OFCB Meeting Notes

October 12, 2009

§ Meeting opened at 6:20pm

§ Present were Allen Smith, Shalonda Goodwin, Bob Weteroff, Katie Crowe, Judy Nichols, Pat Christopherson, David Nichols, Thold Gill, Rick Rogers, John Blackwelder, Pat Hopkins, and Kevin Wright

§ Pat Hopkins presented information regarding the OFCB Bus Proposal. There are certain points to be decided upon by the group:

· South Mecklenburg Presbyterian has approved a partnership initiative between themselves and other congregations. We need to know which churches would like to participate.

· Churches that would like to participate would need to raise funds to cover the cost of the bus, maintenance, parts, tariffs, shipping, and other durable goods. The total cost of the bus would be approximately $10,000.

· We would also need churches to begin seeking donations of durable goods including shoes and summer clothing. The bus could travel to other churches to pick up donations received there.

· February is missions month at South Meck and this would be the target month for this project to proceed.

· It is recommended that Pat Christopherson, Tom Harman, and John Blackwelder spearhead the effort to locate the most reliable vehicle for purchase.

· The US Partnership Committee would also need to decide what to do with leftover donations.

· The US Partnership Committee would also need to decide if all funds could be collected at South Meck as a means to keep track of totals. Churches could send the money they collect to South Meck as a clearinghouse.

· Katie Crowe mentioned that there is a member at First Pres who works for a shipping company who could possible see the bus shipped free of charge to Jacmel. Katie will keep in touch with Pat Hopkins to discern if this is an option.

· It was recommended to see if there needs to see 2 busses shipped rather than 1. This decision will depend on how many churches commit to this proposal.

· Katie Crowe and Pat Hopkins will contact churches to determine how much buy-in is available. After this is determined the other decisions will be decided upon.

· Medical Clinic update

· The fundraising package from the Engineers was reviewed. A time line has not yet been set.

· David Nichols spoke about the finance portion of the clinic proposal. The estimate of $190,000 does not cover all expenses related to the clinic. There are some technological pieces which are not included in this figure, but some equipment can be donated.

Ø There is one hold out in selling the additional land. This person wants more money. The rest of his family would like to go ahead with it but he is the senior member of the family and Actionnel implied that he is not entirely rational.

Ø The annual operating cost of the clinic is dependent upon Eddy and Actionnel’s data collected during their trip.

Ø David and the finance task force will meet with Eddy to work on a budget and have a preliminary budget ready by December.

- Include schedule of staff arrivals, and if you can pay them

- Issues surrounding procurement of medicine

- Estimation of energy costs, coordinate with energy needs with equipment

- Project manager costs

- Cost of clinic and infrastructure equipment that cannot be received in-kind

- Tariffs on donated medical equipment- this could be researched to see if medical equipment can be brought in tariff free

§ The water pipeline must be completed and in good reliable working condition before the clinic can be built

§ OFCB Finances

· Thold, Rick, David and Katie met last Friday morning to talk about OFCB finances.

· Rick is reviewing the historical information to try to help develop a way to track revenues and expenses. Identifying revenues seems to be a big gap.

· From a budgetary standpoint they have a hard time of determining what is coming in and when

· It’s difficult for the Haitians to put together a good budget right now because they have no idea what their revenue side is. They seem to be capable of identifying expenses at this point so it should be a matter of working with them to develop processes of identifying expenses better and use that information to identify costs per student and other types of things associated with growth.

· Rick should have some concrete information to share the next time we meet again in terms of potential revenue sources.

· The group would need to share information to help OFCB develop a certain level of predictability.

· Allen Smith suggested that the US OFCB Partnership Committee be a sort of clearinghouse of income over to OFCB Ministries so that there are better records kept. Allen said that we need a more unified budget process.

· Thold said that the hope is that we would be able to demonstrate that this ministry operates along certain universal guidelines of financial planning, disclosure, and accountability.

· Thold asked whether or not we would like some ability to have control over dollars that come in as the figures get larger.

Next meeting will be December 2, 2009 at 6:00 pm at First Pres.