St. Joseph Parish Council Meeting

                                        Sunday, October  9, 2005

 

Attending: Fr. David McGuinness, Jim Altmiller, John Benca, Susan Gearhart, Maxine Guerrera, Pete Konenkamp, Marty Ledenham, Dana Moody, Rosemary Risse, Todd Story, Evelyn Tejeda, Margarita Tejeda and John Timmons.

 

Pete Konenkamp opened the meeting with a prayer.

 

Minutes of the September meeting were reviewed and approved.

 

Guests at the meeting were Richard Dunne, Paul Cramer and Geoff Estes.      

 

Pete introduced Richard Dunne as representative of the Capital Campaign Committee to report to the Council. He announced that the Guidance and Giving awaits land purchase. Nancy Hobart has a group of volunteers ready to begin the interviews as soon as the land site is announced. The feasibility phase is anticipated to be 4 wks.

 

Paul Cramer was then introduced to speak to the council on Parish Unity. Paul updated the council on the progress of Monsignor Donovan Catholic High School.

Father thanked our guests and after their departure the meeting was continued.

 

COMMITTEE REPORTS:

 

Together (Planning) : John Timmons reports that plans are still pending on site selection.

 

Site/Architecture: John Benca reported that there are at least a dozen stable members of the Architectural Task Force. Jack Crawley, head of Landscape Architecture at UGA spoke with the committee. New approaches were discussed -- sub-team programming utilizing the talent within the parish was suggested as an alternative to hiring one architect. The committee will meet Tuesday.

 

Communications: Pete reports meeting with Walt Denero of the Planning Committee to discuss the channels to relay information to the media. The focus was to determine how to provide quick but accurate information and to define the role of the Communications committee in relaying information to the media.

 

Maintenance: Jim announced that the wall was 95% completed. The trash pick-up and the lawn mowing schedules continue regularly.

 

Finance: Jim reported that the committee now has six people. Their intent is to interface with the RE and with St. Joseph’s School to improve decision making and purchasing  power.

 

Liturgy: Rosemary said that the new linen altar cloth arrived and may required professional starching.

 

Latinos: Father said that we have purchased a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Evelyn reported that the music concert raised $1500; $400 of which reimbursed the sponsoring lady and $1100, which was sent to the sisters from Mexico. The next fundraiser will be parking cars at the next UGA game in the church parking lot. Other activities include a Vigil on Oct 15th, a Marriage Encounter retreat on Oct 23rd and the Dec 12 festivities for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Margarita passed out flyers for the Oct Health Fair. Rosemary alerted all who are involved in the Health Fair to be aware that the State Health Dept includes information encouraging contraception.

 

School: Max reported that the grade school and middle school currently have an enrollment of 350. The kindergarten classes are relatively small at 17 and 20. There are two families from New Orleans … Katrina evacuees. There will be a family night to introduce them to the community. The Coke fundraiser raised $1500-2000 for sports equipment. There has been a school wide upgrade of computers including having homework assignments on the web (schoolnotes.com). There was a school mass complete with band. Ann Mitchell of the Finance Committee reports $8000 from the Tennis Tournament. St. Joes Jog has been rescheduled for April 1st—they anticipate$15,000 with increased participation in the spring. They need assistance from the Communication’s Committee to advertise the date change. The Annual Giving Campaign has $67,000 as of last week and anticipates more. The PTO is totaling the numbers for the magazine drive…. They have $16,000 profit to date. Father said that the Advisory Board (BOE) would be reorganized.

 

Father shared the note from First Avenue Baptist Church thanking us for the Red Maple tree that we gave them for their 175th Anniversary. It was planted in the yard so that both churches could see it.

 

Old Business:

 

Bylaws: Jim and Dana dispersed copies of the proposed changes to the bylaws regarding the elections. These were reviewed and discussed and a motion was made and seconded to approve the changes. An application ballot for the parish council was also included.

 

Father asked why 18-21 year olds were not qualified for elections. After discussion it was decided that Pete, as RE liason, will ask Life Teen if they wish to have a liason to the parish council.

 

Announcements:

 

Rosemary announced the Oct 23rd Life Chain between 2-3 PM.  This year it will be coordinated with Prince Ave Baptist Church.

 

Dana announced another successful Second Sunday Social (this Sunday was sponsored by Catholic Charities).

 

Margarita reviewed the bulletin and was very pleased with Lola Gazda’s Spanish translations.

 

The parish picnic was delightful. Father was in charge of the weather, which was perfect. There were approximately 700 parishioners who attended. Max thanked Marty and a special tribute was made to Bendicte Milward who organized the wonderful Liturgy.

 

The meeting was closed with a Hail Mary led by Father McGuinness.

 

The next Parish Council meeting will be Sunday, Nov17th at 7:30 PM.