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PPC Meeting Minutes - 9/11/2008

Members Attending: Fr. Dave, Deacon Charlie Cornell, Nancy Buck, Jason Crotty, Dave Goulet, Marcia Melone, Sue Ormand, Brian Perreault, Bill Sullivan

Members Absent: Deacon Bob Brady, Charley Corley, Jennifer Cunningham, Cara Schomp, Jack Waldie

PFC Liason: Rosario Rizzo (present)

  • Charley Corley voted Vice-chair
  • Bill Sullivan voted Secretary
  • Building & Grounds discussion
    • Ongoing problems with toilets
    • Heating repairs will cost ~$13k
      • Current system installed early 1990s
      • Both oil and gas originally
      • Plan to install control package to save money
      • Bob Norton to chip in on electric
    • Boilers have to run all summer for hot water
  • Grand Annual collection in October
    • Hope to receive ~$25k
  • Cluster discussion
    • New vicar for our cluster
    • Cluster now consists of: Maynard, Stow, Concord, Acton
    • No cluster meetings recently
    • Northern clusters have been mandated to meet by bishop.  As a result, these clusters have been much more proactive in meeting/coordinating.
    • Waiting on Cardinal to determine direction.  However, if we do this we may not like the results.
    • Process is supposed to be from ground up
    • Need to think about “scouting out” other churches in cluster and not just wait for specific direction from bishop and/or Cardinal
    • Archdiocese probably not going to do wholesale closings again
    • Anticipate more of a gradual shift as pastors leave, circumstances change, etc.
    • Likely candidates if we were to merge with another parish
      • St. Elisabeth’s ( Acton)
        • Same religious ed (GoF)
      • St. Bridget’s (Maynard)
  • Running the parish during change
    • Do we need a liturgy committee?
    • Organizing activities in the parish?
    • What makes sense from our point of view?
  • Mission statement
    • What is it?
    • Who are we as a parish?
    • How do we make Christ present in Stow?
    • Charlie Corley took a shot at rewriting it
      • Posted on Bulletin Board
      • PPC members asked to review/comment
    • Charlie Cornell to post list of ideas to enliven parish
    • Mission statement discussion could lead into conversation w/other parishes
    • No ownership of parish by a lot of parishioners
  • Joint meeting w/PPC and PFC held over summer
  • Youth ministry
    • Parish is too small to have standalone program
    • Need to coordinate w/other parish if we want to do it
    • Some links at middle school age (little league) between Stow and Maynard
  • How to make Confirmation interesting
    • Group service projects
    • Kids get involved
    • Lawrence shelter
    • Cradles to crayons
  • Budgeting to mission
    • Final budget being prepared
    • Letter from Fr. Dave/PPC/PFC has been drafted by Rosario
      • Parish in red
      • Unexpected repairs are hurting budget
    • GoF subsidized by parish
    • GoF problems/solutions
      • Tracking of meals wasn’t very accurate in previous years.  Making effort to improve that this year.
      • People now have option to pay for meals by credit card when registering online
      • New caterer does buffet style which should cut down food costs/waste
      • PFC members will be doing GoF record keeping
    • How do we raise money?
      • Encourage to give extra ($5/week suggested)
      • Grand annual
      • Automatic transfers (e.g. ParishPay, ParishSOFT)
        • Not likely to get many people to sign up
    • Shift in Catholic school support policy
      • Previously Archdiocese would accept whatever they received from monthly Catholic school support collection
      • New policy is to tax parish a fixed annual amount ($10k)
  • Wrapup
    • Everyone please look at the mission statement on Bulletin Board
    • Next meeting 10/9