2005 Annual Meeting

Date: September 8, 2005

In attendance:

Holly Thompson, Joan Lager, Cathy Perkins, Simon Delekta, Fred Schoeps, Matt Morrison, Andy Sebula, David Baldwin, Gillian Carter, Bob Scheier, Ilana Greenstein, Bruce Robbins, Douglas Wilson, Bill Sibson, Guy Thompson, Sheila Kaminsky, Carol Davidson, Zack Leven, Rickie Peterson.

Minutes were accepted from last meeting.

Executive Director’s Report

Good afternoon.  Generally speaking, life here is going well here; it is much more harmonious than usual.  There are some problems, but there are always problems.   Compared to last year, things are terrific.  Staffing isn’t easy, but Felicity is an excellent administrator, I’m getting pretty good at programming, writing our catalogues, and editing our newspaper, and Prue is as gracious and charming as ever.  Her song this morning to end the chapel was exquisite.

We keep offering good programs.  Junior and Senior High remain the heart and soul of Rowe, YPC and Transitions Camp are fine programs, and WomenCircles, Men’s Wisdom Council, Kindred Spirits, and the Labor Day Gay Program are all doing very well.   The programs of the Conference Center continue to be innovative, creative, and outstanding.

The Reunion of Liberation Camp at this Member’s and Friends Weekend was very cool.  We can’t resurrect Liberation Camp, and creating a new family camp is a fine idea, but with the time crunch related to public schools ending so late and colleges starting early in August, there is not currently room to add another camp.

Unitarian Universalists tend to lament that twenty-somethings often leave the church, but many of them come back when they have kids, so perhaps this is just a natural time to “stray from the flock,” and not all that bad.  UUs also lament that black people don’t come to our churches, but in a lot of ways blacks have better churches than we do, so it is hard to blame them for not coming.  Like UU churches, Rowe shares in the lack of young adults and blacks.  We need to keep working to do better, but these demographics may be part of cultural and historical trends.  Expanding our reach is a worthy goal, but may prove elusive.  If we keep offering excellent programs, I trust we will attract some black people and some young people. 

We are in good shape, over the long run.  Baring something like an influenza epidemic, which will cause people to stop going anywhere, we have what it takes to survive.  We have an excellent facility and people love it here.  We are doing something right.  As the ground shifts under our feet, let us stay alert and keep our balance, and we’ll continue to make important contributions to making this world a better place.
                                                                                              -- Douglas Wilson, Executive Director

Director’s Report

We had an excellent fall season last year, which put us in a good position for the entire year. We ended up with our enrollment slightly over our ten-year average. At a time when other centers were reporting a drop in enrollment, we are pleased to be able to say our enrollment held steady with a small increase.

After making an effort to better market our private retreats, we saw an increase of 60% in private retreat income. Rowe is a great place to come for a retreat, and I am sure that once people do so, they will come back again and we can continue to build in that area.

Last fall, the management staff spent some time in self-reflection. Before bringing in new staff, we wanted to be clear about who we are, what values we hold to, what we see as the mission of Rowe, and how we want to be together as a staff. This visioning process was a great way to bring the group together. By the time new staff were brought in, it felt like the staff that were here were very solid. When Benjamin Youngquest left his position as Associate Chef in November, we were very fortunate to have Cade Christianson here and ready to step into his shoes.  In December, Deb Lively was hired to join the maintenance team. Deb lives in town and has a lot of connections with folks in town and a lot of great maintenance skills. Jane Kaufman and Joan Lager were hired in February to fill positions in the office. Joan became the Finance Coordinator and Jane the Marketing Coordinator.  With that we were fully staffed. Everyone is working well and is competent and capable. It is a very strong staff.

After many years of dreaming about the Stewardship Project, it has become a reality. I am thrilled that Guy Thompson was willing to take this project and run with it. This is one of those ideas that have been sitting waiting for the right person to come along and implement it. Guy did just that. He will talk more about the project later.

This year we made forward progress in maintaining our property. We put in a new section of roof at the Rec Hall,  a new roof on the Meditation House, and expanded the Farmhouse parking lot, and replaced the floor in the Rec Hall dining room.  It is really quite wonderful. 
We have a great facilities team, led by Diane Silk. The campus has never looked so good.

The biggest accomplishment of the year was the renovation of Fromson House for staff housing.. The project gave us four staff housing units and next week three staff will be moving in. There are three two-room units and one one-room unit, each with  there own bathrooms. Fromson House is located away from the mainstream of things and will allow the staff some space away from their work.

