9/12/2016
6:30 PM
St. Kateri Room, Ministry Center
Facilitator: / Brian Murray
Note taker: / AnthonyKrumm
Team: / Denny Doherty, Heidi Murray, Sheila Doran, Pat McManus, AnthonyKrumm, Mary Jo Ebner, Bill Frantz, Emily Besl
Agenda topics
Gospel Reading and Reflections / Volunteer
Review Minutes / All
Small Church – Fall sign-ups feedback? / Bill and All
Renewal program Outreach
- Outreach meeting on Oct 4
Commissions Leaders Meeting update
- Feedback on “Many Families…One in Christ” schedule
- Volunteer Opportunities
- Weekly Gospel emails – Faith, Worship, Outreach
Parish Leadership Retreat – Sept 24 from 9-1 pm / Brian and Bill
Other? / All
Closing Prayer / Volunteer
Minutes – no comments or revisions
Commissions Leaders Meeting update – the 5th mon/month. Leaders share what is going on. Brian shared the renewal effort and how it ties with Outreach and the other commissions and updates on the Wed night program. The majority of the meeting was Sharon Bressler came in to talk about the programs being done in the school.
Many families… one in Christ; Brian shared the handout which Bill shared the previous week. She asked for feedback on the schedule as it is today and wants our thoughts on if there are things we can support or that overlap or if there are suggestions. It looks like a lot on paper for parents to do. There was a goal of helping parents to help their kids know how to enter the ritual of mass (possibly a blurb in the bulletin), Emily, and Bill are helping Theresa on this. It was proposed that if there is a purpose for doing the activities they might be better followed (does it connect my family? Does it create dialogue?).
Fewer activities but more focus on creating dialogue or interaction to connect the family to the faith.
What are the key elements that family needs to have in their home?
How do you live faith when no one is looking?
Have a family meal and write a family prayer.
Talk about for family traditions
We see these would be better if they establish a theme to follow, link activities that invite dialogue.
Is there expectation that a family will do any one of the activities or is it pick and choose? This should be clearer
How do we get this feedback to Sharon? Bill and Emily can bring some of this feedback to her.
For the redlines; on the sheet; they wanted to know where they can go to get help.
There was a question about if this commission should be expected to be volunteer help or if we are intended to be create/vision. The consensus is that if a project has a need they should coordinate securing their volunteer base and should not expect a commission as default support.
There should be a volunteerism effort that focuses on connecting with people and creating that network to be able to create a pool of eager volunteers to contribute their time and effort. Today we leverage already existing groups for volunteering but this may not get the right volunteer volume for smaller tasks.
One topic suggested (by Del) was adding onto the weekly gospel, a light calendar of events to include Faith formation, worship and outreach activities. This would be a reminder of events to everyone who gets those emails and it will require that all of the events are updated on the calendar so that they can easily be pulled by Diane. We may want to put a reminder out to people on how to register to get the gospel emails. Brian will put together something to go on the board as a reminder.
Small Church – lots of groups are coming back. We have 14 groups today; this is the same number of groups we had last fall. There is a faculty group now that meets before school. Overall membership is down a little. We do not have all of the numbers, (99). There are 12 new members. The positive thing out of this is that a lot of people really liked it and wanted to continue. A few facilitators said they would take a break in order to do other things or join other groups. Bill continues to talk to members of the groups to find others who will facilitate. The group is encouraged that we still have groups that continue, this is a positive thing.
It was asked if we have ever had anyone go to the podium before mass to talk about small church group. Bill will discuss this with Fr Del.
Bill will also put out word on what openings there are in some of these groups.
Renewal program Outreach – Outreach meeting is Oct 4th. Jennifer Link, Brian mentioned to her about making renewal part of outreach. The idea is for us to get some time on their agenda to talk about what we are looking to do and tie in. We want to let them know what we find as being important and how do we logistically tie these together.
Brian will reach out to the Outreach commission to see if we can get on the agenda. He will reply to the group.
Emily will look into the archdiocese to see if there are any resources we can leverage on reflection.
Another possible resource would be the Mayerson foundation, for service and reflection. Heidi will look into this
We need to have a good sense of what to do prior and post for reflection. Service to the poor should be a focus. In our next session we will take time to think about what we want to accomplish that we will make as renewal.
Consider how we can engage the parish on the various ways that we can serve.
Give the effort a name so that it can be continued (service and outreach) year over year. This could also be branded so that it becomes recognizable.
Parish leadership retreat – Sept 24th. Emails have gone out to make sure everyone’s emails are captured.
Membership – Denny has stated he is not sure that he can continue with the FFC but is looking at other things to get involved in. He is glad for the things he has gotten from this group. In the bylaws we have 3 years as the term of service for membership to this commission. Brian wanted to remind everyone that they should not feel trapped in the commission but appreciates everyone who is able to meet the commitment. Even if it is remote, participation is appreciated.
Recruitment is still something we are looking to encourage. We will discuss this again to find other methods to recruit. This seems to be a challenge for a lot of commissions. We will continue to look to the small groups for people who might be interested in joining.
Civilize it – Bill shared an advanced copy of what he has put together on the voices of the homeless event on Oct 5th.
Next meeting Oct 10th @ 6:30pm (Columbus Day)