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Crockett, Texas
We had a time of worship and prayer prior to the meeting. Ken Bush, community Spiritual Director opened in prayer. The 88th Secretariat Meeting was called to order in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit at 9:30am by President Terry Gilbreath.
Agenda for the Secretariat Meeting, Tres Dias Purpose and Vision Statements, Tres Dias Key Schedule Dates, Tres Dias Committee Work Sheets, the minutes from the July meeting and the Treasurer’s Report were all passed out. Attendance sheet was also passed around.
Secretariat members present were: Cathy Allen, Julie Bohl, Bill Boyd, Paula Boyd, Wilson Burton, Candy Dale, Terry Gilbreath, John Green, Mike Holmes, Pat Kessler, Paul Markowitz, Judi LeMasurier, Merv LeMasurier, John McKinney, Valerie Mehl, Jeanne Norwood, Tim Real, A. Ben Seal, Adele Smith, Rene Stephenson, and Mike Vigil.
Absent: Jean Bowles, Tonya Busic, Barbara Chambers, Bob Decker, Barry Eaton, Pat Fullerton, and Nancy Ossewarde.
Dr. Charles Allen was asked to act as parliamentarian for the meeting. The meeting was called in accordance of the bylaws and there was a quorum here.
The minutes from the July meeting were read. Several corrections were made. Judi LeMasurier made a motion to accept the minutes as corrected. This was seconded by Mike Vigil and approved unanimously.
Financial report –
This report was given by Merv LeMasurier, treasurer.
He went over the balance sheet. The inventory on hand was recapped.
The report included:
Inventory Analysis for the previous quarter.
Inventory Analysis for the previous year 07/01/03- 06/30/04.
Profit and Loss Statement.
Sales by Product.
Actual Expenses versus Budget for the previous quarter.
Actual Expenses versus Budget from 07/03-06/04.
The Blue Ribbon Committee was the largest expense this quarter.
Renee Stephenson, Financial Secretary gave an update. There are currently 49 communities. Fees are based on how many pescadores are in each community. The rate is $54.00 per assessment with one assessment equaling 100 pescadores. 28 communities have paid their assessments: 21 communities have not. A second invoice will be sent to the communities shortly.
Merv LeMasurier reported that the audit has been completed. It confirmed the balances and resolution of balances.
Recommendations made were to strengthen documentation. Anything over $25.00 should be documented. Concerning accounting practices, we should continue to document.
Adele Smith made a motion to approve the financial report and audit. Point of order was noted by A. Ben Seal; we can’t “approve” the audit. Adele Smith made a motion to accept the report and audit. This was seconded by Pat Kessler. Vote – approved to accept the report and audit.
This needs to be approved. A small change was made was in scheduling. The BRC report was moved to 11 am with Bill Boyd’s presentation of the new proposed Rollos.
A. Ben Seal made a motion to approve the agenda as amended. Mike Holmes seconded this. Vote- approved.
Mike Holmes reported on the illness of Maddie McCloud. He asked for prayer for her and Ron McCloud. Dr. Charles Allen prayed.
(10 Minute Break – 10:30 am)
Communities Present Recognized:
The following communities (16) were represented at this meeting:
North Georgia
Mid Hudson
East Texas (17 present)
North Texas
Trinity Valley TD
Central Connecticut
Middle Tennessee
Northern Virginia
Northern New Jersey
Korean Tres Dias of Chicago
Mid Carolinas
Germany
Birmingham
New Hampshire
Fairfield County, Connecticut
Altoona/ Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Terry Gilbreath stated that we will make every effort to send the minutes of the meetings to members within three weeks of the meeting as long as the committees provide the secretary with their committee reports in a timely fashion.
Committee Issues/ Assignments:
Terry Gilbreath expressed the need for the secretariat to follow through on decisions. In reviewing the old minutes, he found some instances where decisions were made and seemingly dropped. We had a policy, but there were no procedures in place to implement them.
A funding policy was proposed in New Jersey in 2002. This policy was approved by the secretariat. In March, 2004 the Executive Committee made another proposal, which was approved (see below).
Copy from 2004 minutes:
“Any community or Pescador wishing to assist other communities in need
should be in contact with the Chairman of the Membership Committee.
There shall be no direct solicitation by individuals or Tres Dias communities
for financial support of other Tres Dias communities. The Tres Dias database
and/or directory are for International Tres Dias purposes only. Requests for
support should be sent to the Membership Committee and will be addressed
through the Membership Committee. Funds may be sent to the International
Tres Dias Financial Secretary to either the Tres Dias Fund, for use by any
Community or the Dedicated Tres Dias Fund for use by a particular community.”