One of the biggest challenges this year was the fire in Orchard Guest House, which closed the building from October through May. It is now back in service. The insurance settlement provided the funds to make the needed improvements. We also received lost revenue money for the loss of private room fees. It is our intention to put that money back into the building as well. Over the next year we will focus on the maintenance needs of the Orchard Guest House. We are planning on putting in a frost wall to eliminate the problems with frozen pipes and some of the moisture problems that have been causing damage to the building.

In the area of fundraising and development, this spring we initiated a fundraising campaign targeted to our camper alumni, for the purpose of raising funds to restore the Chapel.  It is the largest effort we have made to reconnect with alumnae, led by a wonderful group of alumni volunteers who reached out to campers from the sixties to now, asking them to support this project. We have received over $22,000 in pledges and will use it to replace the roof on the chapel.

The Woodside Diversity Program continues to grow. Twenty-three young people received full camperships so they could attend camp this year. There were Woodside campers in all of our camps from YPC through Sr. High. The camp community has embraced the Woodside Program with enthusiasm. The NYC benefit raised about $8,000 with the proceeds to be used as camperships. We now have a group of campers from the eighties, who would like to do a second Woodside Benefit Concert next year in the Boston area.

Summer camps went well this year. We have very strong leadership with the Camp Directors. The youth camp directors have been meeting once a year for several years now and are beginning to come together as a strong group of visionaries. At this year’s meeting we talked about having a weekend director’s retreat, where we could take the time to fully explore some of the exciting ideas that have been surfacing with this group. Both youth and adult camp directors have responded favorably to the policy changes pertaining to the supervision and hiring of camp directors, that were created this spring by the board.

We had a wonderful year and I am seeing progress in so many areas. I continue to be excited by the amazing work that we do here.

                                                                                                                 --Felicity Pickett, Director

President’s Report

This has been a productive year for the board, in spite of, or because of our small size.  The board continues to move away from a “working board” model and toward a “governance model.”  While we continue to have portfolios until the new by-laws are passed, we have ignored the boundaries suggested by the portfolios and each of the trustees has done work in areas other than what’s described in their titles.

Carol has not only worked on new personnel policies effective this year, but has chaired the chapel renovation committee, worked on staff housing and on the by-laws committee.
Holly has worked hard in the recruitment of new trustees, and has taken strategic planning to the next level, incorporating implementation plans with concrete deliverables. She has also, with Simon, provided leadership in Board development activities.  Fred has accomplished much in the arena of treasurer, but has also facilitated meetings, and has interest and expertise in policy development.  Simon has engaged in several development projects in the past year, continues to work on implementing Board fund raising activities, and identified the need and chaired the committee that researched and revised the by-laws.

Two of our current trustees, Matt Morrison and Guy Thompson, did considerable work as volunteers before actually joining the board.  We’ve had the good fortune of having volunteers step up where they were needed; Gillian Carter worked on the by-laws committee.  Jessica Winograd chaired the Margaret Woodside Diversity Program benefit, with help from Anna Westley, Brendan Flannelly-King, Aram Rubenstein-Gillis, and our own Matt Morrison and Simon Delekta.

A couple of important projects have come unstuck this year. I’m most excited about the completion of staff housing.  It’s been a need that’s been on the table since I started on the board about seven years ago.  Another is the stewardship project, which was conceived of by Felicity at least three years ago to address another long-standing problem.

Being president has allowed me to have a phone conversation with Doug every month or so, and an opportunity to get to know him better. I’ve also seen more of Felicity’s tireless work for the organization and her generosity. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with this group of people and I’m looking forward to next year.
                                                                                                  --Cathy Perkins, Board President

