meetings

Today was a really gorgeous spring day!  Bright sunshine, temps in the low 70's, a slight breeze - the kind of day where I am jealous of people who work outdoors for a living.  While I did manage to get over an hour of walking in at noontime, I still had to spend most of the day indoors at meetings.

Our Business Manager, and two members of our Finance Council and I met with representatives from one of our banks to discuss our portfolio of investments for the Parish Cemetery.  Portfolios are not my forte; in fact I know next to nothing about them, and that lack of knowledge has me a bit scared of them as well.  Luckily, I have people who DO know more than a little about these things to assist me and make recommendations, which is why we asked the banking reps in to explain where we are and where we are headed and to ask for some new possible proposals for investing.  I must admit we learned nothing of these things in seminary!

Following that meeting, I met with our Principal to interview a prospective teacher for our 8th grade for next year.  We have a couple of long-time faculty retiring at the end of the current year, and so we are interviewing interested candidates.  These candidates are pre-approved by the Office of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese.  While I leave the ultimate decision for hiring to the Principal since she has to work with her faculty every day and is responsible for the everyday running of the school, I still like to meet those she interviews and is interested in hiring.  The interview went well.

Tonight we had our Pastoral Council meeting, the last one before summer.  The three newly elected members joined us for the first time, and they brought an enthusiasm that was not present recently.  They volunteered for new committees and are excited to be part of the workings of our parish.  It is heart-warming to see people step forward and take ownership of their church; people who are willing to give of their time/talent/treasure to advance the work of our parish.

While our guest speaker took ill today and was not able to join us, we did have good discussions on many topics ranging from the possible purchase of a defibrilator machine, to our 150th anniversary book, to a revision of the Council By-Laws.  I know that I left that meeting feeling we had accomplished something.

Now I hope to catch an inning or two of the Sox before going to bed.  Hope they can get closer to .500!