Missouri River District Board Meeting

Date: October 11, 2007

Present: Michael Perez, Scott Avery, Willy Lucht, Gary Spivey , Bill Stambaugh

Gary Called meeting to order at 7:30.

Opening Prayer: Ron DeBord

Old business:

Previous meeting notes- approved as published

Carry-over action items (see below):

New Business: Strength for Service: www.strengthforservice.org Gary Spivey proposed a show of support to this effort. Consideration postponed until more presence of board members.

MoMENTum: Training: Nov 10, 8:30 - Noon: Glad Tidings Contact Tony Gerbec Tony@HeartlandMenofFaith.org Nov 18,19 www.momentumevents.org

Closing Prayer: Gary 8:18PM

Roundtable comments:

§ A special thanks to the men of Living Faith UMC, who shared their church facility with us.

§ A reminder about the Camp Fontanelle Corn Maze and annual BBQ. Also, The camp can use quite a few volunteers to help on weekends to run and manage the Corn Maze.

§ Reminder of the Annual 4-conference UMMen Retreat to be hosted at Worthington, MN this year October 12-14. The conferences participating are Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and both Dakotas.

§ Craig N. reminded the group of the primary energies of the Missouri River District would promote:

1. Upper Room Prayer Ministry

2. Scouting

3. Camp Fontanelle

4. Society of St. Andrew Ministries

5. Nebraska UMMen 100/1000 Foundation

Charlie shared with those present that the ideas, suggestions and experience of those present are available to any newly-forming or expanding local congregation to help with growth or resolving issues.
The Missouri River District Fall Rally was discussed, with David Mendyk sharing that Kurt Stecker, former ‘Great Dads’ facilitator, is available to present a 5-hour program on Saturday, November 3, 2007. Ron DeBord reported that the Nebraska City UMC has committed to host the event. The event is targeted to sons and fathers of all ages. Details will be worked out and publicized in the near future. Meanwhile, Blue River District will be invited to join in the promotion and participation. Ron D. volunteered to be the overall chairperson and recruit someone from Living Faith for the Prayer leader, someone from Gretna UMC as promotions leader, Craig N. and Scott H. as registrars, Scott Christensen as refreshments/lunch chairperson and Scott Avery as multi-media coordinator.
David M. reported that he will be traveling to Inman, NE on September 29^th and participating in the potato gleaning project. Participants are to arrive in Inman for a 9:00amCDT kickoff meeting and to be directed to the specific fields to be gleaned. The drive is about 4 hours from the Omaha area. Contact Dave M. if any questions or to participate.
Future UMMen Missouri River District Board meetings will be held on the 2^nd Thursday of the month, beginning in September.
The meeting was closed with a prayer.

Next meeting:

Carry-over action items:

General discussion about a Missouri River District fund raising program. Ron D. and Randy F. will put together a straw proposal for the Board to consider, including a draft letter from Ron DeBord to each congregation/charter group in the District.
Randy suggested that the District consider coming up with a structure of ‘giving levels’ or categories to help motivate contributors to UMMen. An example might be $100+ would be the ‘Kingdom’ level of donation, etc. Initiated by Ron D. & Randy F.
It was agreed that the District would provide a ‘speaker bureau’ service to the congregations in the District regarding UMMen topics, organization, testimonials, etc. Initially, Randy, Dave, Ron and Charlie will be available. General discussion and further support expressed by all present. To continue development at future meetings, with input from Ron D. Scott will assist with assembling the ‘package’.
Craig suggested this Board investigate how it can engage with, promote or support the conferences recently announced UMC conference Discipleship Plan. Tabled for future consideration and discussion.
Ron reiterated his goal to begin contacting those congregations without a chartered UMMen group regarding the feasibility of either chartering, or at least forming some type of men’s group. INITIATED
Ron shared some thoughts about how valuable some trend and demographic information would be for this Board. For example, it is estimated that about 1/3 of the congregations have a UMMen group of some type. This isn’t confirmed, but could be. Whatever the number is, a goal of improving that to, say, ½ within 5 years (or whatever) could be an action for the District Board to consider taking on. Ron volunteered to research what information might be available either from the conference (state level), District (maybe from the District Superintendent, Randy Sailors) or national UMM (maybe Dave Adams). No action as yet.
Discussion about the value of a ‘new UMMen group start-up package’. Charlie expanded with the need the launch new groups at congregations without a UMMen group. This sounds like something this Board, or a sub-committee, will want to develop and make available. INITIATED
Bill S. also recommended that this group consider some form of fund-raiser to help support the work of the Nebraska Conference UMMen. Tabled until a draft District budget is compiled. PARTIALLY COMPLETE.
Charlie suggested that this group consider identifying and publishing near-term and longer-term goals at an upcoming Board meeting. Initial suggestions from Charlie included figuring out how we can best focus effort toward forming new UMMen groups in congregations where they don’t already exist and also increasing the number of younger participants. Ron D. has indicated he would like to lead this effort and has collected some ideas already from Board members. INITIATED
Bill suggested that our Board consider whether and how to solicit local congregations for donations. Tabled until District budget is compiled. INITIATED
Bill suggested that this group discuss and put together a plan to encourage local groups of UMMen to charter their local groups. General discussion. Include as part of ‘traveling show’ package. INITIATED DISCUSSION