Vice President's Report

To kick off my two-year term as Vice President, I worked with Cathy Perkins to plan an 'Orientation Retreat,' which took place over a weekend in November.  We discussed our roles and responsibilities as board members, including ensuring that Rowe's mission is being met, overseeing the financial health of the organization, and taking an active role in both donating and raising funds to support Rowe.  We also revisited our goals and established board committees to help move us forward towards achieving what we set out to accomplish in the Living Our Values, Serving Our Mission document we developed two years ago.  The committees included a Stewardship Committee to launch the "Adopt a Building" initiative to bring Rowe's buildings into good repair, a Chapel Fundraising Committee to steer Rowe's efforts in renovating our beloved stone chapel, and a Woodside Diversity Program Committee to help raise funds to send children from disadvantaged backgrounds to Rowe Camp.
In the spring, I served as advisor to the Woodside Program Benefit Committee, which was made up of Rowe Camp alumni who live in New York City.  The Third Annual Woodside Benefit Concert & Art Auction took place in June and was our most successful fundraiser to date, raising roughly $8,000 in camperships money (double what we raised last year).  Rowe alumni from the Boston area are talking about holding a similar event in Boston in 2006.
Looking ahead, I will be heading a committee that looks into Rowe's long-range future.  The committee will work to get a better sense of what would get people to come to Rowe more often and what demographic groups Rowe should gear its programs to in the future.
As Vice President, I am in charge of recruiting people to the board -- a task that is continuously challenging and keeps me busy.  Last year, we decided to try out a smaller board of seven people.  The group has worked well together, but it seems clear that, with all the work we have to accomplish, we could use a few more hands on board.  We are continuously looking for good board members -- people who are interested not only in taking on a leadership role in overseeing this wonderful organization, but also in rolling up their sleeves and really digging in to the task of moving us closer to accomplishing Rowe's goals.
This year, Carol Davidson and Matt Morrison will be stepping down from the board.  After serving two terms as board President, Carol graciously agreed to stay on the board for another year to help complete some projects she was working on, as well as to provide some continuity.   We are very grateful to her for her service, her steadfast commitment to Rowe, and for her wonderful company.  It is sad to see her go.  Matt joined the board mid-way through the year due to a sudden vacancy in the Youth Programming trustee position.  He did a wonderful job quickly but thoughtfully heading up the process for selecting directors of Transitions Camp, Jr. High Camp, and Sr. High Camp.  We thank him for his great work.
Next year, Cathy Perkins will continue to serve as Board President, and I will continue as Vice President.  Fred Schoeps will continue to serve as the Treasurer of the Board, and Simon Delekta will continue to serve as Development Trustee. 
I move that the following individuals be elected to the Board:

• Guy Thompson as Buildings and Grounds Trustee
• Ilana Greenstein as Youth Guest Relations Trustee
• Zachary Leven as Clerk

                                                                                                    --Holly Thompson, Vice-President

Holly motions, Matt seconds, passes unanimously.

Treasurer’s Report

We want to thank all of our members and friends for your financial support of Rowe throughout 2004-2005.  Member and friend contributions are essential cornerstones of Rowe’s financial foundation.

As we begin our 2005-2006 fiscal year at Rowe some key points to be made as we close out our 2004-2005 fiscal year are that Rowe's staff a) met and exceeded our Conference Center revenue goals, b) controlled and managed expenses across the board in an exemplary fashion while contributing to the growth of shareholder/membership equity in Rowe. 

We continued to grow the asset base of our funds and endowments -- via socially responsible investing.  Our emergency fund is fully funded -- providing us a solid base in the event of catastrophic events that would otherwise force us to shut down. Our capital endowment fund for the first time exceeds $100K as we move towards our goal of $200K.  The wisdom to take a long-range view is paying off.  Once fully funded, our goal is to have a yearly source of investment income to support year after year capital improvement.  Once fully funded, the capital improvement fund and our development income will strengthen our ability to continue to offer conference guests and campers the very reasonable fees we have charged for so long.  

The emergency and capital improvement funds contribute to keeping Rowe operations financially healthy.  Three other funds reflect values dear to Rowe.  The Woodside Endowment continues to grow and enable us to provide scholarships to those in need. An anonymous donor made the garden fund possible.  This act of generosity speaks to our Rowe values and love for nature.  The fund enables us to intentionally beautify our space through flowers and plants.  The Lauriat Endowment speaks to our spiritual values and enables us to maintain the meditation hut that was so generously donated by the Lauriat family. 

In 2004-2005 we continued to make prudent pricing decisions related to our programs -- holding increases to a minimum.  We made key capital investments in staff housing, reviewed and reaffirmed staff compensation and benefits, and conducted our first-ever full audit to provide us insight into what is working and areas for possible improvement.  We are pleased with the fine results. Melanson Heath and Company, who gave us a clean bill of health, conducted the audit.  Comments and recommendations to improve operations and internal accounting controls have been addressed to our satisfaction. 

From a financial perspective the Board wants to thank our staff for the commendable results that they achieved for the 2004-2005 fiscal year. 

