Meeting Minutes

July 14, 2010

In attendance: John Gravagna (co-chair), Brenda Schulze (co-chair), Matt Mohlman, Thomas Youn, Dania D'Achille, Robert McDonough, Zulma Ocampo, Lara Brislin, Brian Masterson, Lisa Pauletto (JB Manager)

Brian opened the meeting at 7:05 with a prayer, and the committee introduced themselves.

Summer Scavenger Hunt and Social Event
The committee discussed the low turnout for the scavenger hunt set to take place on Saturday, July 31st.  There are currently 3 people registered on the Evite.  Everyone agreed that they would need at least 12 people (3 teams of 4) to go ahead with the event.  Many ideas were generated to increase participation in the hunt.  Dania mentioned that she was planning to attend and bring two friends along.  She is also going to reach out to local parishes to see if we can get any publicity in the next parish bulletin to get the word out about the event.  Lisa is going to put the event on facebook so that the committee can try to get their friends to come.  Lisa will also look into sharing the information with YAM, Charis, and Chicago Catholic Singles.  It will be publicized in the weekly update this week as well.  The committee is going to work hard and the co-chairs will check in on July 23rd, one week before the event, to see if we have an increase in participation.  A re-evaluation of the event will be completed at that time.   

Theology-on-Tap
This Sunday, July 18th we will head to Holy Name Cathedral for Theology on Tap -- 5:15pm Mass, 6:15pm Social, and at 7:00pm we will support Father Michael Boland as he speaks to young adults about “What a Difference Making a Difference Makes.” We will meet on the steps outside the Cathedral at 5:00pm so we can all sit together.  The committee discussed attending at least one more TOT session as a group.  Lisa suggested Father Cusick’s discussion on the Mass structure.  The committee seemed interested in this, and marked their calendars for Tuesday, July 27th at St. Gregory the Great in Rogers Park at 6:30.  Brenda is going to look for another session for the first week of August, which is the final week of TOT. 

Fall Faith Retreat, September 17-19th
The retreat weekend was recapped – Friday, Saturday, Sunday at Murray Hill retreat center in Culver, Indiana. Lisa announced that Jeff Simms has agreed to lead the retreat with Father Wayne.  A couple committee members reiterated the importance of having the leader of the retreat present for the entire weekend.  The committee would like to run a slideshow of Retreat pictures at the General Meeting, as well as have someone talk briefly about it, and pass out flyers. Lisa is going to try to have registration open by July 29th so people can register at the meeting. 

Cardinal George, Q & A, October 14th
John, Brenda and Lisa are meeting with Father Boland to discuss the details of this evening on Monday, July 19th, but Lisa opened the floor to any ideas and questions from the committee.  Brian suggested that a few people should read his book so we can have some questions related to it to ask him at the event.  Brenda mentioned that it is operative that we sell his books at the event as well.  Lisa asked the committee their opinion on formal invitations, and the consensus was that we send out formal invitations (similar to the Evening of Reflection invites) to all Junior Board and BOA members.  These invites should go out at the end of August.  Lisa is also going to check on the time frame we expect the Cardinal to be at CC on this date.  John, Brenda, and Lisa will report back after their meeting with Father Boland.

Mass-N-Dinner-N-Dancing!
John and Brenda updated the committee that Father Wayne suggested we have our event with his parish on a Sunday evening, and pair with dinner in the area and a dance lesson at the church.  They have a connection with a dance instructor who will come to the parish that evening and teach a dance lesson! The committee agreed on a tentative date of October 24th at the 5:30pm mass at St. John Berchmans.  John is going to check on this date with Father Wayne and report back.  Dania suggested looking for a local restaurant that might be willing to donate dinner to this event.  The committee agreed to keep the invites to the Junior Board and young adults from St. John Berchmans.

New Faith Building Series
The last few Faith committee meetings, the group has discussed several suggestions for a new series to introduce (probably after the New Year) as well as other options for Mass-N-Brunch speakers.  The ideas from the last few meetings are listed here. In addition, Lara offered to put together a few solid ideas for speaker series using these lists.  The committee made the goal to have a speaker series lined up by the end of the next Faith Committee meeting.  Here are the current ideas on the table:

• Ways to Pray
• Father Paul Stein and a series on Meditation and Prayer
• Taize Prayer
• Ignatian Spirituality
• Moment by Moment
• Prayer through Music
• Developing prayer groups
• Researching neighborhoods and grouping individual by location to form small prayer groups
• Investigating speakers from Catholic Theological Union
• Speakers
• Father Barron and Word on Fire
• Speaker on Chastity
• Speaker on “How far would you go for your faith” – martyrdom, etc.
• Father Frank Hoffman (Father Rocky) at Relevant Radio
• Father Nicholas Federspiel – exorcism
• Father Thomas Aschenbrener

Upcoming Events/Meetings

The committee set another meeting date on Thursday, September 9th.

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:25pm.