ST. MARY OF LOURDES

Planning Advisory Committee

Minutes of November 10, 2002

The meeting was called to order by Gary Loertscher at 7:05 p.m. Member present were: Gary Loertscher, Jim Kniffin, Yogi Brown, Carol Eberhardy, Carla Wolf, Teri Nolden, Jerry Jansen, Don Edge, Gary Ziegler, Jim Fahey, Doug Waelti, Kay Parish, Jerry Remy, Jerry Ziegler, Barb Wachter, Mike Warmuth, Jerry Rabas, and Ken Klink.

Minutes of the October 13, 2002 meeting were accepted.

It was noted that the St. Mary of Lourdes parish council approved funding on October 14, 2002, for contracting with Angus-Young Associates to develop a feasibility plan and with John Buscemi to act as a liturgical consultant in this process. Father Klink, Jerry Rabas, and Gary Loertscher will meet with Joe Stadelman and John Buscemi on November 11, 2002, to initiate the process. The goal is to have the feasibility plan complete by April, 2003, for presentation to the St. Mary’s and St. James parishes. There was discussion of how parish members will be involved in the planning process. Joe Stadelman and John Buscemi will work with us to ensure that this happens.

Suggestions were made to get quotes from more firms to conduct a land survey of the proposed site. Thus far we have a quote from Arnold & O’Sheridan. It was suggested that we prioritize contracting with local businesses as the project evolves.

Ken Klink and Kay Parish reported about information they gathered about building at a conference in Milwaukee.

Hiring a professional fundraiser was discussed. Topics brought up included how well “professional fundraising” would be accepted by parishioners, how successful they are, what strategies they use, the role the architect and liturgical consultant would play, how much “local talent” we have for fundraising, and how much it would cost. It was concluded that we are too early in the process to make any decisions at this time.

The Fundraising and Communications subcommittees reported that registration of new members at Masses the past two weeks generated approximately fifteen new members. The registration forms will continue to be available in the back of both churches and on the website. The Communication subcommittee also reported it has had 600+ “hits” on the website since it opened.

Discussion about scheduling the next planning committee meeting focused on generating more involvement from St. James. It was suggested trying a different evening of the week for some of the future meetings. Wednesday was cited as the weekday evening having the least number of conflicts with other community/school activities. Packets of information will be compiled and given to all St. James parish council members. It was also suggested that we meet at St. James, but the facility does not accommodate meetings very well. The December meeting will be on Sunday evening because it is the most “unscheduled” evening during the holidays. A different weekday evening will be considered for January.

The next meeting will be on Sunday, December 1, 2002, at 7:00 p.m. in the Parish hall.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m.