As we begin our 2005-06 fiscal year we will continue to focus on the basics -- managing expense and achieving revenue to sustain for another year all that is Rowe.  We will of course continue to encourage all of our members and friends to contribute to development and will assess in the upcoming fiscal year our financial and investment policies. 

                                                                                                               --Fred Schoeps, Treasurer
Fred presents the 2005/2006 budget (see attached)
Bruce moved to accept the budget.
Cathy seconds. Approved unanimously.

Stewardship Project Report

This year we finally got the Building Stewardship Committee off the ground. In April we sent out invitations for people to serve on the committee and at this time we have a steward for each building. Over the course of the summer the stewards have been doing their building assessments and I have received several of their reports.

Each steward agreed to the following plan:

Assessment Phase -

• Complete a full assessment on the building, using the assessment tool provided.
• Make a list of the things in need of repair.
• Make a list of routine maintenance that needs to be done for the building and when it should be done each year.

Committee Phase –

1. Attend the Annual Fall Stewardship meeting where the group will make recommendations for how the year’s capital funds will be used. (See this year’s list in the box on this page)

Work Week Phase

1. Provide a list of maintenance repairs that could be done during work week to the facilities dept three weeks before work week.
2. If possible, attend work week and enlist help in getting the maintenance repairs done.

Annually:

1. Update inventory and work lists.
2. Attend Stewardship weekend.

             The committee will hold it’s first annual meeting on October 1st and 2nd at which the stewards will present their reports and the committee will discuss building repair and upgrade recommendations for the upcoming fiscal year.

            I have developed a database to help keep track of building repair projects as well as the seasonal and periodic tasks required to maintain the Rowe Campus. I am in the process of using the Steward’s reports to populate the database and working up forms and reports in the database for the Rowe staff to use.

We believe that keeping track of all of the buildings at Rowe and also being the maintenance person is way too much work for one person. We believe that having a group of knowledgeable and dedicated people keeping a watchful eye on one piece of the puzzle will move us forward on our goal to get all of the buildings and grounds up to good repair in the next five years.
                                                                                                --Guy Thompson, Trustee

Youth Camp Report

This has been a very busy year with regard to hiring youth camp directors. Cindy Terlazzo stepped down leaving a vacancy for Transitions Camp. Cindy, with her husband John, has co-directed T-Camp for the last two years. John continued directing camp and Cindy returned to camp as a volunteer. We thank Cindy for her commitment to T-Camp.  Mark Taylor and Inga Schowengerdt, both resigned as Jr. High Camp Directors, leaving a big hole to fill. Both Mark and Inga have returned to school: Mark to Law School and Inga to a clinical psychology program in England. Both will be missed.

Jonah Spear was hired to co-direct Young People’s Camp with Rosa Kessler. Jonah has been working on YPC staff for 8 years and was actively working with Rosa in a leadership capacity.  Pam Vernick and Allison (Yoruba) Reid-Cunningham were hired for one year to co-direct with John in T-Camp, both have many years of experience on T-Camp staff.

The process for hiring new camp directors got quite a late and rocky start and I agreed to come back on the board as Youth Trustee to provide leadership for the hiring process to fill the Jr. High positions. We formed a committee made up of myself and Holly Thompson, both former JHC Directors; Simon Delekta, JHC staff; and Felicity Pickett, Rowe Director.  Aram Rubenstein Gillis and Sarah Kavanagh were hired to co-direct Jr. High Camp. Aram had been directing Sr. High Camp for the last 3 years and has had many years of involvement with Rowe youth camps. Sarah worked on JHC staff for the last several years. Both are excellent picks. Hiring Aram to fill the JHC slot left a sudden vacancy in SHC. Dan Ross, who has worked on both JHC and SHC staff, was hired to co-direct SHC. We are very fortunate to have such great talent in our youth camp leadership.

For a few years now the board has been slowly moving away from its origins as a “working board.”  The size of the board has shrunk to a maximum of 11 and its duties have become more globally oriented.  We’ve been talking a lot about our roles becoming more supervisory in nature.  Board members will no longer have specific duties.  So there will be no Adult or Youth Programming Trustee anymore, no one specifically identified as having responsibility for liaison with camp directors.

Previously, the board has supervised camp directors, which included onsite evaluation. We decided to give up this function and institutionalize the reality that Felicity (i.e., the Director) oversees the camps.  She is in a position to see what is going on day to day and has always done an excellent job advising directors in the past. Accordingly, Felicity will also now be responsible for hiring directors. The board will continue to visit the camps, but this will not be an official evaluation.

