Minutes from May 20, 2007

Fr. Bill’s Reports:

Annual Pastoral Appeal (APA)
Father Bill reported that the number of gifts has increased this year and the appeal was a great success at St. Stephen. He is very happy with the outcome.
If all pledges are paid in full, the parish will have about $58,000 coming back for us to use as best determined by the Pastoral Council and Father Bill. He believes it will be earmarked for debt reduction.

Audit
Parish completed an Audit of Agreed Upon Procedures with the Diocese this year in which the Diocese reviewed our parish records, finances, and procedures to ensure we are being good stewards of the parish.
We were given a very good report after this Audit.

Boyette Extension Update
The county has decided not to place the retention pond on our property and will only request the frontage land from us. They asked that we waive the right of way on the access road to the Yarborough land (road on east side of our property). It was decided that the income from not doing this would be very small and to show good faith with the county, it was approved. They worked to accommodate us and find a new location for the retention pond, so we will develop the access road with the right of way waived. This will allow us to use the access road as a secondary entrance to the new building(s).
Father Bill is still hoping we can find a creative way to secure that 20 acres of Yarborough land for the parish – we currently hold 1st refusal on any contract they receive and hope to find something before the offers come in.

Spring Jubilee
The final numbers are still pending, but should be reported within a few weeks.

St. Stephen School
The school recently went though its accreditation process and was granted accreditation by the Florida Catholic Conference. What was found was that in many ways, our school was ahead of expectations.
The school is currently financially healthy – there are only about 10 openings between all the classes right now (parents should call the school about any openings they would like to inquire about or being added to the waiting list).
The school is also in the process of its expansion. For the fall, there will be 2 additional classrooms and a set of bathrooms and this construction is on time according to the contract timeline. Eventually, there will be 8 rooms (6 more added) and they will all be set in a junior high environment. This will allow for the rooms to be used by ministries and for retreats outside of school hours and help with the current lack of meeting space.

Religious Education and Formation
This summer, the Religious Education Office will have an intern, Nick Frank, working with the Youth. There has also been some expansion of current employee hours to accommodate the needs of these programs.
In the future, Father Bill plans to add the following positions at the Parish:
Director of Stewardship/Development
Musician/Liturgist
Evangelization Coordinator
Sacrament Coordinator
These are all planned as part-time positions, but might be combined for a full-time position of one person fills the job description for both positions.
Also, Terry Modica will be leaving the Religious Education staff as en employee, but will be helping us as a volunteer.

Initiative on Eucharist
The Diocese started their Initiative on Eucharist with the Maintenance to Mission book that our parish has been reading and discussing this year in different groups. The next step is the book study of Source & Summit. Father Bill thinks our parish will use this study in the school and Religious Education programs but that as a parish, we will focus more on Liturgical Catechesis and integrate Strategic Planning in this.
This will mean bringing in speakers and providing presentations about the next step of our Strategic Planning process and how the Liturgy will play the key role in what our new buildings will be and how they will look. We need to start “seeing” what we want to pull it together to take to architects so we can start determining what kind of investments we need to look for.

Strategic Planning
The parish staff and councils most recently have been working on our Mission Statement, goals, and priorities. This will be used with the feed back collected from the town hall meetings and ministry interviews to create a blue print of where we are at and to give our ministries and idea of where the church stands. There is a roll-out of this information tentatively planned for the fall. This information will include input from our parish consultant and about more than just a building – how it will all work together is important so our ministries can stay active and the parish will continue to grow spiritually.
The parish is also looking at the demographics of our area to include in our Strategic Plan. It is estimated that our are will double in size in the next 10 years, so the parish must account for that while we move forward and plan BIG.
The next stage will be the physical design. It has been discussed to create committees for each new area/building to lay out what we need and want. It is planned to have the reports from these committees ready by Christmas to pass on to the architect will hire.
If you have any suggestions or want to help with our Strategic Planning, contact Deb Boje at debra.boje@ruden.com or log onto www.ststephencatholic.org and click on the Strategic Planning link at the bottom of the home page.

Howard Revelle, Finance Council:

Reported that our 07-08 Budget is complete and has been sent to the Diocese for approval. There will be a summary available next month for parishioner review.
This year, the Finance Council brought in some consultant support to help prepare the the budget line by line and evaluate each line of the budget for the parish. He said this has helped the council put a very accurate picture of our 07-08 budget.

Anne Feaster, School Board:

The last day of school is May 25. The calendar for next year is mostly set with a few items to be confirmed. They will mostly follow the Diocese calendar for schools this year, rather than the Public School Calendar.
School will start August 15 and end May 30.
Anne also explained the Development Fund she created for the school so that parishioners and school families can support specific areas of the school and know their money is going to the project they prefer. It allows for each donation to be earmarked for any project stated by the donator.
Some common areas specified are: expansion, sports, and endowment. There are also items needed by the school listed in the school office for donators to ask about and earmark their money for.

Deb Heine, Pastoral Council & Strategic Planning  Committee:

The Pastoral Council is getting ready to elect some council members – there will be 3 openings this fall. They hope to have enough candidates to hold elections. If not, then they will follow the assignment process from last year.
There will be an open call for candidates in August and elections in September.
There is an interview process each candidate completes before the elections. Each candidate should have been an active parishioner for at least 2 years so they know the community they will represent. Then, once elected, there are monthly meetings to attend, responsibility for your area of specialty in the parish to keep a consensus of activity and information for Father Bill.