Minutes Inglewood 4-27-13

CANFP In-Person Meeting Minutes

April 27, 2013, Inglewood, CA

Present: Lynn Keenan, Sheila St. John, Fr. Marcos Gonzales, Fr. Joseph Illo

 Meeting called to order at 9:15am

 The opening prayer was led by Father Gonzales. The minutes of the March 25 phone meeting were approved. The agenda was adopted.

1)      Membership Report Membership is up, but partly due to the sponsored seminarian memberships that were underwritten by donations. Statewide parish invoices are also at a high ($6,700, including renewals and new members, up $1150 from last year and compared with $2400 in 2005).

2)      Financial Report

2012 end of year report Annual income is up—at the highest in recent years. Nevertheless, we ran a record deficit of $5,356 due to increased expenses in three areas: $2000 one-time expense for website development, $1,900 in paper purchase for next few years, and $6000 incremental increase in Sheila’s salary. Our current available funds are $20,600. We consider a balance less than $25,000 as perilous. Discussion followed about how our level of activity and therefore expenses are rising, but our income is not keeping up with expenses. We considered various means of raising revenue.

3)      Event Planning 2013     

a.    Seminarian Workshop in Sacramento, May 20-24

b.    Seminarian Workshop in San Francisco, July 8-12

We reviewed the evaluations from the Oakland seminarian week in July 2012. Consensus was to avoid being too technical in medical topics, and eliminate environmental talk (got lowest rating from seminarians) and focus on the doctrinal and its practical applications. We discussed the advisability of speaking briefly to the pornography endemic and how it disables healthy sexual practices.  We discussed adding material on how to gently but firmly correct misunderstandings and misinformation in good-willed participants (eg, priests who think IVF is OK in some cases).

 Sheila proposed that we develop standard outlines for all these talks. We further developed Sheila’s draft outline for the San Francisco Seminarian workshop. Emphasized importance of a message from the Archbishop (taped, since he cannot be present) and presented by a trusted cleric from the Archdiocese (preferably the seminary) to win buy-in from seminarians and priests. Fr. Illo will present the priest portions.

We went over budgeting and approved a budget for the SF Clergy Workshop. We agreed to charge more for the CANFP administrative fee in order to pull in more income from these workshops, as these are becoming one of our main activities.

 c.    Clergy Workshops in San Francisco, June 12-13, and June 19-20

Similar discussion on this workshop. Fr. Gonzalez will present the priest portions.

d.    CANFP Fall Board Meeting and Outreach, October 10-11, 2013 in San Francisco. Proposed a board meeting on Oct 10 and outreach, perhaps workshop for archdiocesan school teachers and/or catechists, on Oct 11.

e.    NACFLM Conference, July 17-20, St. Louis. Should we send a representative from CANFP and perhaps become a member of the NACFLM? No definite support for this—it was thought better to focus on California than to spread ourselves too widely.

f.     LA Teachers’ Meeting, Oct 5 at the Cathedral. AB Gomez will speak on NFP and Sheila will talk on promotion of NFP.

g.    Catholic Medical Association Conference, Santa Barbara, Oct 24-26. Should we pay the $500 for a table? Consensus was yes, we should be there. Lynn will be a paying participant and can take turns manning the table. Fr. Illo will be available, and Sheila as well.

4)      Engaged Encounter  Fr. G. spoke on how EE has revised their schedule of presentations to include a talk on NFP, and is mentioned favorably in other talks (eg, the sexuality talk). Fr. G. has found that NFP meets with favorable reception, especially from the younger leadership. He usually presents a pro-NFP talk at national conferences.

 5)      Board Nominations Dr. Delgado seems less available than we need in a board member, but he would represent the San Diego area. Lynn said she needed to step down from presidency within the year, and we need a candidate (preferably a physician) for president. Areas of expertise that we need: a physician, an NFP teacher, and a business person (especially fund development). Perhaps ask around at the strong Catholic colleges in California (John Paul the Great in San Diego and Thomas Aquinas College). Several names were mentioned, and board members will ask those they know to consider the position. Sheila will reach out to our experienced physician members and invite them into dialogue regarding board service. She was advised by board to present it as an honor to serve on the board, and ask them if interested, and the level of commitment they could make, emphasizing consistent attendance at board meetings, and participating and speaking at events throughout the year.

6)      Website Update a work in progress. Assistance in writing content for any of the sections still to be completed, or reviewing content already posted, is welcome from all board members.

7)      Newsletter   Sheila distributed four final draft copies of the next newsletter, soliciting last-minute comments. It was decided we would ask Fr. Alphonsus Hermes to write the lead article for the next newsletter, and reserve Fr. Habiger for next year.

 Fr. Illo had to leave at 3pm, and suspects the closing prayer was led by Fr. Gonzales and the meeting concluded around 4pm.

Respectfully submitted by Father Joseph Illo, for Father Blaise Berg, Secretary.
April 27, 2013