The Parish Pastoral Council meeting was called to order by Frank Hughes at 7:05 PM. Special intentions were addressed and Frank led an opening prayer.

IN ATTENDANCE
Fr. Farano, Frank Hughes, Cindy Pettit, Kate Burns, Jeanne Pitkin, Richard Connery, Peter Ranalli, Mary Nardolillo, Jean Baptiste Zongo, Jackie DeSanti , Tom Christman, Harvey Bowks, Mike Rossi, John DeFilippo, Justyn Bates, and Marlene Papa.

January Meeting Notes were previously e-mailed. January Meeting Notes were reviewed and discussed. Mary Nardolillo motioned and Tom Christman seconded approval as drafted and all agreed.

St Francis de Sales pastoral associate for evangelization - Meghi Graziano was introduced by Frank. She has been working at Saint Francis for about 6 months now, and is the first paid evangelization minister in the Albany Diocese.

Meghi gave an overview of her work with Evangelization in the Saint Francis Parish. Meghi asked how many surveys were sent out to our parish. Fr. Farano said about 2,000 families with about l, 000 responses. Meghi wanted to know if we had a list of the names of those not responding and Fr. Farano said that no list was available because the survey was confidentially performed by Siena.

St. Francis started their process by performing a census in the pew. Those who did not fill in their forms were contacted by mail. Those who did not respond to either were contacted by Meghi by phone. Persistence was very important and although there are still some who have not responded, the number is relatively small.

Meghi shared some impediments to her process including; many Catholics consider The Chapel on Wolf Road as their parish, many parishioners are homebound, and although they do not attend Mass on a regular basis, many parishioners want to remain registered. (Father Farano said he has had the same experience with many of our parishioners for a variety of reasons).

Meghi feels personal contact is the key. Saint Pius X’s last census was over 25 years ago and perhaps it is time for another.

Meghi shared some suggestions for starting the evangelization process at St Pius X that worked for her including

• Write something every week in the bulletin. Meghi calls her pieces, “Food for Thought”.
• Use a bulletin board to display; all kinds of pictures, events, weddings, baptisms, anniversaries and clippings from the papers, etc.
  The items on the board should be personal enough to attract attention and have people read it.
• Change the board regularly, every 6 weeks works for her.

A question was asked, “How do you address the youth and the children?” Meghi said you have to have a positive attitude. Perhaps put a picture of Confirmation class on bulletin or an event from St. Pius X School or a Sunday school event.

Meghi also believes in flexible groups to bring people together with a common interest:

• Hand made cards for shut-ins and memorable events.
• Birthdays, Christmas, and Easter.Reach out to personally touch parishioners.

St. Francis sends a card to all newly baptized and a card on the first anniversary of the baptism.

She also gives each parent a small gift of holy water, a scroll and a handmade card from the parish community.

Post committee needs on the bulletin board.

She call’s her program toward evangelization “Each one, Reach one” capturing the personal nature of the effort that takes place.

Thank you Meghi for taking the time to share your efforts and process with the Council.

Review of Action Items – Last month’s action items were reviewed, highlights include:

Concerning the Parish Web Site - Regularly, there is a notice in the bulletin regarding suggestions for Agenda Items for the Parish Council meetings. The bulletins are on the Web Site. It was suggested that anyone who wants to give input on an agenda item for the PPC to discuss should be able to e-mail it from the Web Site. E-mails will be directed to the Executive Committee and a response will be required by them. The person should have to include his/her name and address.

The Parish Council will work with Peter Hines to see if we can get a counter put on the Parish website to get an understanding of how many people are actually using the site.

Additional ideas on Web Site improvement should be forwarded to Frank Hughes.

The Prayer and Worship Committee recommendations to the PPC concerning Parishioner’s comments we hand delivered to Parishioner.

Next month, committee representatives will discuss actions and ideas from the Parish Survey. Committee members are welcome to come to the meeting next month. The meeting will be held in the Parish Center.

Father said that he thinks the Bishop’s Task Force on Evangelization will meet sometime in March. Comments will be forwarded to the Bishop and recommendations will probably be out by summer. The Parish Council discussion of an Evangelization Committee will be held after we learn more from the Bishop’s Task Forces’s findings and recommendations.

Committee Reports were distributed to PPC members prior to the meeting and discussed. Highlights include:

Frank mentioned that the Discernment Committee will be describing their schedule for new member discernment at next month’s meeting. All members should be thinking about possible new discernees for the Council.

Marlene mentioned that the School Board would love to have volunteers for school Spirit Day on June l0th. Anyone who would like to volunteer please call Ellie.

Emily Hughes is a Girl Scout working toward her Gold Award. For a project, she will be facilitating the collection of toiletries, books, etc. (full list will be detailed in the bulletin during upcoming weeks) to be presented to Domestic Violence shelters in our area. The collection will take place at Saint Pius X Church on the week-end of May 2nd and 3rd.

Congratulations for effort.

John said that the Boy Scouts are in need of projects for their Eagle Scout awards. You are welcome to call John DeFilippo with suggestions.

Pastor’s Comments Father Farano said that Winter’s Night Out was especially wonderful this year. There was dancing and a great deal of spirit, as well as a significant amount of money raised given the state of the economy.

Father Farano feels it would be great to hold several events each year to get the parish together and share the spirit, perhaps a Spaghetti Dinner, a DJ for dancing, or just pizza and a get together. These would not necessarily be money raisers, but rather, another opportunity for the Parish to gather.

A letter from one of our parishioners was distributed to the PPC members. Any comments regarding the contents of the letter will be discussed at our next council meeting.

There will be a meeting of the Called to Be Church committee members from Colonie. There is talk of having a Web Site for the Colonie Churches to share information.

Father would like to contact all of the members of the Called to Be Church Committees. There will be 4 task forces formed by those who are interested in meeting every few months to keep up to date. Father Farano closed the meeting with a prayer.