ADMINISTRATORS REPORT

Over 200 Senior Adults enjoyed the Southern Belle boat ride and brunch on Sept. 25,2006. HCBA hosted the Hamilton County Baptist Ministry Assistants Association for their fall luncheon on November 2, 2006.  We presented coupons for personal wellness program visits for two area gyms. The vice president of this group, Nancy Swift, presented a program about serving on a mission team.

    During the first month of 2007 mandates caused service  updates for  important mail equipment and the need to purchase a new photocopier that is networked to our office computers. We had to replace our air unit for the upstairs during February.

    One day in February we had ninety-two persons in our building to discuss financial issues facing churches and retirement fund changes. The afternoon of February 27 we  had 44 present to hear a TBC representative of GuideStone, Richard Skidmore,  explain additional information about 2007 changes in annuity benefits for staff members of churches.  That evening he facilitated a conference for 48 individuals about tax reporting, compensation planning and legal obligations.  Richard Skidmore returned on March 29-30 for individual appointments for those who needed to talk one-on-one about retirement concerns. The seminar, like others provided by HCBA, was planned to save your church TIME, MONEY, and HASSLE!

       Starting in February and continuing all summer of this year we worked with church volunteer coordinators about possible mission trips to Chattanooga. The group that accepted the opportunity for ministry decided to work with Mission Oaks for VBS. That group was from Oxford Baptist in Oxford NC.

    The Administrative Leadership Team meets during October, January, April,  and July.  The Missions & Ministry Team meets the months of November, February, May and August.  

    The Church Business Administrators meet monthly for lunch to discuss issues in their office management.

    We also have been testing the denominational office software upgrades for Automated Church Systems Technology. We have been a testing site for almost twenty years for this company. Their software training this year was hosted in Chattanooga and we were given  reduced rates for all training classes for our services. Therefore, we were able to train our entire staff without costs of travel and motels.

    We have hosted the ACS Tri-State User’s quarterly meetings for 12 years. In August Dail Shaw from ACS, the new rep for Tennessee, presented updates on equipment and web options.

    The external audit report by the firm of Johnson, Hickey and Murchison has been completed and filed for review.

    On October 24, 2006,  HCBA held the second dinner meeting with wives of pastors.  This is an open invitation meeting for wives to get to know each other and discuss issues.  The group met occasionally during the year and on September 27, 2007, started a monthly study facilitated by Jane Hutchings. Jane has always lived in the home of a pastor as a daughter and then as wife of a pastor. David and I continue, as we have for over ten years, to meet with such groups regularly. If you wish to attend or begin a group fellowship, please let us know.

    Riverbend was again a source of local ministry for churches.  The Resort and Riverbend focused training was held on May 22, Tuesday, at 6:30.  This is a great witnessing starter training and required for those who volunteer with our HCBA copyrighted ministry known as Scenic City Ministries group.

    The Jesus Project DVD’s returned by the US Postal Service from the Easter Blitz have been donated to us for use by churches. Many churches gave them out in mission fairs, visitation and local church events.  Some were given out at the Strawberry Festival in Dayton TN.

     The Risk Management dinner was held on June 19 for local churches. HCBA conducted this dinner meeting at Ridgedale as a check up prior to summer activities.

    Many forms and resources for churches to use are available on our website or by calling  to ask for email attachments to be sent for: sample documentation on financial and personnel issues, job descriptions, evaluation forms, permission to screen persons, etc.  Five cases of theft or embezzlement by staff personnel were reported in this region during the last year.  Some churches conducted their first screenings on all volunteers and staff working with children and youth as a result of this training. We are planning more seminars like this in the future. Len Webb of Church Mutual Insurance was facilitator.

     Staff member David Martin is actively updating and adding new channels for the

HCBA Website www.baptistassociation.com.  The newest areas are BCM Baptist Collegiate Ministry, and Construction-Disaster Relief-ReBuild opportunities.

    The Literacy Council was reborn in our building this summer and will continue to meet quarterly. This group is made up of providers from various agencies that support learning for babies through the seniors.

     We were pleased to have Natasha Betancourt working 4 days weekly with HCBA during the summer. She continues to work some hours weekly around her UTC class schedule. Linda Mauritzen works three days weekly in data updating, registration for events, assisting me with bookkeeping and the two areas of literacy missions. Glenna Smith works twice weekly in the office receiving resumes, contributions, prayer concerns, and working with David Myers on the Senior Adult Ministries.

    The budget was prepared by the finance committee for preview in Executive Board meeting in September and will be presented to the Annual Meeting for action . The program leaders and ministry leaders along with the teams provided requests for funds to provide ministry and educational opportunities throughout the 2008 year. A book of requests was prepared with history of all spending and balances.

     Mark your calendar and do not miss the CPA continuing education unit FREE Annual Tax Seminar that will be hosted at HCBA on Tuesday, December 4, at 1:30. Deborah Taylor from the Tennessee Baptist Convention will lead this training event again this year.  Topics will include:

• Federal Reporting:   IRS Forms and other   Publications Compliance; W2;    1099 forms; new form 944.
• Charitable Contributions: Cash contributions — new rules ;  Designated giving — Is the gift deductible?;  Non-cash gifts — New appraisal rules –vehicles
• How to structure your benefits program:  Insurance, Retirement, matching  contributions
• Other Financial Issues:  Housing and other Reimbursements  

   It has been interesting to work directly with program leaders sharing the vision and ideas for each area HCBA touches.  David Myers and I work with them as they  prepare promotional materials for their areas of ministry.  We have saved money on postage and hope to get the messages to you sooner with the use of email.

    It is now Annual Church Letter Profile review time. Each church is asked to turn in changes in  your local church leaders listings. These are forwarded to the TN Baptist Convention for their annual directory and to the Southern Baptist Convention for official listings.  Thank you for reminding your church how important this is to us all.