October 2003

Dear Brother Knights,

We held our first Knights of Columbus family picnic on September 21. I found this to be a huge success. There were approximately 45 in attendance, and we played slo-pitch as well as having a small impromptu volleyball game, a scavenger hunt, football and a well-stocked hot dog barbeque, complete with cake. I was very pleased to see all those who attended and had as much fun as I did. We owe thanks largely to Darren and David and their families as well as the phoning committee for this successful event that may become an annual activity for our council.

I currently am holding the Padre Night tickets for this year. It will be Sunday October 26, at Santa Maria Goretti parish in Edmonton. If you are interested in attending, please get in touch with me to purchase tickets, which are $35 each.

We have established a new item in the budget, pending approval of the council. It is a small subsidy intended to assist members who are joining the 4th degree. We will be able to help with some of the registration cost for a 3rd degree member to complete his initiation into knighthood by joining the 4th degree. It isn’t much, but it is something to help encourage growth in our 4th degree assembly. This would be a subsidy that would need to be reviewed and requested by the assembly, as we hope to be helping members who may need it most

As we all know, the income from bingos has slowly been ebbing away over the last couple of years. It is hard to know what will become of bingos and our participation in them at this point. Certainly, anything is possible. That means that it is as possible that bingos will become as fruitful again for us, as it is possible that they will somehow be eliminated altogether from our income as Knights of Columbus down the road. It is our position to try to become proactive regarding this uncertainty in the early stages, in order to be better prepared to handle whatever may come of it.
Our first dinner theatre will be held this month. This is being put on as a council fundraiser to help raise funding outside of our gaming funds. This means that the money raised by the dinner theatre can be dispersed of by us at our own discretion and without need of outside approval. Our hope is that this can become a successful annual fundraising project for our council. The dinner theatre we hope will be one way of getting some of our “eggs” into other baskets. There are a couple of other ideas for this being cooked up as well, but for this year we have already been successful with the dinner theatre project. We understand much better some of the logistics behind something like this, we know better what to expect for limitations and venue options, and we are getting a good idea of time commitments and simple timing as well as advertising. I would say that we have successfully set the foundation to be able to put this on annually as a program fundraiser with some level of experience, and all of this is true even before the dinner theatre actually takes place! I hope that many of you are able to take part in this in one form or another. You can contact Darren, Richard Yoner, Brian Cronk or myself if you would like to find out more about how you can help or take part in this event. Selling tickets for us will be a huge help that I am hoping some of you might be able to handle on a small scale. Find more information on the dinner theatre in this newsletter as well as the church bulletin as well as the Leduc Rep.

Something that Darren and I have been putting some thought into for the last little while is trying to establish some kind of a savings account to draw from in order to cover donations we make to funeral costs of our membership. In the past we have been making a donation to the CWL and they generally look after the lunch at a funeral. As I mentioned above, our income has been going down annually, and that also means that our budget line items have been getting cut as a result including the amount designated for this purpose. What has been brought up is that the 4th degree includes a $5 amount on their dues that goes directly into a memorial fund. At our last executive meeting we discussed the possibility of adding a $5 amount to our 3rd degree dues to accomplish this same thing. What this would mean is that we would be depositing an amount annually that is set aside, without gaming restrictions placed upon it, so it can be spent how and where we deem fit. As far as funerals go, they don’t particularly fall in and around our general meetings, so the funds need to be available on short notice for this purpose.
That also means that we need to have some kind of spending guidelines for these funds. It is not our intention to randomly spend this money on the short notice either. First of all we need to put together a committee to help establish guidelines so that the membership is aware of what is and is not available to them in these circumstances. Secondly, so that there isn’t any confusion from executive to executive on what these funds are for and how they are to be used. I am not really excited about raising dues at all, and this will be something that we will all have to talk about before we do anything, but I am less excited about the possibility of having to say no to helping out with funeral costs of our membership. Please bring your thoughts on this and if you have something to say about it, then come to the committee meeting which I am setting for October 28, to follow our executive meeting that night and to start at 8:30PM.

