St. Gerald Parish Pastoral Council

Feb 10, 2011

Present:Glen Bennett, Mary Bystrom, Judy Haug,Mary Morss, Tim Mundorf (President ), Mike Rasmussen, Ryan Sevcik, Jamie Zabrocki.

Absent:Dave Garland (School Principal), Joan Luebbert

Also Present: FatherOwen Korte,(Kathy Hanson, Recording Secretary)

OPENING PRAYER (and poem about Nebraska)

  1. MINUTES OF LAST MEETING: Approved with one minor item to be corrected by K. Hanson.
  1. SCHOOL Report: – No Principals report, see also School Board Committee Discussion, below.
  1. PASTORS REPORT:
  2. New stationary – father presented the new stationary design he oversaw. See Attachment 2
  3. Lent ‘liturgy and activities’ schedule – reviewed briefly. See Attachment 3
  4. Long Range Planning – team/outline continues to be developed
  5. Table at Institute of Priestly Formation – April 28; $800/table, good cause, enjoyable evening, invited Pastoral Council members to consider attending/contributing.
  1. COMMITTEE REPORTS:

School Board Committee - (Mike Rasmussen) No report this month.

Additional comments:

Accreditation- Michaela led discussions on this recently with faculty. We are filing as a K-8 institution instead of a ‘middle school.’ The only areas we appear to be below staffing requirements are in music and art. Faculty seems to be on board, although they may take a vote. Father answered many questions including allowing for school time to work on some of the accreditation related efforts. Father said that from past experience it seems that the self-evaluations and peer-evaluations which are part of the process really seem to internally incentivize faculty. The timeline for implementation was questioned, and father suggested that we aren’t quite far enough along to properly estimate the expected time frame. Sometimes it takes several years to obtain, but he is hopeful it will not take that long. Part of the reason for the financial / school board coordination is to firm this up.

Finance (Fin) - Ryan Sevcik, No report this month.

Assitional Discussion: The finance committee has been brainstorming the budget process at this time (half way through the fiscal year). Considering a collaboration meeting with the School Board (rep?) since the school is responsible for approximately 50% of the budget. Also considering prioritizing some of the different ‘loose’ funds.

The remaining debt was questioned. It was reported was that if we continue with the current rate of payment/plan, we will need additional funds in late summer/early fall and that we currently owe approximately $22,000.

Interim budget prioritizing: Father suggested that knowing the wishes of the parish when approving specific expenditures by committees is challenging without priorities (for example, recently he was asked for approval of an expenditure that didn’t seem like a priority, but he couldn’t really tell, so he approved it). He suggested that he meets with leaders of the groups that do the most fundraising/have bigger budgets to get their input and help prioritize expenditures and fundraising a bit more, keeping in mind that overall fundraising does often reduce stewardship. A related example of this was brought up by a PC member – suggesting that we may might want to prioritize the family restaurant nights as some restaurants are starting to vie for our business contributing anywhere from 3-20% of the sales

Human Needs Committee (HN) – (Glenn Bennett) No report this month

Soup Dinner idea follow up – Glen suggested further consideration as to who would actually lead this effort. Also suggestions were made that a group collects groceries for the local food pantry – and perhaps to involve youth in this effort. Tom Goekke (sp?), who leads the St. Vincent De Paul group may have suggestions regarding giving direct to pantry or possibly providing pick up / delivery assistance. Tom also evidently takes them to the store occasionally. Judy Haug suggested she could help lead up this ‘extras to the pantry’ effort.

Also starting to discuss how a long range plan might be timed/implemented from a financial standpoint.

Liturgy– (Judy Haug) No written report this month

See previous discussion regarding Lenten schedule under Father’s notes

New Missal - Mike Conzett continues to teach classes on this.

Maintenance–(Joan Luebbert) , no written report this month

No additional discussion

Stewardship – (Mary Bystrom), See Attachments 3, Notes from meeting 2/9/11,

Additional Discussion: Described the stewardship booklet. Reviewed the schedule and requested volunteers to pass out the packets/sheets on Stewarship Sunday.

Parish Ed – No written report this month

Mission -Added to schedule adding Sun night(Sun-Thurs) and was agreed upon by the Speaker.

CCD Teacher to Child ratio – Parental concern was voiced that the ratios in these classrooms are too high. Father suggested that he is overall pretty happy with what he observed in the CCD classes (recently visited most classes)

Social Committee (Soc) –Jamie Zabrocki, No written report this month

Living Rosary – March 6 to be hosted by St. Gerald

Donut Sunday – March 13

Mission – possible need for Social Committee assistance

VI.OLD BUSINESS: PC Elections – please continue to invite/ make recommendations as we would prefer to have elections so as to get more parishioner input.

VII.NEW BUSINESS:

VIII.PRESIDENT/ VP BUSINESS: None

CLOSING PRAYER / Adjournment

Next meeting: March 10, 7pm.