Pastoral Council Minutes

January 7, 2008

Attending:  Rose Braun, Fr. Mark Burger, Tate Cooper, Tim Harmon, Jerry Koehne, Kevin Kohls, Brian Krause, Debbie Meinhardt, Claudia Miller, Cindy Muron, Jane Mueninghoff, Ann Perry, Ray Sousa, Barb Utrata, Mary Ann Lampe (scribe).

Preliminaries:  The Council Meeting opened with the Pastoral Council prayer at 7:00 pm.  The reflection was led by Debbie Meinhardt. 

Agenda Items: 

1)  Approval of minutes from Nov. meeting – all  Some members are having difficulty accessing the web site, so the minutes were read by Barb and they were then approved by all.

2)  Perspectives from the Advent Retreat – all  Cindy and Jane expressed some positive thoughts on the retreat.

3)  Parochial Vicar – Fr. Linh   Fr. Linh will reschedule.

4)  Pastoral Associate – Michael Dailey  Michael will reschedule.

          a)  Overview of Music Ministry Activities and Current Topics

          b)  Issues/Needs/Challenges

          c)  Feedback

5)  Finance Committee Meeting Report – Brian Krause  It was a good meeting with a good committee.  The major discussion was about debt reduction. They had 15 – 20 ideas and decided to vote on them and discuss the top three at the next meeting.  Reducing the debt is our biggest challenge.  Fr. Mark – We have done well in addressing the debt on a regular basis; the issue is $80,000 annually in interest.  Any undesignated funds go to debt reduction in addition to the monthly collection and bingo proceeds.  The Christmas collection was very generous, actually remarkable.  Jerry – if we’re beating the drums on the Tanzania project, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable doing debt reduction at the same time.  Brian – The Finance Committee is, also, talking to four or five CPA firms for an estimate on an external audit, or at least a review of financial procedures. They are contacting small CPA firms that are familiar with parish operations and recommended by other parishes.  What did they change?  Fr. Mark – they changed some procedures.  A lot of procedures are in place, but not written down.  It would, also, protect the staff. 

6)  Multi-Parish “Super” Meeting (March 4, 2008) – all  Pastoral staff in addition to Pastoral Council is encouraged to attend at St. Michael’s.  David Doyle of St. Michael’s is spearheading this meeting.

7)  Fr. Mark’s Comments – I was renewed for another term.  He is one of three other mega pastors all of whom are writing job descriptions.  The purpose of this is to address the question of how do you pastor the staff and supervise them at the same time, possibly using a human relations type person (we are at the very beginnings of this).  The Christmas collection was higher than $58,000 and the Tanzania Project has pledges of more than $240,000 over five years.  We are beyond $40,000 for this year.  The bible class this Saturday in the Pavilion will be recorded.  Father Linh’s youth group is doing okay.

Debbie expressed concern with the changes in the schedules for Eucharistic Ministers, etc. and will the changes be the same for the festival.  Fr. Mark – there is a problem with the server and when this is corrected, I am assured it will be good.  Also, e-mails are not going out correctly and this, too, will be corrected.

8)  Adjournment and Closing Prayer of Thanksgiving – Ann Perry  We adjourned at 7:50 pm.

Next Meeting:  Monday, February 4, 2008 at 7:00 pm in Undercroft D

-         Reflection by Jane Mueninghoff

-         Prayer of Thanksgiving by Kevin Kohls

-         Pastoral Staff Guest – Scott Steinke