My dear Brother Knights, I hope that everyone has had a great summer and ready to once again embark on a successful year for our council and the church that we serve. 

I first want to welcome our new Pastor, and new Chaplain for our council, Fr. Daniel Bombardier.  

 

I also welcome our three newest members who attended their first degree last June; Bro. Dan Hermans, Bro. Chris Quinlan and Bro. Jason Frolow. I also welcome back Bro. John Oliver. 

 

I am now into my second year as Grand Knight. I have learned a lot in my first year and with that and the help of all members of our council I am hoping to do much more this year. We have an excellent group of men on the executive this year and I look forward to working with them and all of our whole members to do a lot of great work this year. 

We have already got off to a good start with the Strawberry Social we ran in August. We went through nine tubs of ice cream and over three flats of strawberries. From the number of parishioners who stopped for a treat and the comments received I would say that it was a success.  Thanks to all who helped make it so. 

 

We will be having a meeting of all officers and Program personnel on Wednesday Sept. 9 at 7:00pm to discuss what we want to do this fraternal year. I would encourage all members of our council with ideas to attend so that we can set the groundwork for a very successful year. 

 

We currently have 135 members in our council and while that is a pretty good number it is still a very small percentage of the eligible men in our parish.  We will likely have a “formal” membership drive at some point this year however I would suggest that our drive to increase members should be ongoing.  While it may not be reasonable to expect every man in our parish to join our council we should make it a point to at least approach each of them, explain what the Knights do and ask each of them if they are interested in joining us. The Knights is a great organization and the more members we have the more good work we can do. Look at is this way.... the more active members we have the less times I will be coming to you to help organize or work on an event! There is a first degree coming up on Monday, September 28 at Holy Family. I ask each of you to approach at least one male member of our parish and invite them to join us. If you know of someone please complete Form 100 and let me know so we can read them into the minutes of our General Meeting on Wed. Sept. 23. 

 

Lastly, with our 50th Anniversary mass coming up in early October I am hoping that we can have the top rails of all the pews refurbished for this mass.  Bishop Fabro is scheduled to be here for the mass and it would be great if we could get this done.  I have tried out a few different stains and found one that closely matches the current colour. Once I get approval from Father I will be looking for a number of volunteers to help with this. Since there are no masses scheduled for Mondays I am hoping that the 5 or six weeks we have left will be enough to get at least the majority of the pews done. 

I look forward to working with all of you on a number of projects this year. 

 

God Bless. 

 

Vivat Jesus. Bro. Tom