Men's Club March 18th, 2004 Meeting Minutes

Saint Ambrose Men’s Club

Meeting Minutes

8:00 p.m. March 18, 2004

1) Call to Order by Paul Rebholz, Opening Prayer by Rich Juarez

2) Roll Call - 20 members present - Officers present: Rebholz, Schiferl and Tennessen.

3) February 29th Minutes: Approved

4) Treasurer's Report: No changes to financial position since last month.

5) Old Business

a) Upcoming Events–

i) Lenten Fish Dinner 5:00 to 7:00 Friday April 2nd – Bill Brino, Paul Rebholz and Vince Cullen are in charge of this effort. Flyer to be in the next Sunday bulletin: All you can eat, breaded baked scrod, potato, roll, vegetable and dessert. $7.00 for adults, $6.00 seniors, children $4.00 (age 5–12). Men's Club members responsible to bring a dessert to share, else the dessert will have just been a rumor. Maximum family price is $20.00. No advance ticket sales but reservations are recommended if you want to be assured a place at the table. Request for volunteers to be sent.

ii) Spring Pancake Breakfast April 18th – Patrick Tinucci and Luke Lejcher are leading the effort. Request for volunteers to be sent.

iii) Golf Scramble & Steak Fry May 27th – 18 hold scramble (afternoon) and steak fry at the home of Bruce and Gloria Soma (evening). Details to be provided at the April meeting…including specifics about planning and getting co-chair commitments to events over the next 12 months (per Mark Fritz's suggestion at our February meeting.

iv) Adopt-a-Highway Spring Cleanup – scheduled 8:00 Saturday May 1st.

b) Theresa Living Center (TLC) – Norb reviewed the "contact list" of those who have given their "OK" to be contacted by TLC when residents need help moving in/out. Norb will be the first point of contact and will circulate requests as they come in. Mike Anger in process of arranging a visit to TLC.

c) Funding Requests – According to our funding approval process, any requests in process will be handled at our April meeting. Prior to the meeting, club officers and board members will review requests and prepare recommendations. New requests should be submitted by not later than April 20th.

i) Corpus Christi Catechism Fund (CCCF) – This non-profit organization established in 2001 by several young adults in the Archdiocese has as its mission to share the beauty of the Catholic Faith as presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They work towards a goal of a catechism for every Catholic in the Archdiocese. To this end, they present each new confirmand with a new catechism. There are 100 candidates slated to be confirmed at St. Ambrose with an associated cost of $3.15 each = $315 total. Norb proposed that we consider a $315 donation to CCCF to cover our confirmands.

ii) "Rekindling" the Funding Topic – The CCCF discussion reopened a boat load of questions pertaining to the overall topic of funding:

(1) What kinds of funding should we concern ourselves with?

(2) Should we establish an annual fund raising objective?

(3) Do we even want or need to be in the funding business?

(4) Given our gifts: Skills, talents, expertise, etc., shouldn't we establish a development committee within the Men's Club comprised of members with an interest in fund raising – that this committee would take the assignment to help raise the $400,000 capital challenge facing our parish? (question from Dennis Todora).

Here's an interesting footnote: In Exploring the Sunday Readings for March 21st, editor Alice Camille asks this question: "In which areas of your life do you have more than others: material goods, intelligence, talent, skill, personality? How do you share what you have?"

(5) Corollary question – Should we establish a fund raising goal (e.g. $100.000) and commit it to the capital campaign and then go about raising it (e.g.$20,000 per year)? (question from Vince Cullen).

(6) If we are able to raise money and to the extent that we have excess funds available, why not simply turn the $s over to Father Tom to determine the best use of these funds?

d) Mission: What is our mission anyway…where do we want to focus our energies? Bruce Soma made the observation that we never had issues like this (i.e. funding debates) until we found ourselves trying to be like a United Way Agency. We agreed to devote time during our April meeting to brainstorming about the Men's Club mission. Homework: Each member should come to the next meeting prepared with his ideas of one or two things that he would like to see the Men's Club do that we don't do now. As input to this homework, here's our documented statement of mission/purpose:

"The Men's Club works to build a sense of community for the adult men of the parish and their families. Our members support the parish through fundraising, social and spiritual events and providing manpower to support numerous parish activities."

e) Social Justice Outreach – As a result of Mike Anger's presentation on Theresa Living Center in February, we would like know the focus and priorities of the Social Justice Committee…what are their goals…how can we help? We will request a report from Larry Amell at a future meeting.

i) LCCE Walk for Life (May 23rd at Lake Phalen Pavilion – As an adjunct to this, Norb talked about his involvement with Life Care Center East (LCCE) crisis pregnancy center and recommended the upcoming Walk for Life as a meaningful and worthwhile family centered outreach activity. He distributed participant forms at the meeting and will send copies to all members via a separate letter.

6) New Business

a) Thank you note from Ministry of Mom's Sharing (M.O.M.S) – Norb read a thank you note from Katie Roche, M.O.M.S. coordinator for our $500 gift in support of their programs.

b) Job Networking / Job Information Sharing – Norb reopened this topic which is a carryover from last year that never reached closure. The idea is that we try to leverage our own members to "network" and share information about job placement. Specifically, people looking for work are invited to circulate their job search, interests, resume, etc. Also, people who are recruiting or who know about job opportunities are welcome to circulate this information as well. To these ends, Ed Black suggested that we establish a practice at each meeting to have one or two members unashamedly "self-promote" themselves – i.e. share their job/career responsibilities, experiences, etc. Along with this, we will expand on the information contained in our Men's Club Roster. More on this at the next meeting.

c) Athletic Fields Update - Greg Bischel reported that final grading for the baseball field and 2nd soccer field is about to begin. We should anticipate the need for rock picking, raking and seeding in the near future.

d) Wine Tasting Event – Paul talked about wine tasting auctions as an excellent social/fund raising activity. Questions remain as to timing, venue, sponsors, entertainment. Given the high level of interest to pilot one of these as a future Men's Club event, the following people have signed up to be on the planning committee: Jim Boerjan, Scott McCabe, Bob Roche, Mike D'Agostino, Ed Black, Richard Juarez, Dennis Todora and Ray Schwarz.

7) Next Meeting April 29th Fellowhip Hall

8) Adjournment at 9:45 PM.