Following discussion, the motion passed with a vote of 14 for and 5 against.
This policy still needs to be implemented It is lacking a procedure. We need to know the need. We need a way to advertise the need. We need a way to collect for the need and we need a way to distribute it. We need accountability for dispersing funds. We have the policy but have no current procedures to accomplish the goal
He charged us with the following:
1) Proposes to send this back to Membership, Executive and Administration.
2) Establish Policies and Procedures - we need a reference able document to for this.
Discussion revolved around developing written policies and procedures with a centralized place for access to previous decisions. The missing piece is accountability for our action. It was recommended that we reinforce our processes. John McKinney can create a document if the committees provide the information.
Terry Gilbreath asked us to get our objectives in place for 2004-2005 in committee meetings.
Bill Boyd presented the new proposed rollos and a brief report from the Blue Ribbon Committee (BRC). The Blue Ribbon Committee was appointed by the Assembly in 2002 to rewrite all the rollos. The committee consisted of 12 people plus a person to help with process and a secretary. They met for the first time in September, 2002 and have met for a total of five times. First they worked on the outline, then on the clarification (commentary) and, situation and purpose. August 18-22, 2004 was the date of their last meeting. The 15 talks and 5 Spiritual Director Meditations are complete.
The talks have been sent out to the communities for their critique. Bill Boyd, “There was no way that 12 people could come to agreement on 15 talks and 5 meditations without the help of the Holy Spirit” We want to get approval to send the final talks and meditations out to communities tomorrow. If so, then they will be sent by electronic means within 2 weeks. Communities would have until April 22, 2005 when the communities will be asked to vote. All the talks will be voted on as one vote; either “Yes” or “No. The vote will be announced at the next Assembly in July 2005.
Discussion and Questions:
Discussion and questions followed. Bill Boyd and Terry Gilbreath tried to answer all concerns and be clear about how the process will proceed.
Questions and discussion included:
There was a suggestion to have a trial run for using the talks.
How long will communities have for final critique of the talks?
Do the communities vote on each talk or is it only one vote?
Is the outline essential for the talk?
It was suggested that only the outline be sent .
There was also a suggestion that the talks be delivered to the communities by postal
service using registered mail rather than by email.
Wasn’t the scheduled date for this vote in 2006?
Bill Boyd clarified that the first step of our process is to send the talks out to the president of each local Secretariat. How the individual communities proceed from there is up to them. They will have from November, 2004 until April 22, 2005 to review them, approve and then vote. Our vote tomorrow is to vote on approval to send them to the communities.
Pat Kessler said that the ballots will be sent to each community for their final vote on 04/22/05. Terry Gilbreath reiterated that the vote will be one vote to accept and implement the new talks or not.
In critiquing these talks, the critiquing should be on the outline. Not on the clarification!!! There is far more information in the commentary than can be used in any talk. This is to be used for edification of the rollista.
Bill Boyd answered the question of the outline. Yes, we are required to follow the outline. The commentary is a clarification of the outline, but is not a requirement.
As to sending only the outline, it is important the communities have all the information to make a informed decision. The whole packet will be sent. We have completed this process within the timeframe set; the vote was always planned for the spring of 2005.
Terry Gilbreath, Dr. Charles Allen and Bill Boyd all affirmed that the committee was all in unity. The BRC tried to preserve the character of both methods. Their final goal was to provide a set of unifying and better talks. . We kept the intent of the talks. In addition, we looked at other three day movement materials also.
Bill Boyd asked us to pray about this tonight and discuss this tomorrow. This is tomorrow’s decision.
There was a brief discussion on having the talks used on a “test basis.” This cannot be authorized without approval by the communities. To do this a special Assembly would have to be called with a 2/3 proxy vote.
(Break for lunch)
We enjoyed a short time of music and praise. The meeting reconvened at 1:45 pm.
We thanked the local community for a wonderful lunch and all their work in providing for our needs.
We also recognized Dianne and Doug Leber, who have finally been able to return. Praise was given for prayers answered.
Additional Prayer requests to be addressed at our meetings:
Don Bohl – illness.
Bob Decker – illness.
Marillyn Avozea (spelling?) – loss of spouse.
Mr. & Mrs. John Woodward – illness.
Candidates for Ireland.
Pray for elections in the US and the Ukraine.
