September 2011 Update to the Parish
Report to the Parish Regarding the Parish Council Meetings
The meeting was started with a Prayer from Father Constantine.
The first topic of business is always a review of our current financial position. As of August 31, 2011 we have received total Stewardship collections (income) of $186,335. At this same time last year we had total Stewardship income of $224,085. This is a reduction of $37,750 in actual collections. When we look at total Stewardship pledges, we have 170 pledges for a total of $279,664. This means that we still have about 50 families/individuals who have not pledged. The pledges we have received are consistent with last year so our focus is on these 50 missing pledges. We continue to monitor the situation and work with the Stewardship Ministry to determine what is holding these individuals back and what we should do to resolve this issue.
The Capital Campaign continues to see some pledges come in. As of September 15th we have 83 Pledges in the amount of $202,018.
Some progress has been made around the new Stewardship Ministry. We are scheduling an All Parish meeting to discuss this Ministry, answer any questions you may have and seek additional people to help this effort on an ongoing basis. We all understand the importance of Stewardship which requires people to operate; we need your time and talents.
The Parish Council has selected Bill Kartsonis to lead an effort to reach our lost sheep. We will be reviewing past records, such as old Phone Directories, to identify individuals who have left the church or only attend a couple times per year. If you know of family or friends who have fallen away from the Church, please contact Bill Kartsonis, Father Constantine or any Parish Council Member with their contact information. We also believe that we have some of our retired people who have transportation problems and would attend if they could. We are also looking into how we can help in this situation. Your thoughts and ideas are always welcome.
We moved on to the Building Committee Report. We expect to have plans ready regarding the sign in front of the building for Parish approval in the next couple of months. Upon Parish Approval we will submit the design to the Metropolitan for final approval. Other projects like the floor in the Kitchen and various other maintenance issues are also moving forward. The roof continues to be a concern. We have received bids that range from $50,000 to $350,000. Some recommend just repairs and some recommend full replacement. Second, there are some new types of roofs available today which may be very cost effective; however, we are not experts in roofing systems. We will commission an engineering study of the roof to determine our options including recommendations for what we should do, when we should do it and how much to spend. We agreed that we needed professional advice from a third party instead of depending on the roofing companies who are also bidding on the work. This study will cost less than $1,300.
We had a small electrical fire in the middle class room last week. No damage occurred and the socket has been replaced. This raised a concern about the condition of other electrical sockets. We know that several sockets in the hall are also in need of repair. Lou Petrakos has volunteered to inspect our electrical sockets and replace any that need replacement. This donation of his time and talents is truly in the spirit of Stewardship. We should all thank Lou.
You may have heard that the Gas Company shut down all gas to the building on Sunday afternoon of the Festival due to a gas leak. This leak was between the building and our meter. The meter was located at the north east entrance to the parking lot. The leak was caused by corroded pipes under the ground. The initial estimate was $5,000 to $10,000 for this repair because they determined that all of the buried gas pipe would need to be replaced. We asked Wagih Moussa to help us through this problem and he recommended we have the meter moved from the street to next to the building. This would move the responsibility of repairing the line between the street and the building to the Gas Company. The Gas Company agreed to the move which reduced the cost to the community to $1,800. This is another example of a donation of time and talents saving the community a significant expense. We should all thank Wagih.
Our next topic was our local By-Laws. Our last set of approved local by-laws was from 1991. We tried to modify them in 2002 but these were rejected by the Metropolitan. The Archdiocese released the current national By-Laws in 2007. The result of these events is that we do not have a current, approved set of local By-Laws. It is our expectation that we will submit updated local By-Laws for Parish approval at our November General Assembly Meeting.
The meeting ended with a prayer.
Thank You…
Tom Vleisides, Parish Council President