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PASTORAL MEETING MINUTES

St Michaels Pastoral Council
Meeting Minutes
December 4, 2002

George Bardsley, Tamra Barton, Ted Burkhardt, Dennis Dias, Don D'Valle, Kristin DeIuliis, Mary Fulmer, Gary Fulmer, Mary Ann Gehle, Vince Ippolito, Garr Isacco, Kathy Knutson, Vince Kirchner, Gary Leitner, Dennis Moore, Tony Nelson, Linda Raines, Barbara Riley, Matt Regan, Fr Mike Ruane, Larry Smith, Jody Tata, George Yager.

Opening:

• The meeting started at 7:05pm with a prayer led by Linda Raines.
• Vince Ippolito will lead the prayer next month.

Information - New Building & Renovations:

• Garr Isacco reviewed the 2001-2003 New Building & Renovations Project Finances (Attachment A).
• He noted $132,805 church improvements from Heritage of Hope (HH) campaign have been completed.
• Normally capital campaigns (such as HH) can only be conducted every 10 yrs, but there are exceptions.
• Another Stewardship campaign will be conducted in 2003.
• No add-ons (e.g. kitchen infrastructure or equipment) are included in the $3.3M new building budget.
• $300,000 is the estimated cost of all add-ons. Parishioners will soon be sent the list of prioritized add-ons along with their associated costs and asked if they want to donate their costs.
• Kitchen equipment may be purchased used at significant savings.
• St Michaels may have to borrow $1.7M from the Archdiocese @5.75% over 12 yr($16,524/mo).
• Every $100,000 added to the loan increase mortgage payments by approximately $1000/mo.
• There has been $87,000 in cost overruns due to unexpected occurrences (e.g. bedrock excavation, underground water line relocation). Only $30,000 was estimated for this building expense.
• No improvements will be made in the existing hall building due to the cost of these overruns.
• The next Finance Committee meeting will be devoted to estimating expenses for the new building.
• Garr Isacco was congratulated for his 4 years of service as Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Information - Building Committee

• Matt Regan presented the Building Committee Report (Attachment B).
• He has discussed with the staff a utilization schedule to minimize operating cost yet still
accommodate all programs which are more than originally planned (e.g. only heat rooms that are used).
• He will update building plans to reflect changes "as built" versus planned.
• The kitchen slab is still being priced to enable its use as storage until fitted out with appliances.
• The new building will be totally enclosed by March 2003 enabling parishioners to safely tour facility.
• The new building will enable all religious education programs to be under 1 roof for the 1st time in 2003.
• The Cornerstone Committee will be asked to arrange a dedication celebration.

• Fr Mike gave the Pastor Report (Attachment D).
• Parishioners will be notified that stadium style (back-to-back) parking will be required for Christmas Eve masses since parking is no longer available on septic field area.
• Buzz Claggett will organize volunteers to direct the stadium style parking and ask police for help.
• Fr Mike will try to coordinate parallel liturgies to start and end together.

Buzz Clagett gave the Maintenance report (Attachment B)

He asked for volunteers for the Maintenance Committee to help assemble an operations & maintenance manual for all major appliances and work performed on the existing parish buildings.

George Bardsley and Don D'Valle volunteered to help.

The operations & maintenance manual will help determine future maintenance budget expenditures by recording when items have been installed or replaced, warranty, and will have all service agreements.

An operations & maintenance manual on the new building will be provided by the contractor.

He also reported that ant and termite problems have been referred to a new Pest Control Company.

No major maintenance expenditures are projected at this time.

Fr Mike approved the hiring of a contractor to repair the small church doorway.

The tile floor in the hall has some asbestos material in it. It is harmless unless sanded or ground down. To facilitate a general cleaning of the floor, a company will do this who has completed the required course on how to do it safely. An asbestos class has to be taken in order to handle this type of material.