Steve Meadows led us in prayer for these prayer needs.
President Terry Gilbreath charged the committees with their assignments to pray for Bob Decker, outline our objectives, and work on our action items. Rene Stephenson’s motion on voting procedures from the July meeting is referred Administration for action. Funding is an issue for three committees.
.
We broke for our committee meetings at 2:00 pm.
The meeting was reconvened by Terry Gilbreath at 4:50 pm.
Administration Committee Report- Pat Kessler chaired the meeting today.
Ken Kessler reporting.
The Committee proposed that Babs Schneider be approved as a voting member. Vote taken- approved by the secretariat.
Action items that they are working on includes
1) Preparing a policy on procedures and documented for voting.
2) Preparing a Continuity book for the committee – including procedures for banners, visiting and hosting prior to the secretariat and assembly.
A survey will be sent out to determine the amount of pescadores.
Solicitation for Nominations for the 2005 election will be sent out in January.
There was a discussion about the amount of votes each community has. Administration Committee is requesting input from other committees on how the number of votes is determined. They want to tighten up this process.
Number of Excused: Nancy Ossewarde, Tonya Busic, Bob Decker.
Unexcused: Barry Eaton (unexcused but contacted Terry Gilbreath).
Undecided: Pat Fullerton, Jean Bowles, Barbara Chambers.
The critique was received the critique from Concord, NC from the assembly.
Membership Committee Report – Judi LeMasurier.
She feels that there should have the same guidelines and responsibilities for committees as for Secretariat members. .Briefly spoke of number of absent voting members.
Their discussion included:
How to promote new communities.
How to fund them – Her committee will condense to form one plan.
Defined terms:
An Emerging Community has a contract and is in the process of starting their
community/weekends.
A Chartered Community has meet all the requirements for chartering.
A Budding Community is a group of people from an area who show interest in starting a
Tres Dias community.
Discussion included that many communities have no personal contact with international. How do we make them accountable or make them want to be a part of TDI? They want to contact the communities. Guidelines are being developed to try to contact communities that we’ve lost touch with. They are looking at steps to nurture these communities. They have help – Mr. Kim from Korean Tres Dias of Chicago is willing to contact the Korean communities.
Services Committee Report – Paul Markowitz
He reported that there were quite a few voting members missing.
The newsletter will be available on the home page and shopping basket is available to purchase orders. He has as received some past due payments for invoices.
The CD project is on hold until the vote in July, 2005.
They will stop the individual credit card purchases and will still have checks.
The new Training Manual will have all the rollos and Spiritual Director Meditations/ talks in one.
Policy Committee Report. – Mike Vigil chaired this meeting.
He mentioned many voting members were absent. There were twelve observers present.
They discussed the Goal and Objectives for 2004-2005.
The agenda consisted of
1) reviewing The Essentials involving the words “denomination/denominational”, “interdenominational”, and “ecumenical”.
2) will continue to work on the Dictionary.
3) will develop written Policies and Procedures.
4) asking for input from local communities concerning liability insurance.
Committee was confused about action steps or rules for policies and procedures.
Response to this question was addressed by President Terry Gilbreath. Policies are those things that we make motions on and agree to do. Procedure –the implementation steps to put into place. It’s an operational plan for the things we vote for.
RE: Liability insurance - Bill Boyd hopefully communities are incorporated. A lawsuit can only get from the community what it is worth.
Discussion: It was thought that we should share the what different communities use as their type of coverage. Julie Bohl – encouraging to get this out to the communities. We need to gather information and send out to the communities.
Terry Gilbreath asked who would be willing to write an article for the newsletter. Membership Committee will contact the communities but thinks the article should be put together by someone else. Bill Boyd will do the article and research for this project.
Executive Committee Report – Bill Boyd
Valerie Mehl reporting.
We discussed out Objectives for 2004-5:
We will contact all communities by the 2nd or at the latest 3rd quarter.
We will document our committee’s policies and procedures.
We have conferred with the Services Committee and will cancel the credit card. This was used very infrequently and had a monthly fee. Paypal is in place.
We have developed recommended inventory purchasing guidelines which we will give to the Chairman of the Services Committee with a copy to the President.
We reviewed the budget and expenses are in line and will handle our expected expenses.
We discussed the Tres Dias Fund and the Designated Fund. A question to publicize this will be added to our survey that will be conducted.
We will also add a question to our survey to the communities. We will ask them if they received the 15 rollos and 5 meditations as follow up to ensure that all communities have indeed received the talks.
