St Patrick’s Parish Pastoral Council

Meeting Agenda January 9, 2007

7:00 pm         Opening Prayer

     

Agenda

Attendees:  Father Pat, Father Ron, Bill Buholzer, John Stephens, Bob Ballistreri, Joan Zupec.

7:05 pm        Youth Minister proposal & Discussion

                        Tracey and Bill Rapp

                     Bill and Tracey gave a status update on the Life Teen Ministry program.  There have been over 120 teens participating in the Life Teen events over the last year. They indicated that on any given Sunday Lifeteen event that there are anywhere between 20-40 teens in attendance.  This program has been developed and run by a Life Teen core group of parents and young adults (about 15 adults).  Bill and Tracey conveyed a number of stories as examples of the significant impact this ministries has had on the teens.  The reality is however, that to run a successful weekly ministry such as Life Teen it requires an enormous amount of time and effort.  Most of the Core Team members have many other commitments and families as well.  The team realizes as this program continues to increase in size and complexity it will then require even more time to coordinate and plan all the activities.  Bill and Tracey, as leaders of the Life Teen Ministry, therefore requested that the Parish consider hiring a full time Youth Minister to run the Life Teen Ministry.  This position would also entail coordinating with all the other ministers involved with youth and teen ministries, including SRE and the school.  Bill and Tracey relayed their thoughts on the qualities and characteristics of a person fullfilling this role, and where the parish could look to find such individuals.  Bill Buholzer said he would take this request to the Parish Finance Committee to determine if the Parish had sufficient funds to hire a full time Youth Minister.

7:40 pm        Financial Update from Finance Committee & Bill Buholzer

                        New Budget

                        Revenues                     

                     Bill Buholzer indicated that the Parish Budget and the School budget have to be at the Archdioceses by February 12th.  The next Finance meeting will be on 2/7/07.  They will finalize the budget and also review the long term financial planning for the parish.  Bill indicated that the Finance Committee is concerned with having sufficient funds to cover future potential facility maintenance and structural issues.  Bill indicated that revenues for this fiscal year to date are above budget projections.  The Planned Offering Program was successful in that weekly contributions are up over last year.  Bill also reported that a relatively small number of parishioners are utilizing the automated giving feature offered by the Parish.  The council commented we should try and advertise and promote this method of contributing. 

8:00 pm        Pastor’s Report                     

                        Father Pat gave an update on the progress of the Old Church repairs.  We got five estimates for the repairs.  Additional inspection has revealed lots of cracking.  Four to five of the estimates are in.  Here are the estimates for the following repair options:  Drywall- $120,000; plaster $150,000.  Painting would cost between $17-20,000.  The engineers also indicated that they may find additional wiring and lighting improvements needed once they get into the job.  We are also considering what to do about the pews that were damaged.  We may need to refinish the other pews as well after the damaged ones are fixed and refinished. 

Father Pat reviewed the second collection schedule for 2007.

Father Pat reviewed some of the aspects of the new parish that is planned just east of Antioch off of Route 173.  Fr. Jimnecki has been assigned to the new parish. 

Father Pat discussed the need to replace the carpeting in the new church.  The orginal carpet had a 15 year warantee and it is now 16 years old.  We discussed the option of having it cleaned very well to get a few more years out of it. Bob Ballistreri agreed to assist Father Pat in forming a committee to review options for cleaning and replacement of the carpeting.  Recommendations were made to tour different churches, new churches in particular, to learn of new materials being used for large worship spaces.  The possibility of refinishing the pews once they were removed for the carpet replacement was also discussed.  We would most likely use millenium campaign funds for this project.  This project would probably be done one and a half years from now.

The Annual Catholic Appeal will be announced at all the masses on the weekend of February 3 and 4.  On February 10th and 11th the Cardinal will address the parish at all masses through a letter.  There will be a follow-up on February 17th and 18th.

The Light of the World Retreat will be help 2/16 through 2/19.  There is information in the Narthex.  Retreat leaders will be giving witnesses the last week of January at the end of mass.

There will be a Lake County United meeting on 1/15/07.  This is the Winter 07 Leadership Retreat.  Rabbi Howard Lifshitz, and Dr. Walid Khayr of the Islamic Foundation North will lead a discussion on the book “The Dignity of Difference” by Jonathon Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain.

On March 10th the Deanery 1A Ministry Commission will present “What does it take to provide Effective Parish Leadership, Part II  Learning from One Another—The Best of Parish Pastoral Councils.  This will take place from 8:30 am to 11:30 am at the USML Conference Center in Mundelein.

The next Parish Pastoral Council meeting will be held March 13th instead of March 6th.

8:40 pm        New Parish Council members path forward

An article will be placed in the bulletin inviting parishioners who are interested in serving on the Parish Council to contact John Stephens.  New council members will be selected through a discernment process.

8:45 pm        Closing Prayer/Reflection

The meeting ended at 8:50 pm.