Before we take our hands away from these processes, however, the board wanted to clarify and codify how directors are hired and retained by means of a board policy.  This gives a rough outline of the board’s expectations of Felicity’s new role.  Here is the policy as written by the board:

• The Director [currently Felicity] will now have direct responsibility for supporting, supervising, and evaluating the camp directors.

• The Director will be responsible for convening a hiring committee for camp directors in September when there is a vacancy.  The committee will be comprised of at least one board member and one person who are connected to the camp.

• Co-directors should be hired by the time the camp reunion takes place in January.

• Co-directors should be hired for three-year terms, after which there will be a formal evaluation process.

• As part of the recruitment process, the Director will post an announcement of the opening in The Center Post and send a letter to all camp staff from the past three years.

                                                                                                               --Matt Morrison, Trustee 

By-Law Report

Almost a year ago, the Board realized that a number of provisions in our bylaws were prohibiting us from getting work done.  We realized that the bylaws were a holdover from only a decade ago, where the Treasurer wrote the paychecks, the Buildings and Grounds Trustee turned off the hot water at the end of the camp season, and the youth programming trustee did the hiring for our youth camps.  These are all things that needed to change at Rowe and that change needed to be reflected in our bylaws.  We formed a committee and started to work. 
The committee recommended to the Board that we eliminate trustee portfolios, making all trustees at-large members and allowing the board to attract a more diverse group of people.  It was also recommended to delete a good deal of language relating to the hiring of staff that had no business being in an organization’s bylaws, references to standing Board committees were removed to allow us to create ad-hoc committees that can be created when needed, and text was inserted so that the board could oversee the organization instead on operation of it. 
These changes are exciting and they show that Rowe has transformed from a small, often struggling nonprofit, to a full-fledged mid sized organization with an annual operating budget over one million dollars.  It is also an exciting time to be on the Board as we work to get as much done as ever and move away from day-to-day operations and begin to look toward long range planning – something we couldn’t afford to do only 15 years ago. 
We also learned through this process that a lot of our Members have no interest in Rowe’s policy and we will start to examine how we can differentiate between the people who want to be a part of this process and people who want to be Members without having to get involved with organizational decisions.
As of the Annual Meeting, we have 497 votes and need 521 to pass this resolution. Some of these votes were phone votes and will need to be confirmed. Massachusetts will allow e-mail votes and phone votes need to be confirmed either through e-mail or in writing.
We are so close to finishing this and I would like to see it completed.
                                                                                                                  -- Simon Delekta, Trustee
Simon moves to suspend Article X11 of RC&CC’s Bylaws, in order to complete this project.
Carol 2nd’s. Passes unanimously.

Simon moves to accept ballots to proposed bylaws amendments until November 10, 2005.

Carol seconds. Passes unanimously.

Note: At the November 10th meeting the bylaw changes were passed. The vote was 527 yes votes, 6 abstentions, 3 no votes and 13 unconfirmed yes telephone votes.

General Business

Rickie Peterson makes a motion to consider putting a heating system in the chapel now.

Simon seconds.

Discussion:  Doug doesn’t feel we’re ready to make a decision as to what type of heating system to install and would rather not rush this decision.

Felicity feels this motion is contingent on funding and that the Stewardship Committee has been charged with the responsibility to make recommendations about funding capital projects this year. If money is earmarked for this project, it will limit the committee’s ability to do its work. She also said that she is working with a potential donor who is able to get us a system at cost and may be willing to donate something towards a system. She would like us to wait so that she can pursue this possibility. She recommended that this request be referred to the Stewardship Committee to be considered with the other capital projects.

Motion is opposed.

Cathy moved to thank Carol for her glorious work for Rowe. Carol is highly organized and efficient. As president, she ran a tight, focused meeting.. She quickly identified what each of us had to offer as a board member, and then let us use it. This respect for our time and talent has made board work deeply satisfying.

Carol also has a sense of proportion, and when things seemed out of control, she kept on task and never lost perspective. I appreciate that she mentored me, and was not afraid to give constructive criticism.  I value those conversations, and try to keep her advice in mind.  Most of all, she has a great sense of humor.  For me, she has made the last five years just fun!  We will miss her.

Holly seconds. Motion carries unanimously.

Simon moves to adjourn. Holly seconds. Motion carries.