|
| Charlie Kuchenbrod |
Administration provides professional and technical support services for the Conference. A few of those support services are financial management and accounting, payroll and benefits administration, maintaining our office space and all of the office equipment and services needed, and support for Conference events, particularly the Annual Meetings. Our activities are not confined to the Conference office - we often respond to questions from local churches regarding all of these areas.
We think of what we do as a ministry. Paul wrote that we all have different talents and, therefore, different ways to support the church. It is not given to all of us to provide Conference leadership, regional ministry, youth ministry or any of the wider ministries of the Conference, but surely these functions need support to be effective! We also know that we need to be good stewards in order to preserve resources for the wider ministries of the Conference.
In the past year, staffing has been recast as we continue to seek to do more with less. The Associate Conference Minister for Administration position became the ACM for Endowment Ministries, with significant funding provided by the Consolidated Trust Fund. Last October, we welcomed Jane Fawcett into the new position of Director of Finance and Budget. This position consolidates some of the former ACM for Administration responsibilities, notably budgeting and financial reporting, with the former Accounting Manager position. We bid farewell to Yamini Desai, who capably filled the Accounting Manager position for over ten years. With the retirement of Jan Bittner this August, the new position of Office Manager was created, consolidating some of the responsibilities of Jan’s Assistant Administrator position with other ACM for Administration functions. We will miss Jan’s calm competence. We are pleased to welcome as the new Office Manager, Sue Wilber, who brings extensive experience with local church administration among her skills and talents. Yolanda Montano grows ever more indispensable as she also adds payroll administration to her portfolio.
The two main benefits of this reorganization are the creation of the Endowment Ministries position and a reduction of administration staffing expenses. The Endowment Ministries position, in which I serve, will work with local churches to help them enhance the stewardship of their own endowments and develop or enhance Planned Giving initiatives, and will also provide support for the Consolidated Trust Fund.
