St. Bonaventure Parish Council Minutes May 25,2017 5:30 pm Voting Members present: Andrew Klug, Brett Rusher, Joel Young, Linda Levos, Tyler Erickson, Chad Gonka Trustees: Tim Cumberland Trustees excused: Dennis Grennan Finance: Don Heimes Guests: Jan Engelbert, Melissa Kosch, Kathy Steiner, Ken Steiner, Tom Williams, Cheryl Rambour, Belinda Keiter Excused: Chris Bettenhausen, Mark Massman Hispanic: Vacant Ex Officio: Fr. Mike Swanton Opening prayer: Fr. Mike Swanton Call to Order: Vice-president Brett Rusher called the meeting to order. Approval of minutes: The minutes of the April meetings were approved via email. Introductions: We welcomed our new parish council representative Tyler Linder and returning for a second term is Chad Gonka. Tyler will replace Joel Young. Thank you Joel. Reports: St. Bonaventure Preschool: Chris Bettenhausen Registration for Play Group, Preschool, and Pre-K is continuing. Pre-K is full with 20 students. The MWF AM Preschool class is also full with 10 students. T-Th AM Preschool has 8. MWF PM Preschool has 8. MWF AM Play Group has 4, The T-Th AM Play Group has 8 (full), and The T-Th PM class has 3, with 2 others who could enter in November if there are still openings. That is a total of 61. Child Care registration continues. Summer child care numbers are down, but next school year looks similar to this year, with maybe more children in the afternoons as opposed to mornings. Gwen Steiner has been hired to be the morning office staff. Julie Wemhoff will continue as a classroom aide in Preschool. St. Bonaventure Elementary: Cheryl Zoucha Currently, we have 169 students enrolled for the 2017-18 school year. This number is 8 students down from where we ended this year. We graduated 26 sixth graders and currently have 20 Kindergarten students enrolled. We are losing 3 fifth grade students, a Kindergartner, third grader, and fourth grader and are gaining four new transfers. We will need 12 mentors for new families coming into our school. We were recently informed that we have been awarded a 2 nd Ignite the Faith grant to replace our existing classroom projectors and install mountable speakers. This work will be completed sometime this summer. Other summer work includes the re-carpeting of two classrooms that were not done last summer, adding additional outlets to 1
classrooms, installing new wipe boards in the classrooms, and installing a sink in the science room. May was very busy with all of our end-of-school activities, but everything went well (track meets, May Crowning, Kindergarten Graduation, 6 th Grade Graduation, hot dog lunch provided by Home and School). We also had an end-of-year luncheon to honor Kathy Zadina, Charlie Stockman, and Fr. Keating. We are grateful for all they have done for our school over the years Scotus School Board: Kathy Steiner Mr. Schueth reminded everyone that the Columbus Big Give is on May 19 th and will last 24 hours. Scotus hopes to fund a new AC unit for the server room through Big Give. Mr. Merlin Lindahl will be hired by the school to serve as a liaison with the city to help with moving the Scotus parking lot project forward. The fundraising banquet for St. Bonaventure/SCC alumnus, Secretary Chuck Hagel is set for September 22 nd. Scotus received a grant to fund a major share of the STAR reading program that will be offered to 7 th and 8 th grade students this fall. Family Faith Formation: Cheryl Rambour There were 42 2 nd graders and 8 older sacramental children who received First Holy Communion at three separate ceremonies on the same day. There were 74 Confirmands. Goals for next year include having students bring back evidence of doing home lessons, tighten up the discipline policy, and smaller classes with more Spanish/English speaking parents as catechists or teacher s aides. Hispanic: Vacant Real Estate: Eric Kluever Stewardship: Belinda Keiter Liturgy: Fr. Mike Swanton Today is Ascension Thursday, a holy day of obligation. Youth Ministry: Belinda Keiter Fifteen busses of youth and sponsors from the Omaha Archdioceses will be attending the Steubenville Conference July 14 th, 15 th and 16 th. Columbus will be taking three busses. The Nun Run is July 21 st and 22 nd for a trip to LaCrosse, Wisconsin for a convent tour. JC Camp will be held on June 8 th, 9 th, 10, and 11 th and again on June 23 rd, 24 th, 25 th, and 26 th. Adult Formation: Belinda Keiter 2
Finance Committee: Don Heimes The parish is in the black. The budget has been approved by the Finance Committee subject to a few minor changes by Norma and Fr. Mike. It will be submitted mid-june. Ladies of the Lord: Melissa Kosch and Jan Engelbert Thank-you to all the ladies who provided salads or desserts for the Luncheon. Also thank-you to the ladies who assisted with serving the delicious meal. The Naughtin family was very appreciate and we are so blessed to have Jim as our new permanent deacon at St. Bon's. LOL has been coordinating the spread of food at each of the Project 2020 Events. Circles 1,2,3,4,5,9,10 have each provided the refreshments expecting 50-60 people at each event. Each circle has been very generous and we appreciate the leaders organizing their Circle's efforts. Sunday June 4th LOL will host the second Who's Who Welcome Weekend. This will be held from 10 am to 12:30 pm in the Parish Center. Sunday June 25th LOL will host a farewell for Fr. Keating. This will be held from 10 am to 12:30 pm in the Parish Center. All members of St. Bon's are invited. Knights of Columbus: Mark Massman Election of officers will occur at the June 5 th