumstances into and from our Congregation.
There are then discussions and reviews of our giving programmes and major expenditure outcomes with all key groups and our Ministerial team.
We have been through five iterations of these processes between September and through October/ early November and submitted the last version to the various groups and their leadership to seek their input via amendments and then agreement and support.
These are returned with suggestions which are overseen by our treasurer and then entered into our accounting software (Xero) by Joanne to determine the resultant Profit and Loss account activities and outcomes for the plan year 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2025.
Philosophically we seek to run a balanced Budget. That has been a challenge over several years as our giving and rental income has failed to match the expenditures budgeted for.
For the Financial Year 2025 we are again budgeting for a deficit of $12,000.
Your Finance Committee is comfortable to submit the following summary of our Budget reflecting these figures.
The Full Budget with the individual lines will go to Church Council following the presentation to the Congregation meeting on Sunday 24th November 2024.
Finance Committee has approved and recommended the adoption on Tuesday 12th November 2024.
Glen Waverley Uniting Church remains in a sound financial position with a Balance Sheet reflecting solid Cashflow, significant Investments and a strong Equity framework which has been accumulated through the assiduous contributions over many years.
More details of the 2025 Budget are attached here.
In response to a question concerning how sustainable it is to run with budgets with deficits like that proposed, KenCoutts provide the following additional information. (To be added.)
Resolution: This meeting of the Congregation of the Glen Waverley Uniting Church approves the Budget for 2025.
4.3.2. Future Fund
For Information
4.4. Property Report
4.4.1. Emissions and Environmental Enhancement Projects at Glen Waverley Uniting Church
For Information
The 2023 Synod of Victoria and Tasmania meeting resolved that “all sections of the UCA Victoria and Tasmania were to aim for zero emissions by 2040”. In response, the Glen Waverley Uniting Church Property Committee, with approval from the Finance Committee, Treasurer, and Church Council, formed a project team to recommend steps to help the congregation achieve zero emissions (or as close as possible) by 2040. It is expected that a summary of the proposed projects will be available in Kingsway prior to the meeting (also at http://wiki.gwuc.org.au/gwuc/EmissionsReport202409?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=EmissionsReductionSummary2024.pdf.) The full project team report is available from the office and from the wiki http://wiki.gwuc.org.au/gwuc/EmissionsReport202409?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=EmissionsReport.pdf. A high level overview will be presented at the meeting and members of the congregation will be invited to ask questions.
5. Other Business
Although not essential, it would help the chair manage the agenda and time if members of the congregation could let the chair know before the meeting of matters that they would like discussed.