St. Albert Catholic Church

Pastoral Council Minutes - Sept. 27, 2008

Present: Karen Krug Colleen McKenzie, Eva Bissonnette, Bonnie Allen, Lisa Hackman, Ron Scott,  Father John,  Myrna Shaw, Tom Shaw, Tom Stanphill,  Judy Stanphill, Fred Dice, Sharon Fair, Arline Vlastnik

The meeting was called to order at  5:30 pm , opening with a prayer.

The minutes were read and approved as corrected.

DEDICATION - Sharon Fair

Sharon updated on the Dedication which will be Dec. 19 at 11AM. Bishop Taylor will be present and several priests have been invited.

There will be a 3 day Novena, beginning Wed. Dec. 16 at 6PM, which will be hosted by the Ladies Auxiliary;Thurs. hosted by the Knights and Fri. hosted by the Parish Council & committees for the Blessing of the Stations of the Cross. The Relic will be in the Church which Father will place as designated. The information is to be put into the bulletin several weeks prior to the scheduled event.

On Sat., Dec. 19, there will be a procession to the front of the church. Lisa Hackman will walk with Bishop Taylor and the Parish. Ron Fair will hand the key to the Bishop. Father John will open the church. The Rite of Dedication will be followed as outlined in the Program.

Myrna Shaw has ordered the invitations. All parishioners will get an invitation. They will be out 6 weeks prior to the Dedication.  There will be a DVD with pictures and this will be played during the Dedication reception.  All parishioners will get a copy. Mary Taylor, working with the Environment Committee, will decorate in the Church Hall.

Karen Krug is handling Liturgy and Music. All three choirs will be involved individually and together.  Chrickett Meeks is compiling the program. Phyllis Stevens is in charge of the reception. Sigrid Long will cater the reception, with finger food for 400 people.  Desserts will be prepared by the Ladies Auxiliary. Invitations to the Stations Blessing for those who purchased them will be sent by Lisa Hackman.

Jake Jacobson is part of the planning as required for the Knights of Columbus participation, with Tony Rimkus responsible for sound and lights, and Bonnie Allen will work with the servers.

LITURGY - Karen Krug

Karen gave an update on the Absence of a Priest training. the 1st lesson has been completed and the 2nd will be by Sept. 24, 2009.

EDUCATION - Colleen McKenzie

A discussion ensued regarding the training of participants for Family Liturgy.  Colleen updated all on the K4J pre-k students. There will be confirmation and 1st communion this yr. The monies ($100) for the nursery program will be reallocate for use for CRE.

CRE would like to eliminate the monies allocated for the Nursery and put all the dollars in the CRE program. Before Father John approved, he will need to see the request and brakedown for use of the monies.  He will review and get back to us.  He will okay the increase in monies for books.  Father would also like to know the number of students in CRE and the number of the increase from last yr. About 1/3 of the students are Hispanic.

Bonnie Allen will be taking about 5 or 6 students to the Senior High Rally on Oct. 25/26. The Jr. High Rally is in Nov. and she is working on persuading the students to attend.

SOCIAL JUSTICE -

Eva spoke for Social Justice as Betty Andrews was absent. She updated on the backpack drive.  There will also be a coat drive on Oct. 15, and a food drive near Thanksgiving. Arline Vlastnik will e-mail her a copy of her budget.

Father John asked Eva to let him know what she does for the St. Albert Community thru Social Justice. Is there a program in place for the Church members as well as the Community at large?

PARISH LIFE - Eva  Bissonnette

 There will be no Parish Christmas party. There will be a welcome program for newcomers, which Father suggested should be done as last year. The exact  date will be determined at a later time.  Per Father the Committee Christmas Party will be catered and should be held in early Dec.

FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION –Myrna Shaw

The Finance Council reviewed the first two months of our budget. We are now borrowing money from the Diocese, a loan of $235,598 so far. We still have our pledge account of $144,846.46 which will be used for memorials for the new church as we will finish paying for the stained glass windows, sound system, baptismal font, and stations of the cross. We won't have enough money to pay for all the new pews.

An end of the year report will be sent to all parishioners soon. It was discussed about completing the columbarium fencing. We have a couple of ideas to getting this finished. We have now sold a total of 14 of our pews, baptismal font, and modesty panels. These will be picked up after our dedication. do you know of anyone interested in the last 16 pews?. We will advertise again.

In January we begin our 4th year of buiding fund pledges. At this time I would like to see us request pledges from those who never did pledge and the new parishioners over the pass four years. This will be up to Ron Scott's stewardship committee. He will work along with Jake Jacobson and the rest of the finance committe to see what is best for us at this time.

I have been questioned about the figures in the bulletin explaining income/expenses. We worked on this and hope to come up with a simple chart showing what our income and expenses have been and what our loan is at the diocese so everyone will be updated.

Our last Bingo was our most successful with $701 clear profit for bingo.  Our Mexican Fiesta is Sept. 26, I hope all of you have purchased tickets to come, if not, I have tickets tonight. We need help getting all of them sold.  We have bingo again on Oct. 3rd.  Junktique IV will be on Oct. 9/10. Bonnie Allen will be cooking breakfast on Fri. as as added feature of our sale. Please bring us your goodies starting Oct. 5th from 10-2.

BUILDING & GROUNDS – Tom Stanphill

There is asphalt and grass on the plans for the church. The builders drove over the gas line and broke it. It has been fixed.

Prices for new roof on old church:  Birdsong -$19,700, Kathy Lewis -21,000, Dayco-32,500

We will wait to decide what to do.  The shed and lawn mower were brought up again. A discussion ensued. Tom Stanphill signed off on and was shown how to operate the alarm system for our new Church.  It will cost about $300 yr.

COMMUNICATION – Tom Shaw

Rita Steiner will be working on putting together a call list for Angie Kisded, a discussion ensued.  Father John asked that persons requesting help/information from a committe should always deal with the Head of the Committee, rather than going directly to an individual member. This helps reduce conflict and confusion.

STEWARDSHIP – Ron Scott

Working on best approach to attack our Stewardship income. Myrna, Jake, Colleen and Karen will work with Ron and have something by the time Father comes back. From the five yr. plan answers, he has the feeling the parishioners do not have sufficient information as to where our dollars go. We should do a better job of explaining them.  Also, the Parish does not feel it is informed as to what the Parish Council does.  Fred Dice suggested we publish the Parish Council minutes. Future Parish Council minutes are to be posted in the Parish Hall, and on the website with a note in bulletin that it will be done.

TECHNICAL COMMITTEE – Fred Dice

The floor is the biggest problem, as it is not acceptable. Lisa outlined several sections to be repaired and refinished.  If this is not acceptable, there would be no point in doing the whole floor.  If they cannot fix, ceramic tile will be used except where there will be carpet. The doorway to the confessional is not complete as yet. A discussion ensued on the lights and the movement/removal of same. Dayco followed instructions from Colley (Architects) and did not call us. Must decide what to do. It was approved the two would be removed and an alignment for about $1,800. The font will be here at the end of Oct. The design of the church did not contain window sills. The charge will be $1,600. If we do them, only $600. The bar will be raised in the Sacristy. The cabinets will remain where they are and the refrigerator will be on the east side of the rest room door. The rock work is still being done on the Southeast wall. The cleaning of the rock work will be done when complete. The rock work is clean behind the altar. The walks and drives are yet to be done. There is no walkway to the outside door of the cry room. Father mentioned there are major problems with the floor.