Members:

Fr. Jack, Kevin McMackin, Tim Barry, Kathy Rothchild, Joe Staneck, Milt Partridge, Craig Kowalski, Dan & Theresa Besl, Jen Reker-Murphy, Linda Lennon, Fran Geier, Tom Bove, Bonnie Mack, Ed Holshuh

 

Opening Prayer:

Jen, Tim, Joe and Bonnie shared in reading the gospel. Jen reflected that as a kindergarten teacher she tells her students to listen, follow and trust her, and in the gospel that is what God is asking us to do.

 

Approval of April 1st Minutes:

In the section of the minutes under "Discernment Sunday": change Mitt to Milt.

Tom Bove made a motion to accept the Minutes with the change, and it was seconded by Jen Reker-Murphy.

 

Parish Twinning:

Dan & Theresa Besl were present to update us on the Twinning Project. Dan stated that they were attempting to get a group of parishioners together to go visit Holy Trinity in Harlan. They would go down on a Saturday afternoon and participate in a benediction with the members of Holy Trinity, have a potluck dinner and join them on Sunday for mass at 9:30am. Dan said that there were actually more volunteers than they had spaces; 40+ people were interested in going. Fr. Jack said he definitely wanted to go. They would plan this for sometime in June.

Theresa told us that they closed their thrift store, but Goodwill has set up a store. They will use a voucher system for people to be able to purchase items. Dan reported that they were still having flooding problems and have lost a lot of their kitchen equipment and other household items. The Besls said that were already receiving donations of clothes that they were storing in the rectory basement. Dan said Barb Meyer has agreed to split everything with him from the next food drive.

Theresa said she has a list of over 60 names of people who would like to get involved and she received an additional 15-20 names from the Opportunity Fair. A lot of the parish groups would like to help out in some capacity . . .for example a group would like to make rosaries for the first communion class next year. A pen pal exchange was also proposed. Tom Bove brought up the suggestion of pen pals via the internet but Dan said they only had 3 working computers with very old hardware so that wouldn't be feasible at this time. Tom stated that Brother Ligett would like a communication connection between parishes. Tom said if the Besl's had any information for the newsletter to let him know and he would be happy to post it.

Bonnie asked if they were sad about the thrift store closing . . .Theresa said no, it was really a good thing because they didn't have the personnel to run it and there was an expense attached to it. They still have their food pantry that the sisters run.

Dan said he was interested in adding a food/school supply drive in the fall. He is very concerned that we understand that we need to also have a prayerful relationship, possibly having a petition for Holy Trinity during mass. Dan wants to set up a level of commitment because they have year round needs . . .pinpoint specific needs we could possibly help with and also pinpoint what they can do for us &endash; it needs to be a 2-way street.

Theresa mentioned something to Brother Mike about possibly getting some items together to sell at the Bid-n-Buy booth at the festival where all proceeds go back to Holy Trinity. These items would be marked so people would know where the proceeds of the sales of those certain items were going.

Other Parishes and Twinning: Dan & Theresa attended a meeting at IHM and said that St. Vivian's was a lot further along than some, but certain parishes are much further than us. Different examples include V St. Ann supports a parish that sits on property of 100,000 square miles; they had a great video/presentation, showing the many chapels that were located all over the acreage along with a community center. They send people down yearly. OLR supports a nun, giving $500/month along with writings & notations. St. Aloyisious is starting a twinning program in Ghana. St. Catherine's is twinning with a parish in Kentucky. Dan stated that there is a lot of involvement now, even small parishes like in Withamsville are getting involved.

Craig asked if there were going to be other meetings like that so we would be able to see what other parishes were doing. They said that it was a new thing and the Mission Office had just started to hear what the different parishes are doing.

Dan said that most of the parishes have schools. He asked how things were financed. They told him that most designate 1-5% of parish income toward charitable contributions, not just for missions, but this helped discontinue a lot of the 2nd collections. (Not including St. Vincent de Paul)

Milt asked if the church was in Appalachia. He then said that he had been solicited by the Christian Appalachia Project and asked if they could benefit from them financially. Dan said that Holy Trinity was located in Appalachia but would have to check it out.

 

Volunteer Fair:

Kevin asked for responses concerning the Volunteer Fair. Bonnie said she had 1 person sign up for the AMOS project and had a couple others interested. Fran was excited about the 2 new members that signed up for Rosary-Altar Society. It was also mentioned their was a new Ensemble member! Kevin said that the 35 groups that were represented fit nicely around the activity center. Tim said that he really didn't have anything to speak of as far as the survey forms went. There were a couple new people who he will contact. Tim thought he could use the forms sometime in the future as a bulletin insert or to have available at the end of pews in church.

 

Discernment Sunday:

Kevin reported that at this time we have 8 _ candidates. We were still waiting for a response. The election is coming up the weekend of May 18-19th. The 3rd year council members (Craig, Milt, Fran & Kevin) will count the ballots sometime after the Sunday masses. Jen suggested to call the newly elected members early, not just a week before the June meeting.

The June meeting is scheduled for the 1st Monday of June at 7:00. (June 3rd) Linda volunteered to be in charge of organizing the food and Jen volunteered to help.

The Fall Goal Meeting is scheduled for Sunday, September 15th and the first regular meeting is scheduled for Monday, September 23rd.

Jen commented that last year when we were setting up goals it seemed a bit rambled but looking back, she feels like we really accomplished a lot.

Budget:

Kathy reported that Temporal Affairs worked really hard on this budget. Then she passed out the new tuition schedule. She also reported on the increase of health care. Fr. Jack said the state usually had given us about $90,000 for school expenses but next year we will only be receiving approximately 50% of that. Joe Staneck said that the current 8th grade is very large, so when they graduate, the enrollment will be way down which will be a large loss. Fran asked if the Lottery helped with school expenses. Kathy said that all that money goes into the State Fund. She also stated that catholic schools were not the only schools that were losing their subsidy. Kathy also said that festival money was not part of our regular budget. That money was set aside for capital improvement. For example the money that we needed to put on the new roofs came from festival money.

Suggestion Box:

Linda reported there were no suggestions but restocked the suggestion forms.

Tom said he did not receive any web site suggestions.

Open Discussion / Walk-ons

Parish Directory: Kathy finally got a proof book of the Parish Directory. She made changes and expects to receive the final copy in about 6 weeks.

Parish Census: Milt asked Fr. Jack if he noticed any changes in the parish. Fr. Jack said that we were still at 1050 families. Fr. said he was concerned that only about 1/3 of the students attend Sunday Mass.

Catholic Telegraph: Fran had mentioned that some people she was talking to were receiving the Catholic Telegraph but said they weren't paying for it. Kathy said they had just gotten the bill, but haven't done anything as far as paying it yet. Ed asked who would be getting the paper that hasn't paid and Kathy said she hasn't given any names or info to them. Joe also asked if this was a recurring program. Kathy said that the Diocese wants 100% participation by next year. Fr. Jack added that St. Vivian was typical as far as Telegraph subscribers. Bonnie asked that we read the section in the current Catholic Telegraph titled . . .Time, Sex & Money. It was an article about a study that she had participated in.

The meeting was adjourned with a prayer.