meeting and on June 11 th there will be a pancake breakfast to raise funds for youth activities. Maintenance and Operation: Milan Levos Lambrecht Glass of Omaha did an inspection of the stained-glass windows and is working on a bid to repair and also replace the trim work, as of May 23 rd they had not finished the bid. Fr. Mike met with this company. Kruse Stained Glass of Hartington had to cancel but still plan on coming to Columbus to inspect and put in a bid. Patrick Jensen from Associated Crafts/Willet-Hauser assessed the stained glass inside and outside May 19. He will prepare a bid. Fr. Mike met with this company. Dave Ebner from Ebner Siding and I looked at the siding and soffit last Friday May 19 th to assess the damage. We also looked into extending the down spout and extend it so as to make sure the rain runs further away from the church foundation. I should have an estimate soon. Kevin Moore of Central Insulation Roofing did repair the down spout on outside wall corner where Mary is located and unplugged the gutter and down spout. The M and O committee would like to start planning and setting a date to clean out the church basement, finish the area, and install shelving for the church decorations. Fr. Mike would like shelving put in somewhere on the stage area to store risers and other items. Another option would be to put a storage unit outside the gym door and place items in it. Risers possibly could be stored in the church basement. 3
Old Business: M and O: Tom Williams and Ken Steiner A motion was made by Tim Cumberland and seconded by Tyler Erickson to finance the roof replacement of the school. The motion was carried. Kevin Moore of Central Insulation and Roofing will be replacing the roof above the classrooms of the grade school. This project was planned for in the budget for this next year. The cost of $90,000 is paid for by Night of Entertainment funds designated a few years ago for this, money from the St. Joseph Fund and from Ignite the Faith funds. The original bid was $90,000, but after Cheryl Zoucha and Fr. Mike reviewed the work to be done, the bid was changed to $70,000, due to some of the work falling under the scope of Project 2020. The patches that were last completed on the school roof in those areas has been adequate. The work is scheduled to be completed this summer. The M and O Committee are also waiting to receive bids on the stained-glass window repair and siding/soffit replacement. Utility Vehicle: Andrew Klug, Brett Rusher, and Fr. Swanton Tony Kreikmeier purchased a 2016 Polaris 4-wheeler for the Parish campus for $18,000. The committee met along with Milan Levos and Tom Williams. Although $15,000 was raised at last year s Night of Entertainment, Fr. Swanton approved the purchase price, and the additional funds will come from generous donors. Project 20/20: Dennis Grennan The Financial Campaign continues ahead with much excitement. Five Events have been held with 7 more events planned. Three Events in Spanish are included. At each Event, a historical video is shown, a presentation made on Project 2020 planned facilities, communication process, cost estimates, and more. Many questions have been asked, providing good discussion. Attendance has been good at most events although only 147 families have attended as of May 25. The Events Team is doing a great job decorating and providing food/drink for each event. Four Newsletters have been sent out thus far with at least one more planned. The Youth Team have Proj. 2020 T-Shirts for all adults and smaller. They will also be distributing Piggy Banks to youth. A Fun Run is scheduled for Friday, June 2, at the Scotus Practice Field. The Prayer Team has a Proj. 2020 Holy Hour every Tuesday at 8:00pm. It is a great hour of scriptures, rosary, and prayer, and attendance is growing. Work continues to distribute Project information before Commitment weekend June 24-25. Completion of the Financial Campaign is still scheduled for the end of June, but communications will continue throughout the 3-year pledge period. Pastor s Report: Fr. Mike Swanton Fr. Swanton presented the Parish Council with a flow chart of the roles/duties of key employees at St. Bonaventure s. Dianne Keiter, Parish secretary, will add Liturgist to her responsibilities and Clint Torczon will report to Norma Krzycki, Business Manager and Cheryl Zoucha, Principal. Fr. Keating has been assigned to St. Michael s Parish in South Sioux City, effective July 1 st and will not be replaced by another priest. Fr. Mike sent a letter to all key parish leaders, and the letter was placed in the bulletin as an insert stating future changes to begin July 1. Fr. Mike presented initial findings of the Meitler Group in a powerpoint presentation, and how we will move forward to help people encounter Jesus and raise Mass attendance. 4
New Business: The Meitler Group would like to see the three Columbus Parishes work together and consider reducing the total number of masses held on weekends due to the shortage of priests in our dioceses. It is getting harder and harder to get our retired priest to fill in and assist. The retirement age for Omaha Archdiocesan priests is 70. There will be three ordinations every year (the expected ordination rate). Some of our priest continue to serve after the age of retirement. There will be a September meeting with the Meitler group with their recommendations. Next meeting: June 22 nd, 6 pm at the home of Andrew and Lynette Klug Closing prayer: Fr. Mike Swanton Meeting adjourned: 6:50 pm. Respectfully submitted: Linda Levos 5