The Executive Committee made a motion, “To approve and authorize Terry Gilbreath (President), Rene Stephenson (Financial Secretary) and Merv LeMasurier (Treasurer) to transfer account from Bank of America to another bank which has no service fee, if in the opinion of these three people it is in Tres Dias’ interest to do so.”
RE: This motion. Ken Kessler asked why a motion is needed for this?
This is a bank requirement. They require a corporate resolution to do this. Vote taken – passed.
Newsletter – Adele to help and have email address. Paul wants to contact Tonya . John McKinney will set up an email address at www.tresdias.org. Terry Gilbreath would like to see the newsletter first before it is displayed online.
General Questions and Discussion:
Terry Gilbreath brought a need to our attention; Moscow Tres Dias is requesting support and funds. The Membership Committee will take care of this request and distribute a letter to all communities to publicize this need.
Mike Holmes asked a question as to who in Tres Dias sends palanca to the communities. Services send the palanca to all communities for their weekends.
Paul Markowitz questioned if there was a fund available to assist Secretariat members who have money issues with travel assistance to attend Secretariat meeting. No, there is no fund. Judi LeMasurier suggested that those with frequent flyer miles could possibly donate some. However, the need needs to be known. Pat Kessler also mentioned that United Airlines has a credit card that gives miles.
Terry Gilbreath informed us that we have covered the day’s business. Tim Real reminded us that the clocks get set back tonight.
Mike Holmes made a motion to recess the meeting until the morning. This was seconded by Mary Irwin. The meeting was recessed at 6:05 pm.
The meeting was reconvened at 9:00 am after a wonderful time of worship and praise.
President Terry Gilbreath reconvened the meeting in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit and then led us in prayer.
Bill Boyd-
Curtis Wegfahrt did editing and formatting. Bill Boyd asks that we take some time in the next couple weeks to read the talks through with a fine tooth comb. i.e.: Spacing, punctuation, etc and send any that you find to Bill in an email. We have a target date to send to communities on 11/15. So we need any feedback ASAP.
Julie Bohl and Merv LeMasurier found a couple.
One correction suggested for a meditation:
Outline and purpose – “Know thyself” or “know yourself” meditation. This wording should be consistent. The meditation has “yourself” for most and missed and used “thyself” on the third page.
We need a motion to distribute the talks with corrections made
Julie Bohl offered a the following motion, “I move that the Blue Ribbon Committee be authorized to distribute the fifteen rollos and 5 spiritual director meditations to the various communities for their preview prior to the vote called for after April 22, 2005.” This was seconded by A. Ben Seal.
Terry Gilbreath spoke of the process that the Blue Ribbon Committee began two years ago. The BRC was a pretty broad spectrum of denominations with five pastors. That issue with syntax had a great deal of discussion and labored over small things and what it meant to different people. The committee has tried to address what we (all the communities) have in common and respect our differences.
Bill Boyd – Terry Gilbreath spoke well concerning with what went on in the committee. What we have in this talk, is an outline for what anyone from any church can use as a guideline for this talk. The basis is here from where any pastor can write the talk for their own community. I believe it’s a talk that any pastor from any church can use as a guideline.
Adele Smith asked for the motion to be re-read. The motion was read by Valerie Mehl
Question- Does this include use of the talks? - No.
Bill Boyd stated that he and Terry Gilbreath will send out a letter with the talks. They will be sent out for preview and then the communities will be asked to vote after 4/22/05 and by 6/30/05.
Rene Stephenson commented on the new time structure, explaining that there were “awesome discussion” at the tables when she served in England on a weekend. The shorter talks allowed them to enjoy the fellowship, provide a more relaxed weekend and the Holy Spirit was there. I don’t think that lengthy rollos have anything to do with God moving on a weekend.
The question was called by A. Ben Seal
A vote was taken. The motion passed with all voting “aye”, no “nays” and one abstention.
Dr. Charles Allen prayed and thanked God for our unity displayed at the meeting and this vote.
Terry Gilbreath: Moscow Tres Dias is requesting support and funds. The Membership Committee will take care of this request and distribute a letter to all communities to publicize this need.
Wilson Burton was asked to lead in closing prayer.
A motion to adjourn was made by Mike Holmes. This was seconded by Judi LeMasurier. The meeting was adjourned by President Terry Gilbreath at 9:45 am in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit this meeting.
Respectfully Submitted,
Valerie A Mehl
Secretary
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