The meeting was held at the Patterson/Colbran Residence and began promptly at 6PM. Bill and Angela provided a lovely ham and split pea soup for our dinner.

Anne reviewed the many projects the Missions Board was involved in this past year to our own amazement. Gratitude was expressed to everyone for their many contributions over the year. Good bye to Jackie as she leaves the board and hello and welcome to Larry Lopp as he joins the board.

Nancy Jo was asked and accepted the position of co-chair of the board.

Anne said that the first library will be going to St. Stephen’s School in Lesotho and will need to be shipped no later than 2/15/09. We have now raised over half the money needed for shipping both libraries. (The second library is scheduled for shipment April 15th and is destined for Swaziland).

However the St Stephen’s has asked for more specific books – encyclopedias, children’s dictionarys, Young Scientist Encyclopedia, etc. Anne will prepare a list of books still needed. Stephen will help get the information out to the congregation. This library will be serving 1200 students, many of whom are single or double orphans. They range in age from 6 years to 20 years. More boxes are needed; anyone who has boxes at home will bring them in. Anne will let us know about the size. The books have been repacked since November and will need to be reweighed. Next Sunday, 1/18, before church Anne, Nancy Jo and whoever else can make it will meet to pack boxes.

Larry Lopp will check to see if we can do “Click and Ship�? on-line shipping for these books. Jackie volunteered to help put the “paper�? work into an online form to make it easier to process all the books for shipping if Anne will send her a copy of the form from ALP.

Jackie will go to the Happy Dragon to see if they have any of the needed kind of children’s books and to see if they might be willing to donate them to us or sell to us for a cheap price.

Newsletter Articles – Anne will write an article for ALP and she will talk to Angela and Bill about providing an article or information for an article on Parents helping Parents. These will then be translated into articles for the giving booklet.

Larry reported that the fire victims had received the donations of food and other items from the church and were very happy and grateful for them. Larry suggested and Stepen concurred that help for the fire victims might be a Mission Board project for the upcoming year. This will be discussed further in future meetings.

Assistance for Julia Swayne’s trip to Africa. -- Anne talked to Olga today but had been unable to reach Julia. Apparently Olga is very much looking forward to Julia’s arrival. A special donation will be taken in the church any Sunday that Julia wishes.

Budget – UCC allotment, Stephen will talk to someone in the conference about the goal (percentage) for our church and will get back to Anne.

Next meeting is Feb 1st, after church.

(Good bye dear board members, I'm going to miss you. You do great work. JS)

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