Tuesday, August 24, 2004

The meeting began with a Scripture reading and the parish prayer.

We welcomed the new school principal, Michael Marcinkus. He discussed some new plans for the school and mentioned his ideas regarding building stronger community relationships. He is enthusiastic about his new position and really eager to talk to parents, community representatives and Sacred Heart parishioners in regard to the future ideas and plans for the school.

We have been doing a second collection monthly for the funding of the school and it has averaged about $2500 which was more than anticipated.

More ideas were shared regarding a marketing focus toward building the community and outside community relationships. We are looking for additional streams of income but also volunteers that may be interested in some work that needs to be done. We explored grants and how many are available. It requires grant research and grant writing. There are many capital improvements that have occurred and we need to share that with our parishioners.

Advertising our Sacred Heart parish community and school community will be placed in a number of different places and Howard Lotis has been working on one ad that may be used for multiple purposes. We are already stretching our vision for community and school. 

Father O’Brien gave us an update on the parish transitional team led by BJae (Bartholemew Jae). A letter is ready to be mailed shortly to the parishioners of Star of the Sea.  We are also preparing a welcome letter.

October 24, 2004 will be their last liturgy held at their church. Maureen Conway passed us a summary of the transitional phases which describes the actions to be taken and people have different ideas. It is important to listen to the needs of the Star of the Sea parishoners and be ready to respond. We felt that it is critical for the people to identify their desires and needs and wants—and we will listen.

Update on the adult education program: we have future dates established and we discussed using one book per meeting. The dates thus far will be September 26, and  October 24  from 7:00 PM until 8:30 PM.  We are looking for suggestions for books that may be interesting.   Regarding the films and discussion we have chosen three dates: September 22, October 20 and November 17. Approximately 60 people have been attending and seem to enjoy it very much. We need some suggestions also for films and hope that it would be something demonstrating Christian values or social responsibility. 

There will be a morning of prayer for women presented by Jamie Wolfe on Saturday, October 2 from 9 AM until 2 PM. Some men are also trying to put together a special day of prayer for men.

Those in attendance were Rosemary Kubera, Rose Mary Feeney, George Clisham, Howard Lotis, Angela Marre, Norma Murphy, Maureen Conway, John Princiotto, Deacon Salenius, Michael Marcinkus, Rick Letham, Rick Rossi, Father John O’Brien, Father Robertson and Margaret Kinsella.

The next Parish Council meeting will be held on September 28, 2004.