Mission Priorities

• Mary Ann Gehle passed around a paper for 2003 objective suggestions from the attendees.
• The 2003 Education Objectives were presented by Amy Sorenson.
• She outlines the following objective areas: Family Faith Formation, Adult Education on Sacraments, Youth Awareness to Live Holy, Vocations, Inter-Generational Faith Sharing and Lay Leadership.
• Ted Burkhart added he would be working to improve parent/youth communications, via email.
• Mary Fulmer is encouraging parents to become more involved in understand their children's religious education.
• Pat Castle added she would be working on more creative uses for the parish web site, creating a new catechism, inter-generational faith sharing along with securing our new textbooks.
• The 2003 Evangelization Objectives were presented by Mary Ann Gehle for Linda Gash who was not present.
• These objectives include a Parish wide Mission to be held April 5-9,2003. Linda's will be in contact with other committees to encourage evangelization.
• The 2003 Service/Justice Objectives were presented by Mary Ann Gehle for Bev Shafer, not present. (Attach D)
• The goal is to get more volunteers for the committee and provide better communication.
• Bev Shaffer helped start a new Mission of Mercy Lunch Committee.
• The 2003 Liturgy Objectives were presented by Amy Myers on behalf of herself and Anna Esposito.
• Starting in February, brief educational Liturgy topics will be added to the weekly bulletin.
• Also stated were the 2 minor sit/stand changes have been implemented by the Celebrants during the mass.
• A teaching mass is being considered for September 2003.

Information - Parish Development Committee

• Barb Riley introduced Greg Leitner who presented Parish Development Committee (PDC) strategies (Attach C).
• He serves as an advocate for western 44 parishes during Lenten Appeal and helps in financial planning.
• The PDC document handed out is an outline, parishes are free to choose which activities to initiate.
• The PDC is intended to structure, coordinate and plan fund-raising activities that usually start out individually (e.g. Bingo, Men's Club) and focus on ways to increase funding.
• he first step is to communicate with parishioners how much it costs to operate a parish.
• The information could be published in the bulletin but it will not reach all parishioners.
• More emphasis should be placed on deferred of legacy giving (e.g. will bequest).
• Greg Leitner suggested contacting parishes with successful PDCs and gave several examples.
• Greg Leitner responded that giving has dropped slightly (<10%)as a result of the Boston Archdiocese scandal but it is hard to correlate because of other parallel economic factors.
• The Baltimore Archdiocese has insurance to cover any similar incidents.
• 5 of the wealthiest parishes had the highest % drop off in giving but giving is parish specific.
• 33% of parishioner's give regularly, 33% give occasionally and 33% give nothing.
• It is most difficult to reach the 33% of parishioners that give nothing.
• The PDC should focus on 1 area like annual giving, major gifting, monthly building collection but most important establish regular communications about parish finances.
• Larry Smith reported a need for someone to assemble regular financial reports for regular communication to parishioners.
• Parishioners who understand where their gifts are going and the financial strategies are more likely to give more but care must be taken not to reach a saturation point.
• Perhaps the groups (versus individual) who utilize parish facilities should be asked to help raise funds.
• Food stores have several programs that contribute a % of money spent by registered individuals.
• The November Pastoral Council meeting minutes were approved.

No decisions or actions were made by the Pastoral Council at this meeting.

• Dennis Moore discussed the resource database and communications methods (Attachment E)
• He outlined 13 different reports that could be generated from the database (e.g. mission priorities)
• He listed known communication methods (web site, bulletin, welcome packet, directory, newsletter).
• After Pastoral Council approval, he plans to review with a focus group of average parishioners.
• He asked all to review the information and get back to him with suggestions/changes to the resource data and method of communication by Jan 4th.

• Interested parishioner, Dennis Dias, suggested that funding raising is not unique to the church and perhaps we could adopt methods like electronic debit and credit card debit.
• Matt Regan said these other methods may not provide the same giving symbolism that families want to convey to their children as using the weekly collection basket.

• The meeting ended at 9:30 pm with a prayer led by Mary Ann Gehle.
• The next meeting will begin at 7pm on January 8, 2003 in the parish hall.

Dennis B. Moore - Pastoral Council Secretary
(Attachments A through E on file with original meeting minutes)