Our new bell will soon be erected on the bell tower above the Cross and Our Lady. Father had it clanged to call the meeting to order.

READ THE STORY OF ITS origin.

Father described the outline for the meeting, which began, with his stressing his need for a full time paid secretary, to serve Hope and the communities outside of Hope. Father does not have the time for secretarial tasks. Chris has volunteered her time since late July and is prepared to continue until January, in order to see if the parish is willing and able to provide the increase of parish income that would allow for a full time paid secretary.

Chris is ready to retire from her long-standing and lucrative career to give the attention necessary for a functioning parish office. As Fr. John is very busy with the Communities, he could not manage the office on top of all his pastoral works. Not to mention the visitations to homes and seniors complexes, hospitals and community organizations. All while trying to help the needy who come to the parish daily in search of aid. Other essentials that he felt must be addressed were the repairs of the basements stairs of the sacristy and a vapour barrier over the dirt filled crawl space directly under the church proper. Insulation of the roof could also provide some relief front the exorbitant heating costs. Mr. Paul Van Der Kamp volunteered to get quotes and supervise the work for the moisture barrier in the church crawl space.

New fundraiser introduction. —

Fr. John then turned the meeting over to his previous parish's secretary, Brenda Curran, at Precious Blood Parish, Cloverdale, with her husband, Joe to introduce a fund raising opportunity to our parish that has proved very successful in Cloverdale and other parishes in the Archdiocese.

The parishioners are encouraged to buy merchandise certificates for stores, which they shop, and by doing so the parish will receive a portion of each purchase as a profit.

The program was well received, and with Brenda's wonderful ability, and firsthand knowledge, she easily put everyone's questions and concerns at ease. Some of the parishioners offered substantial "interest free" up front funds to get our parish off and running on the program. Many were so excited to start that Brenda offered coupons available from Precious Blood Parish with a percentage of their profit being returned to Our Lady Of Good Hope. The ladies of the parish stepped up to volunteer their time to sell certificates after Masses and Chris will have them available for purchase in the office weekdays. We need to have a coordinator to ensure success of the fundraiser.

Then it was down to financial business.

With all the ambitious plans and prospects for the parish came the reality check from our accountant, Ken Kos. He commended us all on our tithing and told us that with our expenses and currant rate of growth we will only need to be committed to a 10% increase to see a good comfort cushion to manage our projected goal of hiring a full time secretary. Many cost cutting practices will see an even more efficient and cost wise operation of the parish administration and debt managing. A discussion ensued about liquidating certain parish assets but as Fr. John can attest to, much will depend on the decisions of the archdiocese. Some cutbacks can be put into place a.s.a.p., such as the rental property being responsible for their own utilities in the future.

A short discussion about the Christmas schedule saw a split over preferred Mass times and Fr. John will see if and how he can juggle his heavy Christmas schedule to accommodate all.

The meeting then turned toward individual volunteering for various sections of Parish life. People met in groups to offer their ideas and strategies for improving parish growth - spiritually and otherwise. Our turnout and response was commendable, however we decided another meeting to fine tune projects would be essential.

ALL agreed there was much to accomplish and All committed themselves to give back to God for all the gifts in their lives through active work and stewardship in the parish.

The meeting adjourned at 11:30 with a prayer from Fr. John and everyone left inspired to see new and exciting changes for our parish.