Parish Pastoral Council Minutes - November 27th 2023

Parish Pastoral Council Minutes
Monday, November 27, 2023

In Attendance: Fr. Guy Roberts, Deacon Tom Hosty, Matt Sierp, Connie Merkel, Joe Sheehan, Patty Cain, Steve Looney, Ben Laker, Jeremy Schoettle, Mark Rund, Amberlie O’Toole

Father Guy opened the meeting with a prayer and shared the Gospel with a reflection. Minutes from the October meeting were approved.

Pastor’s Report:  Father Guy shared that there is a lot coming up with Advent - Advent Penance service at Roncalli, December 15th Penance for St. Barnabas students, Men’s Advent prayer breakfast will be December 2nd, right before Advent starts. The theme will be Fidelity. Men’s Club Casino night will be happening December 9th. Over 300 tickets have been sold per Mark Rund. For the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, there will be a vigil Mass; day of - a school Mass and one at noon. St. Roch and St. Barnabas penance service will be December 13th at 6:30. Since 4th Sunday of Advent turns into Christmas Eve in the same day, a 9am Mass has been added for 4th Sunday of Advent. Patty Cain, Deacon Tom and Joe Sheehan have been focused on establishing the framework for the Engagement committee. Then members will be invited once the framework is established. A Zoom call was held with a parish in Minnesota that was thought to have a strong engagement focus. We may borrow some ideas and utilize some takeaways. Their parish seemed to vary demographically from ours.

Principal’s Report: Ryan was not in attendance. Amberlie shared that some successful events the school had done lately were a canned food drive, a PTO sponsored chili dinner for the parish, and soon to come- St. Nick Stockings for which donations of toiletries for the needy will be accepted.

Financial and Operational Report:
Finance Update - Through October, we are doing about $16,000 better than budget on tithing and about $13,000 better than last year at this time. Property and facility expenditures are up but that was to be expected. For the United Catholic Appeal, thus far we have had 111 parishioners pledge $62,149 toward our parish goal of $209,224 from the Archdiocese. We expect that a higher amount has actually been pledged since many pledges have been sent recently and may not have been processed yet. The Finance Council will study different models on how to assist parish families not eligible for Choice Scholarships prior to setting tuition rates for the 2024-2025 school year.

Operations Update - We are getting closer to the new church HVAC being installed. The installers have been asked to do it Monday-Friday since a 5 day completion is expected with no heat in the church. Supplemental heat will be provided. Our parish is eligible for HVAC system rebates with the installation of new units. PTO is paying for a lighting project in which over 650 old lighting fixtures with a ballast system will be replaced with new LED light fixtures. This will reduce energy usage by 35-50% and last much longer. Most of these lights are in the school. They will start next week. It will take 3 to 4 weeks and they will be installed on the 2nd shift. Not part of this project, but Deacon Tom shared that they are trying to figure out updating lighting in church. As part of the safety grant, 7 mini projects are planned that will harden the exterior of the school and church. A safety officer from the Archdiocese did a walkthrough and recommended double entry into the school. Different ideas were proposed on how to do this and the pros and cons.

Other Business:  Regarding the Pastoral vision, Father Guy wants help with monitoring that goals are being met. It was mentioned that this task could fall under the Engagement committee’s tasks. No meeting in December. Wendy’s term is supposed to be up for the parish council. Amberlie’s term is up in January as well. Amberlie will decide whether she will sign on for 3 more years. The St. Anthony and Holy Trinity food pantry serves 55ish families a week. Thanksgiving week they provided a thanksgiving dinner in a bag. 70 bags (with 60 turkeys and 10 qty $10 Kroger gift cards) were handed out. 102 families were served that week.

Deacon Tom closed the meeting with a blessing.

The next Parish Council meeting will be Monday, January 22nd at 7 pm.