Meeting Minutes
St. Isidore Parish Pastoral Council
October 12, 2000

Members Attending: Rev. Richard Butler, Pastor, Deacon Charles Cornell, Paul Curley, Donne Cutting, Nancy Dome, Mike Holt, Judy Killeen, Patricia Noone Shirley Ormsby, Margaret Passafiume, John Slattery, Mike Statkus.

Members Absent: Marshall Cross, Jackie Downing, Julie Orsatti,

Social Committee: Henry Vannasse spoke briefly. First he and the committee was praised for the successful spaghetti supper. Henry thanked all for the support and noted the upcoming square dance.

Minutes: Minutes of September 14th accepted

Secretary and Secretarial functions: Brainstorming raised the possibility of rotating the role (value that no one has the whole job; liability in the varied styles that might surface) Varied styles discussed from cryptic terse summary to lengthy verbatim. It was agreed that the brief summary statements of recent minutes was preferred and Fr. Butler was asked, and agreed, to continue.

Calendar: question of whether 7 pm or 7:30 pm was better? several are not home from work early enough to make a 7 pm meeting. Agreed to stay with present schedule. (In November question will surface on whether to bypass December.

Evening Prayer ministry. Mike will set up a calendar for the coming months. Question on improvising the intentions; agreed that personal intentions could be voiced. Charlie will reissue summary guidelines.

Priority for the year: Brainstormed possible points of focus:
(A) Youth ministry
(B) How to address fragile fiscal basis of the parish.
(C) Fortieth anniversary with focus on identity and purpose of the parish for the new parishioners of today in the light of how the parish served earlier generations.
(D) Adult education with focus on young parents.
(E) Social life - continuing and adding to the priority of last year.

Balloting offered the following:
Top priority: (C) Fortieth anniversary with focus on identity…
Next (D) Adult education with focus on young parents
And then (A) Youth ministry
And then (B) How to address fragile fiscal basis of the parish
Finally (E) Social life - continuing and adding to the priority of last year.

Update from the Pastor Brief oral report.
Financial report sent out; response coming in from the regular donors; if the others don't indicate a reponse a second more targeted letter may be considered.
Packard Rd: The property is now on the market with Janet Marshall as marketing agent. Price determined from an independent appraisal. Question surfaced whether there was room for negotiating. Never ruled out; but not as likely as in some situations. With a system as large as the archdiocese negotiating is a time consuming factor.

Renovation: architect called today that drawings of the baptistery were in the mail to the contractor. (Process has been slow)

October 22nd: all encouraged to participate in the Day of Reflection.

New Business
Web site Charlie noted that the present site is in progress; how do we see this going. Fr. Butler suggested that people might look at rcab.org and check out other parish web sites. More than half the parishes presently have sites - (a mixed bag!)
Communication John Slattery noted that this raises the wider question of parish communication. (He has been working on ideas for improving parish newsletter.)
These two items will surface on the agenda of the next meeting.

Review of the meeting
"In general OK" "looking forward to next month" "augers well for the day of reflection" "great meeting" "key decisions were faced" "lots to think about" "good meeting" "good meeting"

Next meetings:
Nov 9, Dec 14 2000, Jan 11, Feb 8, Mar 8, *, May 10, Jun 14, 2001
*Thu. Apr. 12 is Holy Thursday, thus no meeting. Determine in February whether to reschedule or cancel.
Archdiocesan assembly of parish pastoral councils and parish finance councils Mar 6, 2001

Day of reflection for pfc and ppc:
Sun Oct 22 5:00 pm through to 9:00 pm with evening prayer supper and meeting