Parish Leadership Night - Council Minutes
November
9, 2005
In Attendance: Lindsey McCormick, Lynn Spinner, Fred
Bradbury, Tom Fleming, Greg Campbell, Megan Carmean,
Mark Daly, Christopher Spinner, Maureen Durner, Linda
Ruskin, Bill Nickum, Joe Amalfitano, Joe Doherty, Fr.
Carroll and Sandra Wood
Absent: Flo Petroski, Karen Gianninoto, Eric
Fessenden, Meredith Sides, Deacon Brad Taylor
Council Agenda
A. Approval Of October Minutes
* No additions, No corrections, Approved as written
B. Committee Highlights
Liturgy-
* We will have adoration 1 night a week during advent.
* Discussion has been made of having a 40 hour
devotion.
* We will have a mission before Lent.
* A notice will be in the bulletin for Christmas
decorating.
Christian Formation-
* There are 3 candidates for the RCIA program- Rite of welcoming will
be 11/20/05
* Confirmation Sponsor Workshop 11/20/05
* 1st Reconciliation 11/29/05
* Next Super Sunday will be the “History of Hymns”
12/4/05
** We are looking for someone who is capable of
writing in Spanish. we are looking for someone to
communicate with our sponsor catechist in San Marcos.
Social Ministries-
General:
A reminder that the 2nd Annual Diocesan Ministries
weekend will
be held at the Clarion Resort Hotel in
Ocean City on January 20-22.
“Praying from where you are”, a day of reflection for
those who do Outreach is being presented on Saturday,
February 4, 2006 from 10 AM to 1PM in our hall by Mary
An Love of the Diocese Parish Social Ministries
Office. All are welcome to attend.
November 28 is the next meeting at 7:30 PM for Social Ministries.
.Committee Reports.
Habitat:
The next Habitat breakfast is Saturday, November 12
due to a conflict with the Parish Bazaar.
Jim Bradley represented us at the County Habitat
meeting on the Federalsburg Building Project.
Human Dignity
Washington DC “Right To Life” March coming up at the
end of January.
Samaritan House-United Concerned Christians
October donations were up for Samaritan House. We
collected 16 bags of peanut butter.
St. Martins Ministries
Food Bag donations are ongoing for St. Martins this
month
Special Projects
NUTS (Neighbors United To Serve) has provided
Thanksgiving dinners to shut in for many years. Last
year our Parish supported it with donations of money,
food, and parish personnel helping out. Due to many
reasons, the leadership that had started this and
carried it on for so many years could not do it this
year. Our Parish Social Ministries Committee stepped
in and has committed to leading it this year. Thanks
to the our Parish committee (especially Pat Bradley,
Kathy Jackson, Linda Nickum, Terri Wood, and Jackie
Guidry who provide the leadership for this event), who
took this on with a short notice, and the support of
other churches in the area along with the Caroline
County Sheriff’s department, we expect to deliver
around 400 Thanksgiving meals along with another 70
for people who come to Episcopal Church in Denton for
a sit down meal at 1 PM on Thanksgiving day.
We are still in need of Pie’s (Pumpkin and Apple),
Turkey’s, White Potatoes (still in need of 40 lbs),
money and labor. We will be working on Wednesday,
11/23 from 8 AM until 2 PM, and on Thursday, 11/24
from 6 AM until 4 PM.
San Marcos Committee:
We hosted a meeting on October 26 to a San Marcos
Delegation who showed pictures and explained the
plight of our Sister Diocese in the aftermath of their
recent hurricane. The water project we helped
sponsored in our Sister Parish was severally damaged
and many homes were lost. There was discussion on how
our diocese can help, starting out with a special
collection for San Marcos the weekend of November 5/6.
Voice Of The Homeless Committee:
Rev. Cephas from Hurlock intends to create a shelter
for the homeless over these winter months using one of
their church buildings. Although they have the
building, they do not have the money to fix it up for
a shelter. Thanks to a generous donation from a
parishioner for this project, our parish Social
Ministries Committee is going to fix up and outfit two
rooms at this new shelter. We will be soliciting help
over the next couple of weeks to help clean, paint,
and generally dress up the rooms.
15 women of our Parish kicked off the Ditty Bag
project by making 37 Ditty Bags for the homeless on
Saturday, December 5. Their goal is to make 100 bags
and to fill them up with items to distribute to the
homeless of the county.
C. Finance Report-
Regarding weekly offertory:
*** For 19 weeks ending Nov. 6, 2005 - Avg Income per
week $4,466
Weekly Budget for Offertory Income $4,384
*** For the same 19 weeks last year- Avg. income per
week $4,189
In summary, as aresult of excellent stewardship on the
part of parishioners, our current income from our
weekly offertory (which is our main source of income)
is running just about on target with regards to our
budget projections
All bills are current and our cash on hand is as
planned.
In addition, our cash investments have increased by
nearly 3% in the last quarter. This is mostly due to
the excellent return we are realizing from our nearly
$140,000 that we have placed in the Diocese of
Wilmington Investment program. As a point of
interest, the finance Council had been looking for
ways to increase the return on our cash savings. It
was Fr. Carroll who suggested that we invite to one of
our meetings, the person in charge of investments for
our Diocese. As a result of the question and answer
session during that detailed meeting that we joined
the Diocese Investment Program. The results have been outstanding.
D. Pastor’s Report
* Wednesday November 30th Maryanne Love a speaker on
Spiritual Direction will speak 10a.m.-12 p.m. and 7 p.m.- 9 p.m.
( Will be advertised in the bulletin)
*Eucharistic Congress- We had 53 people - good
representation from our parish
* Advent Highlights-
- Adoration on Tuesdays
-Ridgely Christmas Pageant Sat Dec 18th
-Christmas Stable - questionable this year - Looking
at new ways to do this
- October Mass Counts
Average of 431 persons per weekend
Discussion occurred on the report:
* Fr. expected to see overcrowding at the 8:30 due to
Super Sundays but he has not seen this
* Super Sunday attendance has dropped
* Sporadic attendance of parishioners
* Youth during “mug shots” very honest. They say it
depends on what the weekend holds wether they come to
church or not.
**** How do we address this reality?????*****
- New Hymnals have the precepts of the church on the
inside cover.
- Families are pulled in many directions and seem to
forget the 1 hour a week to thank God.
- Send a letter since adults sometimes need reminders-
- Not everyone reads the letters or bulletins from
church
- Maybe not put a full advent calendar- just
highlight portions of the calendar so not so
overwhelming.
-How do we get the point to people not at church- if
Fr. speaks at church about attending it is kind of
preaching to the choir.
-Father wants it to be known this is not a $$ issue,
we simply want people to come to church!
This summer Fr. noticed 3 families were not coming to
church- he mailed them a letter to let them know they
were missed. This worked!
Suggestions:
A committee could send letters- it would take parish
awareness.
Make connections with other parishioners.
Change the belief that community means work- It
doesn’t!
Boils down to reaching out to others.
Adopt a parishioner- send cards of fellowship- be
sure not to offend anyone
Buddy System- if you notice someone has not been to
church call or send a note, let them know they are
missed
Gift exchange- send another family a card, gift,
prayer card may see names in the advent mailing
Pray the prayer of evangelization- may bring sporadic parishioners back
Can be said at each mass
We don’t want to miss opportunities to help people!!!
Fr. asked Linda and Maureen to come up with a parish
prayer! They agreed.
E. Closing Prayer
Successful Catholics rely on their concscience and
good judgement- but never alone.
CHRISTMAS GATHERING WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 14th.
Be sure to bring a guest!!!