The monthly business meeting of the Nauset Fellowship was held on Sunday April 2, 2017 with President Bob Seay presiding. There were 9 members present.

The minutes of the February meeting were approved with Jari Rapaport’s vote. The minutes of the March meeting were read and accepted.

According to the Treasurer’s report there is little change, Judith gave the report in a voicemail to Bob as her computer may have died. and she was unable to access the records. We hope there is a back up somewhere. Bob reported Christy Foster has agreed to do the bookkeeping for the Restoration project. We have paid about $18,000 to Peter McDonald architects of which $6595 has been reimbursed and $11,515 will be reimbursed from the CPA grant.

Bob reported on a meeting he had with Eric Dray and Peter Wade to discuss what historic preservation means. At present there is a lawsuit pending regarding the awarding of CPA money to churches. It is a church state matter and will be heard by the state supreme judicial court in August. The precedent so far is if there is community value to the project it should be funded. We are advised to get moving quickly as a negative decision will most likely not be retroactive.

Eric Dray (historic architect) needs to offer an opinion to the Community Preservation Committee about what exactly what is covered by the CPA grant. He also has to (prepare) approve the historic preservation restriction in the deed. Peter Wade and Bob prepared documents and an argument for maximum coverage and submitted them to town counsel for his/her opinion of what legally the CPA funds will cover.

Eric questioned the need for a sprinkler system. The UU Church in Provincetown put in a high tech smoke detector system which would alert the fire department immediately. This would be much cheaper than a sprinkler system. and great for historic buildings as no extra plumbing is needed.He also suggested the roof cresting could be a little smaller and made of a weather resistant wood composite. The steeple cap also has to be reconfigured to look like the original.

We want 3 or 4 builders to bid on the project–Cape Associates, Rick Cleary, possibly Artisan Builders, an Orleans firm with experience in historic projects. We must get the bids out soon as as to be able to start on July 1st.

Shirley Weber pointed out that we can probably use the big room during construction as no work is taking place there.

We had a lengthy discussion about fundraising. We need a subcommittee to plan it and Bob thinks that Judith Terry might be willing to chair it. We hope to work with people from the Library who have offered to help. Bob is sending letters to Cape Cod Five & Seamens Bank who give small grants to community projects. The Nauset Rotary Club has offered to donate $500 thanks to Sarah Wilcox of the Eastham Superette. We need to raise at least $100,000. There is some question as to whether we can raise the money in 6 months. We hope our committee will meet with the library people before the end of April, We can also coordinate with the First Encounter Coffeehouse for a benefit concert this summer. The Building Committee will meet with Peter McDonald before sending the plans out to bid. Laura Roskos offered to work on fundraising. Nancy Chenoweth volunteered to write thank you notes to donors.

Bob will be doing the Hopper program on Friday April 21st and again in June.

For the April 9th program Laura Roskos will facilitate a discussion of who we are and how we project our values in honor of Justice Sunday.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 a.m.

Respectfully submitted Nancy Chenoweth, Secretary