St. Mary/St. James

Planning Advisory Committee

Minutes of June 9, 2004

The meeting was called to order at 7:05 p.m. by Gary Loertscher.

Members present were:

Gary Loertscher, Bob Hoffman, Ann Legris, Joe Donlin, Carla Wolf, Jerry Ziegler, Doug Waelti, Tim Blair, Carol Eberhardy, Jerry Jansen, Barb Wachter, Jerry Remy, Mike Warmuth, Jerry Rabas, Rick Francois, and Jim Kniffin.

An update on the pledge campaign was presented.

· The goal of $1.75 million has been reached; pledges are still being received and an additional significant amount could be garnered

· Phoenix will have final results in 2-3 weeks

· $340,000 in cash has been received

· 399 families have made pledges; 168 have not

· Phoenix indicates that an average of 94-96% of pledges are eventually collected

· Both the "special gifts" and "parish family" campaigns have been successful

Pledge campaign leaders indicated:

· Response was positive

· Two concerns were "scale of plan" and "the yes/no vote"

· Was a good decision to hire a professional fundraiser, viewed as thorough and professional

· Concerns that Phoenix did not adequately follow through at times and pledge packet was confusing; suggested that Phoenix do a follow-up survey with campaign volunteers

Success of the campaign puts us in the position of:

· Being able to start the building project soon

· Looking at different approaches to completing the project including the possibility of not having to do it in phases.

For the next meeting, the Building and Grounds Committee will prepare a report indicating:

· Future trend of construction/materials cost

· Pros and cons of doing the entire project with understanding that property would have to be liquidated and money borrowed

· Pros and cons of doing the project in phases

For the next meeting, the Finance Committee will prepare a report indicating:

· Options for investing the money that is collected

· Future trend of the "cost of borrowing money" and options for borrowing

Setting future direction includes:

· Exploring the possibility of combining the two parish councils

· Coordination role of the Planning Committee in the building process

· Summarizing the final results of the pledge campaign including "service pledges"

· Pursue acquisition of additional acreage

· Look at how computerization will be utilized in the building process

Discussion was held about how to handle donations for specific physical features of the new building:

· Several of these have been received

· Be careful not to "open a can of worms" by allowing donors to provide input in selection and design of building features

· Wall of recognition or personalized paving stones might be a possibility

· John Buscemi is a resource for us in advising how to handle this

· Some concerns about the list distributed during the pledge campaign - altar should not be on the list; piano/organ look expensive; the Planning Committee will make decisions about these items as we proceed through the design and building process

The next Planning Advisory Committee meeting will be on Monday, July 12, 2004. The committee will meet at 7:00 p.m. to hear the two subcommittee reports. At 7:30 p.m. the Planning Committee will meet with both parish councils.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:15 p.m.

Note:

· Thanks to all of the pledge campaign chairpersons and volunteers whose dedicated efforts led the way for the success of the campaign

· Thanks to Carla Wolf for taking care of the collection and recording of the donations and pledges; thanks to Tom Wolf for developing the computer program to get the job done