Board of Stewards
April 14th, 2026 Meeting Minutes
In-person attendees: Joe Tarpley, Celeste Tolbert, Dessa Boynton, Bill Hansen, Aaron Byrd, Donna Galloway, Patty Olbrantz, Stephanie Knapp, Sharon Blythe, Ed Garrison, Les Swick, Aaron Davis. Missing: Erin Brady.
Meeting called to order at 6:00pm. Quorum present.
March Minutes review and approval
Motion by Donna, seconded by Sharon to approve March 10 minutes; motion carried.
Review of Last Month’s Action Items
* Finance Working Team still investigating Depp Trust Fund with Terri’s assistance
* Finance Working Team to develop list of safeguards related to offering
collection/counting and financial administrator job description/procedures related to Jennifer’s onboarding
May Town Hall
May 3 is a one-service Sunday. Worship at 10:30 is Youth Sunday in the sanctuary, town hall immediately following also in the sanctuary, then a reception for the Youth in the fellowship hall. Main topics to cover: (1) overview of staffing changes, (2) financial update, (3) recent updates
to campus facilities, and (4) Council on Ministries update including MAPS info. Time at the end for Q and A.
Working Team updates
Staff Parish Relations: QSEHRAs were approved for certain full-time employees, but we don’t have time to set those up to begin in 2026.
FWT will investigate possibility of starting those in 2027, but for 2026 FWT suggests that an additional amount be added to their gross pay starting April 1.
The Bridges steering committee has a job description for a new director for the program that meets at SUMC and would like the Board to approve it.
Items voted on:
Add to pay for certain full-time employees for at most the remainder of 2026, or earlier if we can get the QSEHRAs set up before year-end. Sharon moved, Donna seconded, passed unanimously.
Associate Non-Clergy Handbook needs to be amended. Section 4 should be changed to “Associates are paid biweekly (26 times per year). Pay periods begin on Mondays and end after 14 days. Paychecks are deposited on the Thursday following each pay period. Questions regarding pay should be directed to the Financial Administrator.”
Sharon moved, Bill seconded, passed unanimously.
Sharon moved that the Bridges director job description be approved, Celeste seconded, passed unanimously.
Council On Ministries: Sylvia McCollum from Hospitality Team has been quite active recently.
All Are Welcome leadership changing from a single chair to a team.
Finance Working Team: Cash on hand may seem high relative to history, but we used to utilize Certificates of Deposit more in the past during environments with lower prevailing interest rates. Now we have no CDs but instead utilize money market instruments, which are considered cash with next-day availability.
Trustees: Update on SUMC “refresh” items: Aldersgate room has recently been cleaned out but still needs some further work. Written report submitted has much more info, and trustees team is dynamically adjusting the priority of those projects. Saturday May 2 is slated to be Skyland Work Day, in which church members of all ages come to campus and work on various projects around the grounds. Arrival time 8:00am, with light breakfast snacks provided by church. Any suggestions for work projects (e.g., clearing out garage shelves) to be submitted to Ed Garrison.
Two items voted on by board:
To fund the worship soundboard control booth refresh, we will use all the funds in the sound system fund, with the remainder will be taken from Memorial Fund. Bill moved, Celeste seconded, motion passed unanimously.
Canceling trash contract with Republic Services and hiring Green Mountain. Les moved, Bill seconded, motion passed. Refer to the attached reports for more in-depth monthly Working Team updates.
Preschool update
Two new board members: Lissey Gloeckler and Hannah Marshall (who will be a parent liaison). Preschool Sunday scheduled for April 26 at the 11am service.
Pastor’s Report
Joe updated us on the Transformation Journey process. We have successfully made it through several of the steps of the Journey, but still have further we could go. He encouraged us to think about our Mission Statement and perhaps a statement of Values.
Next meeting May 12 th 6pm
Meeting adjourned at 7:43pm.