While I am on the subject of council dues, I find that I must make a statement on the topic of what it means to pay or not pay your dues. Every council Financial Secretary in every State has to deal with this and they all deal with it in a different way. However there are some universal truths that apply to all of them, including us.
First of all, when you pay your dues to the Leduc council, there is a portion of that which immediately goes to the State board for what is called PER CAPITA. This is a kind of tax levied to all councils. Also as a member of the Edmonton Chapter, we are billed a per capita to them as well. About 60-70% of your dues are applied to pay these bills for the council. The per capita is based on an amount per member in the council as of January 1 of each year. But also, by paying your dues, you are maintaining what is called “membership in good standing”. This offers you access to the Member Benefits of the Knights of Columbus. These are; Columbia magazine sent to you, Rosary given to new and readmitted members, mass offered for deceased members and spouses at Supreme, our stellar insurance program, annuities, accidental death coverage, orphan benefits, family fraternal life insurance benefits, a new member insurance plan offer, widow benefits, scholarships, fellowships, educational trust funds, student loans, leadership development programs, fourth degree membership, honorary life membership at the age of 70 and 25 continual years of good standing and service, Catholic Information Service literature, membership travel card offering you access to meetings and activities throughout the order, family, athletic and youth programs.
Every year there are members who are not able, or sometimes unwilling, to pay their council dues. Our job as an executive is to find out why, and if something can be done to work out or solve the problem. For the most part our Financial Secretary deals with this and is very understanding and patient. Sometimes a member just can’t pay for some reason or if there is a reason that they choose not to pay then there is usually something to be said for communicating the facts. What we eventually face is eventually suspending a member for a continued delinquency. This is not an easy decision to make. When a member is suspended, they loose all the Member Benefits and any time equity that they may have put in as a Knight. That means that our decision to suspend a member is weighed heavily and avoided if at all possible. It isn’t our goal to chase people away or make things tough on them, nor is it our intention to have Member Benefits canceled by any means.
There are obviously things that we have to do first. We are required to contact the member in question three separate times in order to try to resolve any problems and warn them of the consequences of suspension as well as our intention to follow through with that if we are unable to find some way to change the situation. This process is put in place to make sure that councils aren’t just suspending members at will.
An alternative for a member who just simply wants out of the Knights is what is called Withdrawal. This means that a member can maintain his good standing status if he ever decides to rejoin the order, as well as carrying forward any service time equity that he has put in so far. This is a kind of amicable way to leave the Knights without the ugliness of a suspension.
This year we discussed some of the issues relating to delinquency in our own council. Here is a rule of thumb that we basically used this year to determine who to deal with and how. If a member facing suspension is one we just can not get in contact with anymore, or worse, someone who refuses to reply to our continued attempts to contact them, then we will begin the process of suspension. All we are looking for, as a start, from anyone who is delinquent is that they open up some form of communication with us. It is difficult to know what is going on with a member when we just don’t hear from them. I like to think that when you join the Knights, you have joined a family of sorts. Families don’t stop loving each other, even if they don’t see eye to eye on things. As such, the council doesn’t stop wanting to include you or help you if you are behind with your dues. There are any number of compromises or solutions to these problems, if only we can make communication a two way street, and that is where things begin and end for suspensions this year.

Again I encourage you to make your voices heard politically speaking. In the United States, ACLU board members are being appointed to the Supreme Court while Christian judges are being rejected for the same appointments, seemingly based on their biased views. This is frightening when we look up here North of their borders and see our own courts dictating that Christian morals and values are unconstitutional, while rewriting laws for politicians who fear taking a stand on issues.
The homosexual marriage is seemingly now law by default, making Canada one of the most liberal countries in the world. While all this goes on, a new bill has passed Parliament. It is a private members bill regarding making sexual orientation part of what constitutes a hate crime. It is said that this was written after an MP heard about the brutal assault of a gay man based on his lifestyle. I suggest to you that this is smoke and mirrors for the real intent.
Is there any requirement to write new laws based on an assault? I hope that existing laws for assaults of any kind protect all men and women. What is the need for this new one? The new bill basically adds several words to an existing law, but comes with huge implications, not the least of which is the fact that the possibility exists now that a preacher might be prosecuted under this new hate law for relating the word of God from the Bible regarding homosexual activity. This does in fact also suggest that there may be a day when we will be using a revised version of the Bible in this country under this law.
This is how Satan works. A little bit at a time; strategically chipping away at our foundations and maneuvering his way into our laws, schools, and lives. Don’t just brush this action off again. These are the things that lull us to sleep and one day we wake up and notice strip clubs on our street, or explicit sex and violence on our TV’s. Too many of us sit and wait for someone else to do something, and then we are told that whatever it is, it is all right to do it according to our new enlightenment.
Make your voices heard. Stand up for what we know is right and true. Put your faith in God and also put your value there too. At the very least, pray for His guidance in these times of aloof disregard of His voice.

Vivat Jesus
Chris

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