PRESENT: Vince, Alan, Vince Neal.

AGENDA:

1. Vince report.
2. Address on letterhead

VINCE’S REPORT AND LETTER: These minutes will combine all the items on the agenda without teasing them out.

Vince actually made arrangements about the tents at today’s meeting. Vince and Neal decided Thursday or Friday would work if they could get Mike to agree to one of those days. Vince called Mike, and they set up Friday morning to move the tents. Mike will bring them down, and Vince and Neal will get them to Bethlehem Church.

We also discussed the practicalities of sending out the letter of appeal to other possible church host sites. We decided that September was not a good month to do it for a variety of reasons, and so we will send it out after that. This is a time when many pastors are out on vacation. Pastor Nina herself is out until August. We have had both cooperation and some resistance from the City itself.

The content of the letter still needs some work. We discussed mail merges, whereby we print up address labels for the envelopes.

When Neal deals with the tents at Bethlehem, he will talk to John about a mailstop at Bethlehem. Alan will fix the letterhead at that point. It seems a bit crowded at the top. The top of the letterhead needs only contact information, and we can take out the Facebook page URL, and email and perhaps put it in the footer. We just need the mailing address and phone number at the top, under the graphic. Alan will redesign this letterhead when we have assembled the new information.

NEXT MEETING: Normally, we have meetings on the 1st and 3rd Monday of the month. However, the first Monday of September is Labor Day, and we decided to skip that date. So our next meeting will be on September 15.

Respectfully submitted: Alan OldStudent

PRESENT: Alan (Note taker), Neal, Lisa, Vince (Facilitator), Patricia

AGENDA:

1. Letters to potential hosts.
2. Postings on websites
3. Vince’s report.
4. Web Page.
5. Announcements

LETTERS TO POTENTIAL HOSTS: Neal, Vince, Alan, and Patricia came in with versions of a proposed letter to send to potential host sites. Vince’s letter told the story of how TCT developed from OT, and he wrote it from the point of view of a clergyman writing his colleagues. Patricia had worked on her stream-of-consciousness letter, and Neal made some revisions. Alan made some revisions of Neal’s letters. We felt that all the letters had positive points and that perhaps we should use a brief cover letter with a longer narrative, based on Vince’s effort.

The next question was do we mail this package out to all churches who are potential host sites, or do we mail them out more selectively?. Patricia favored sending them out to all potential host sites. If we decided to be more selective, Vince would be willing to drive around with one of us to check out the hosts’ location and physical suitability for a site.

VINCE’S REPORT: Vince did not have a chance to talk to Pastor Nina or call Mike Coburn yet. He will report on this at the upcoming meeting.

POSTINGS ON WEBSITE: We discussed briefly the mechanics of posting to the website. Alan will make a brief tutorial on how to do this. We also briefly discussed our Facebook page and what we felt was appropriate to be on that page.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Our next meeting will be at the FUMC, 4 PM, August 25, 2014

Respectfully submitted: Alan OldStudent

PRESENT: Carl (representative for South Tacoma Neighborhood Council [STNC]), Patricia, Vince (Facilitator), Neal, Alan (Note taker),

AGENDA:

1. Introductions.
2. Web report.
3. Coalition report.
4. Patricia’s letter.
5. Carl from STNC.

INTRODUCTIONS: Because we had a new attendee, we had introductions. Each attendee said a few words about her/himself.

WEB REPORT: Our website hosting fees are paid one year in advance, and this website’s one-year hosting account anniversary is in a few months. The hosting company billed Alan for next year. Alan paid this bill, and the hosting account is now current until October, 2015. The fee was $119.88, which Alan paid as a donation to TCT.

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PRESENT: Vince, Alan, Neal, Patricia

AGENDA:

1. Web report.
2. Tent storage.
3. Coalition meeting
4. Phone bill due. Will be paid.
5. New Pastor report.

VINCE:

Vince reported on his meeting with the new FUMC pastor. His impression is favorable.

John said space for tents okay. Vince did not call Mike Coburn because had not yet contacted John. Discussion followed.

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PRESENT: Vince, John, Neal, Patricia, Alan

AGENDA:

1. Bank account.
2. Business cards
3. Coalition meeting.
4. Mike Coburn and tents
5. John’s report
6. Mail boxes

BANK ACCOUNT: Patricia closed our bank account. TAPCO was charging us $25/month just to keep it open. She now is holding the funds for us. She will open new account at a different institution when we get our fundraising efforts organized.

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PRESENT: Alan, Vince, Neal, Lisa, John.

AGENDA:

1. Patricia’s report
2. Neal report on gathering
3. Vince’s report on insurance and other issues
4. Tents report.
5. Alan & Business cards.
6. Web report.

PATRICIA’S REPORT: Patricia was unable to attend. However, she reported she will close the TAPCO account. We discussed possibly opening an account at Sound Credit Union, where Occupy Tacoma has an account and does not have to pay any fees.

PRESENT: Vince, Neal, Lisa, Alan, Patricia

AGENDA:

1. Web report
2. Coalition meeting
3. Associated Ministries event.
4. ORCA card
5. Assessment and Ideas from 15 now

Web Report:
Alan reported that he made a backup of the site and has been doing so about every 2 weeks. He reported that we’ve had a lot of spurious registrations, probably bots. He is going to look into a “captcha” plugin to block bot registrations.

Coalition Report: Neal attended the meeting of the TPCCEH (Tacoma-Pierce County Coalition to End Homelessness). This time, it was Police Department personnel who gave the main presentation. They reported on the police department’s encampment elimination program. They say that the problem is not as pressing as some people think.

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PRESENT: Neal, Vince, Lisa, Alan, Patricia

AGENDA:

1. Vince’s report on past hosts
2. Patricia’s report on council coalition
3. Neal on NetZero
4. Note from Steve Dunkelberger

Report on Past Hosts: Vince contacted 3 pastors of churches which had hosted tent cities before. Vince distributed copies of reports from ministers. Some discussion on those. One has hosted a tent city 12 times and there has been much good feedback. Vince will ask pastors how they handled the insurance liability. Neal suggested contacting Share/Wheel for other contacts of people who’ve done it.

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Present: Neal, Vince, Lisa, Patricia

Report from Vince about FUMCOT: Vince reported about recent encounters with a homeless person that has been frequenting FUMCOT’s doorstep. The congregation was ultimately forced to declare the area off limits for the homeless because of this person’s belligerent behavior. They also had discussions about the Baywatch Apartments and the intent of the managing agency to make it low-income housing. This will certainly have implications upon the homeless population of Tacoma. Whether this will be for good or ill cannot be said at this point.

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PRESENT: Neal, Vince (facilitator), Lisa, Alan (note taker).

We really did not have a formal agenda at this time, as there wasn’t much business.

We discussed the public comment testimony in front of the city council regarding proposed land use permits needed to set up a temporary tent city for homeless people. John Harrington of the city planning department gave a presentation, and then members of the public spoke. Neal and Alan spoke in favor, and Pastor Bruce and Valentine Smith (a member of a neighborhood council) spoke against it. Mr. Smith said he based his comments on informal discussion with members of his neighborhood council, as well as other people who live near him.

Alan posted an edited video of the public comment on YouTube, our Facebook page, and our web page. He said he made an unofficial transcript of the public comments, which he will prepare for distribution as a PDF file.

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