COVID A Big Drag For Group in 2020

On Saturday, October 10, 2020, the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie held our annu­al Members Meeting. This is the time mem­bers get a run down of how the group oper­at­ed in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year and we elect mem­bers to our Board of Directors.

The big news is how the COVID-19 out­break and result­ing pub­lic health orders cur­tailed much of the group activ­i­ties for most of the year. While dona­tions over­all were above the lev­els of 2019, not being able to hold in-person meet­ings and events real­ly damp­ened the abil­i­ty to pro­mote the group in the com­mu­ni­ty and recruit new mem­bers.

The Board reduced spend­ing such as clos­ing down the Meetup group and since most of the bud­get was allo­cat­ed for the Meetup and oth­er adver­tis­ing, we end­ed the year in a good finan­cial posi­tion.

“I would like to have a small nest egg in the bank,” SHoWLE President Doug Berger said. “Our spring and fall fundrais­ers did­n’t amount to much unfor­tu­nate­ly. I get it. Some peo­ple are low on income due to the lock­downs and lay­offs in the com­mu­ni­ty and I’m sure oth­ers com­plained about donat­ing to a group that does­n’t seem to be doing any­thing.”

Doug said he is com­mit­ted to the group for the long term.

“I’m stick­ing with the group even if it just becomes me and my fiancee Shawn.”

A bright spot for the group was the start of their out­reach pod­cast “Glass City Humanist”. It has had a dozen episodes pro­duced since January with over 400 down­loads. The goal of the pod­cast is to pro­mote Humanism and the group.

Further finan­cial results and oth­er data is avail­able on the group web­site.

The oth­er task of the annu­al meet­ing was to hold elec­tions for the Board of Directors. Normally this would be done dur­ing the meet­ing with nom­i­na­tions asked for and a vote tak­ing place from those who attend­ed. Due to the pan­dem­ic, SHoWLE used a vot­ing web­site and closed nom­i­na­tions on October 4th with vot­ing open from the 5th to the 9th. Over 50% of the vot­ing mem­ber­ship eli­gi­ble vot­ed and mem­bers Ed S. and Bev A. were elect­ed to the Board for FY2021. Board terms are for two years. Four oth­er Board mem­bers elect­ed to com­plete their 2nd year in FY2021.

The oth­er thing vot­ed on was an amend­ment to the Bylaws which would specif­i­cal­ly allow elec­tron­ic busi­ness meet­ings of the group. In the future, if local, state, or nation­al author­i­ties issued orders that would pre­vent us from meet­ing in-person, SHoWLE would be able to con­duct a busi­ness meet­ing like the annu­al mem­bers meet­ing online.

The amend­ment passed unan­i­mous­ly.