|
November 30, 2024
Good Newsletter
Greetings and Blessings to you all,
The trees are bare, and winter has certainly arrived! People who stay with us love to sit by the warm fire and read, tell stories, or even "rest thier eyes."
Some highlights of the month were the Hope Lutheran Men's retreat, the Common Ground dinner, a big Thanskgiving retreat, and Advent I. Significant work has been done on some of the buildings. Three of the staff attended the LOM (Lutheran Outdoor Ministry) Conference in Baltimore.
The camp also weathered a significant storm, where the power was out for 48 hours.
By the end of November we were prepared for the Christmas Season - a time of gratitude, giving, and joy.
During this season of giving, please consider a generous end of year gift to Koinonia. We would not be where we are without your support, prayers, and donations. Thank you! Together we can enact what God has planned for this ministry.
Please read below for our updates and good news.
| |
Pastor Meditation on Thanksgiving | |
|
|
Pastor Tom Kildea and his family, and members from his church in New Jersey came up for the Thanksgiving Retreat.
Please see his beautiful meditation on the retreat HERE.
| | | |
|
Board President Report
Happy Thanksgiving! The Board and I are grateful for the incredible community that supports the work we do at Koinonia including our staff, donors, and volunteers. We could not realize our mission to be a flourishing outdoor community that cultivates transformation and ripples peace and reconciliation to the world without all of you. Below are our latest updates from camp.
Goal 1: Identify a staffing structure for current and future needs by June 2024 and implement the plan by December 2025.
All our new staff continue to do well in their positions, and we are hearing good feedback from the groups that visited in November. I want to give a special shout out to Lewis, Jim, and everyone for navigating through a multi-day power outage in the community last weekend. Fortunately, all is well now and the staff is gearing up for a festive Season.
Goal 2: Raise operating revenue to achieve a balanced budget in 2024 and 2025.
Mark Wilson, Treasurer, and Kathleen continue to meet weekly to look at balances, projections, and decisions. The Board has reviewed a draft 2025 budget and will be ready to propose our finalized budget at the Annual Meeting in the New Year. Salesforce continues to be a helpful tool (Thank you, Lora and Kelly!) in tracking our philanthropic and rental revenue, as well as in projecting our financials through the end of the year. We are gearing up for Giving Tuesday, Advent, and our end-of-year appeal. We appreciate you considering Koinonia in your end-of-year giving plans. The capital campaign is progressing and the alumni campaign and pursuing additional gifts from major donors are two areas of priority.
Goal 3: Grow the Koinonia community by retaining current users/programs and attracting new/first-time visitors.
Esther Schulze continues to lead on this goal and our recent meetings focused on continued promotion of the Conference Center and the cabins. We continue to develop monthly social media posts and have created a LinkedIn page for Koinonia. We continue to explore additional channels for promoting the camp including brochures, ads in church bulletins, and blurbs in email newsletters for other congregations.
If you have any recommendations for new Board Members for 2025, please email Kathleen at kkruen@koinoniany.org.
With gratitude,
Katie Cunningham
Board President
| |
|
Fundraising/ Finance Update
As of November 8th, we have received
$81,392.20 in donations (not including Capital Campaign funds)! Thank You!
We celebreated our Common Ground Donors at our annual dinner on November 17th. At the dinner we raised $3,000 from our raffle and additional gifts!
Monica and Lora have been working on our Christmas appeal. Lora has designed a newsletter to be sent to over 4,000 people, and Monica has been printing letters and stuffing envelopes to send to over 700 on our donor list. Read the letter HERE.
Our Capital Campaign Gifts and pledges are, as of September 5th, $1,550,043. Total gifts (2020-present) are $1,317,865.90.
The Staff Alumni Capital Campaign team have started raising funds to build the Oasis Showerhouse near the rafters. If you would like to give a generous gift and be listed as one of the lead donors, email Lora HERE.
Kathleen continues to engage with major gift donors, in order to get us over the 2 million mark.
Your generosity helps Koinonia thrive!
| |
|
|
|
Property Update
The Property Team met on November 12 to discuss progress on securing a generator and input on the showerhouse design.
Supplies for the Caritas House renovation arrived the week of Thanksgiving and the contractor began replacing windows and tearing off the wooden siding. The septic tank was replaced. The job is more than half complete! The locksmith should be at work in the next two weeks.
Our roofer/contractor is brought a team to the site of the proposed showerhouse and has done a Perk test to design a septic system. The contractor met with staff, Bob Bliefernich and the Vorstadts to discuss the layout and placement of the building.
Jim Kelty worked with volunteer Gary Koran on repairing a broken lightpole at the conference center. Jim noticed that the Pump house near the campground was in disrepair and made a list of materials approved by the board, and with Gary’s assistance on wiring, and CB Kirby's help in tearing out drywall, reinforced the structure so it is secure and able to support the future showerhouse.
On Friday, November 22, a severe winter storm knocked out power to the area. We had to reschedule the Festival of Lights. Jim plowed the 12+ inches of snowfall for hours, and Lewis, who lives on site, was without electricity for nearly three days. You can read his experience of the event HERE.
The outage is another reminder that generators for the conference center and buildings are necessary for protecting the people and resources that are within them.
Thank you Staff and Volunteers!
| | | |
|
Outreach/Marketing
Facebook 90 day Facebook post reach was up 35.9% vs May 9 – August 6, we held at the same amount of followers in the past month, and post engagements hover between 350 and 3,500. The last newsletter had a 49% open rate, down from 50% the past month.
With Jackie’s help, Mike O’Brien became the owner of the website. Kelly Kandler has been given a contract for her work on Salesforce and continues to meet every other week with Lora, Kathleen and Mike. The Outreach Marketing team/Goal 3 Team, in its new iteration, met on November 4 to report on initial findings from the program survey (Wildlife and Music retreats were at the top) and to review the progress on the goals.
Kathleen, Mike, and Lewis attended the Lutheran Outdoor Ministry Conference in Baltimore November 11-15th. Kathleen was on the planning team, and Mike and Lewis helped with nightly bartending.
Kathleen had a special meeting with Shannon Daives fron TSTT and NYS Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther. We hope to have her take a tour of the camp soon.
Town Supervisor John Pizzalatto took a tour of the camp with Kathleen and Mike in early November, resulting in Koinonia being invited to host the Barryville Chamber of Commerce Benefit in 2025 in the Conference Center in March!
| |
|
|
Two Minute Survey
The Goal 3 team has come up with some ideas for programming weekends for the spring and summer.
Please take two minutes and let us know which programs might bring NEW people to Koinonia! Thank you.
Take the survey HERE.
| |
|
Last Chance for Advent..... | |
|
|
|
Thanksgiving - November 27-19
10 rooms, 0 cabins available
Advent I: November 29-December 1
Led by Pastor Paul Johnsen
10 rooms, 0 cabins available
Advent II: December 6-8
Led by Pastor Ron Klose
Waiting List Only
Advent III: December 13-15
Lead by Pastor James Sudbrock
10 rooms, 2 cabins available
| | | |
Our Mission is reaching more people, and our vision to become "a flourishing outdoor community that cultivates transformation and ripples peace and reconciliation to the world" is leading us to the future. Thank you for reading this newsletter, for your prayers, your volunteering, your booking of buildings and rooms, and for your financial support. Together, we can build a ministry that will last for the next 60 years and beyond.
God Bless,
Katie Cunningham
Board President
Kathleen Ruen
Executive Director
| | | | |
