Meeting Minutes - St. Paul Parish Council - 9/11/2006

Attending: Paul Anderson, Cheryl Kaminski, Fr. Romanus Nwaru, Vince Sciano, Pat Sciano, Katrin Kempowski, Linda Krowsky, Gerry Burant, Jeff Madunich, Rich Kucharski

Minutes:

Meeting commenced at 7:00pm

(Item 3) Minutes from previous meeting were approved.

(Item 2) Joel Tomski took a group picture of the council and of the new members. Pictures to be added to the parish website.

(Item 4) Paul Anderson opened the discussion on the role of the parish council liaisons to each of the parish committees. He asked that we attend the next meeting of our respective committees and understand the goals and activities of each, to determine who are the members of the various committees and, moving forward, to ensure the completion of any key goals that the individual committees or the parish council develop.

Council members volunteered for liaison assignments as follows:

Festival - Paul Anderson

School Advisory Board - Cheryl Kaminski

Stewardship - discussed later

Prayer & Worship - Pat Sciano

Christian Formation - Katrin Kempowski

Human Concerns - Jeff Madunich

Building & Grounds - Vince Sciano

Finance - Richard Kucharski

Home & School - Linda Krowsky

(Item 4d) Paul Anderson led the discussion on the Festival. He reiterated Fr. Romanus's support of the festival and the need for volunteers for next year's Festival. He asked that each council member review the handout of needs for the 2007 festival and consider whether they can volunteer to help make it a success. A concern was raised as to what the actual committments needed for each of the open volunteer positions. The council was asked to begin to prepare for a transition period to new leadership for future festivals. Lisa Johnson will be attending the October 2 meeting to discuss the festival.

(Item 4c) For the initiation of a Stewardship Committee, Paul Anderson suggested that this be a part of the parish council for the first year. At a future date, depending on the success and interest in it , this committee could be spun off as a separate committee. The council concurred.

Paul Anderson supplied a handout related to stewardship and the purpose of the Stewardship Committee and asked the Council to reflect on it for the next meeting.

Gerry Burant suggested that we pick up where we left off on the Stewardship Assessment that was facilitated by Julie Pach of the Archdiocesen office. 
This would be an invite to her for a future meeting where we could review her recommendations to help increase parish stweardship. Paul Anderson suggested that first, the council needs to better understand the activities and goals of their respective committees before we have Julie back.

(Item 5) Briefly reviewed the current parish mission statement. Paul Anderson would like to invite a resource from the Archdiocesan office to lead us in a review of the statement to see if we would need to update it. 
Input would also be solicited from the rest of the parish. He asked each Parish Council to pray over the Mission Statement to determine whether they see it reflecting the mission of the parish.

(Item 6) Fr. Romanus discussed his three evangelization goals:

1. Look at ways to re-energize our current active parisheners.
2. Determine ways we can bring back those parisheners that have fallen-away and are no longer attending mass regularly or not at all.
3. Reach out to non-member Catholics that are in our immediate community to bring them into our parish as new members.

He suggested we form an Evangelization committee. Future discussion needed on this topic.

(Item 7) Paul Anderson added his concern on not knowing why we are losing students from St. Thomas Aquinas Academy. Future discussion will focus on ways to determine why this has happened. Paul also plans to invite Mary Stallmann to a future council meeting to discuss religious education at the Academy.

Fr. Romanus mentioned a recommendation by the pastors of the variois cluster parishes to begin a community mass to help make school families more visible in the parishes. These masses will begin in the coming months.

Cheryl Kaminski made a suggestion to have a bimonthly meeting to discuss the state of St. Thomas Aquinas Academy with the parish councils and the STAA advisory board. This would keep the member parishes more informed on the activites financial situation of the Academy. It was suggested that this bimonthly meeting could be held at the various member parishes on a rotating basis.

(Item 8) Paul Anderson asked that the Prayer & Worship liaison should report back to the council on what is being done to make sure that ushers, servers, etc. are available for the masses.

(Item 9) Paul Anderson announced September and October archdiocese leadership training events and asked members to consider attending these events.

No new business

Meeting adjourned at 8:50pm.

Gerry Burant - Parish Council Secretary