Present – Frank Pugliano, Dan Slavin, Dennis Mullahy, Tom Christman, Julianne Ruff, Dan Slavin, Rudy Paulsen, Tracy Coffey, Peter Ranalli, Joe Tamer, Frank Hughes, Pat Tobin, Sandy Zelka, Fr. Farano, Marlene Papa and Paul Kutey.

Absent – Jackie DeSanti, (ill), Mark Morrison, Steve Morgan

Frank called the meeting to order at 7:05 P.M. Tom Christman led the opening prayer. Tom said that the prayer that he read last month will be posted on the Web Site or perhaps handed out at a Mass.

Minutes - Since the minutes of the September meeting did not reach all members, Marlene sent out copies. A motion was made to accept the September minutes.

The minutes of the October 18 meeting were approved with two corrections;

Tom Christman asked to have the “Orphan Grain Chain” corrected (Train). Tom also noted that the group works with everyone not just children.

Committee Reports

Marlene will send out the St. Pius School Report and the Christian works and Service report sent by Tom Christman. Marlene asked everyone at the meeting to provide their current e-mail address. She will send out a final, we hope, e-mail list by the end of the week.

Committee Reports should be sent to Marlene by the Wednesday before the next Council meeting. rrouse@nycap.rr.com.

Changes to St. Pius Constitution

Jackie De Santi contacted Mark McCarthy in regard to the changes proposed to the constitution. Mark has not returned her calls but Father Farano talked with Mr. McCarthy at a Finance Committee meeting and he, Mr. McCarthy, said he would get back to Jackie shortly.

Web Site

Jackie De Santi, Ellie Peterson, Brian Evers and Frank Pugliano will meet with Peter Hines before the next Parish Council meeting to discuss the parish web site. There is a concern that there may be weekly changes, particularly in the bulletin, and who will be in charge of making these changes?

Frank sent out a list of Parish Web Sites to all Council members for their review. Frank is looking for suggestions about changes to our parish web site to be e-mailed to him before Dec. l

Town Hall Meeting

Pat Tobin said that she felt that the Bishop was abandoning the cities. Father Farano said that some people at the local Town Hall Meetings were cynical thinking that the Bishop has already made up his mind. Father said that in Albany there are some new relationships forming with the local Protestant churches and other groups that are in a position to aid the inner city churches.

Six members of our parish guidance team met with the other five church representatives to go over the results of the Town Hall meetings held in each parish.

Representatives of the six member parishes will begin a series of monthly meetings in January.

Father Farano said the Local Leaders meeting on October 30 was arduous because there was so much content to be discussed and broken down. Father said that there was not too much difference in the responses from the 6 parishes.

A portion of the time was spent trying to craft a “Mission Statement”. Tracy noted that the main thrust of these meetings is to get people to assist with the future changes in the church.

The next and final Town Hall meeting at St. Pius will be November 16.

Parish Convening

Father Farano was very impressed with the children from Chatham who performed a parable as part of the opening Prayer Service. Several Council members who attended the Convening said that it was a very good session.

Youth Conference

Brian Evers reported that over 500 students from the diocese attended the Youth Conference held at LaSalle. The event was in the planning stages for over a year and about 40 people from St. Pius were involved. There had not been a local conference for more than ten years. With the success of this recent conference, a suggestion has been made to hold a conference for high school students one year and for middle school students each alternating year. Frank thanked Brian for all of his work.

New Business

At the Executive Committee session an ongoing problem was discussed…… parishioners parking in the fire lanes around the church. Several parish council members said it was particularly difficult on Sunday, Nov. 12 to navigate in front of the church. A very serious problem could arise if a fire truck or ambulance could not reach the church or adjacent buildings. Many suggestions were made, including placing cones in the fire lanes for the next few weeks. Father said he would have lectors read an announcement from the pulpit during the Masses. Tom said that the Town of Colonie would ticket violators and Julianne, whose dad is a Colonie Policeman, said “I will ask my dad”. Consensus: cones, advising from the pulpit and full page notice in bulletin.

Parish Census

Father said he would like to address the census issue after January l. He is most interested in reaching out to those who no longer attend Mass. Perhaps a small committee could be appointed to work on the census next year. There are computer-based programs available that we may wish to use. About 1,500 people attend Mass on a weekend, but we have over 2,000 registered families in the parish. If three people from each family attended Mass, we should see 6,000 people each week, not 1,500.

Frank asked for volunteers to begin researching factors involved in conducting a census. Tom Christman and Pat Tobin volunteered to start working on this. We will also try to identify people in the parish who may be willing to help with the census.

St. Pius X Mission Statement

Frank said that the St. Pius X Mission Statement is too long and we need a more concise version. Council members felt we should also have the Mission Statement mesh with the Parish Constitution. Frank Hughes and Marlene Papa volunteered to work on the statement and to have something by January for review by Council members.

Next meeting will be Tuesday, December 19 at 7:00PM. A sign-up sheet was passed out for this annual dinner meeting.

Pastor’s Comments

Father Farano re-iterated the fact that there will be changes in our church, but that the Bishop is very open to our opinions and suggestions.

Frank led the closing prayer.

Marlene Papa