Board of Directors Meeting: 10/24/2020

Those in attendance were John-Marshall Holloway, Daniel Holloway, Cammeron Holloway and John Holloway. Judy Lowe, Jim Holloway and Bob Holloway were not available to attend.

Subjects discussed:

1. Thanks to Jim Holloway we have a server that is working great. There is a website developer that is volunteering time to build the website. The server and the firewall for the server are up and running. The future address is: hollowaycemetery.com but there is nothing on that site at this time. The website developer has been asked to include a way to coordinate information with FindAGrave.com, financial records maintenance and cemetery mapping on the final version of the website.

2. Texas Cemetery Restorations has completed their data collection at the cemetery and in the process of collating the data into the completed mapping. They have told us this phase will be complete by Thanksgiving and we will have a meeting in November to go over everything that has been done and suggestions on improvements. We will decide, based on their findings, how to lay out the cemetery for better identification of specific graves (in addition to the GPS marker). The end result is we will be able to store the data on the website and authorized users will be able to access and update as needed.

3. Our Permanent Fund at present is earning increasingly less return on investment. About half of the permanent fund that we had invested in municipal bonds at 6% interest has been called and moved to the holding account, earning approximately .03% interest. The return, as you can see, is going to be much lower in the future. We have money in the work fund to mow the cemetery for 2021. We are looking at ways we can increase income so we are able to continue caring for the grounds in the same way in 2022. We have discussed with a financial adviser different options available such as CDs, preferred stocks and municipal stocks. Each of these are either being called, are not stable or have a lower interest rate. None of these options fulfill the need. One option is to ear mark the grave opening fees to the maintenance account; at the average number of annual graves, this will provide 1/5th of the need. We are also considering lowering the number of mowing services per year.

At this time, we are asking for anyone with knowledge of different financial options to contact a board member. We are also asking to be considered as a non-profit to donate to as we near the end of the year (and indicate the donation as “for the upkeep of the cemetery” so it is not defaulted to the Permanent Fund).

For any questions, you can comment here or text or call the Board President:

John-Marshall Holloway at 903-209-8060.