To: Our Worthy Alberta State Deputy June 30, 2003

Dear Worthy State Deputy,

I hope that this letter finds you well and ready to charge ahead with a new Columbian year. I would like to share a couple of things with you that our council was lucky enough to be blessed with this past year.

First of all, we celebrated our council’s 25th anniversary on June 21. I think it was an enjoyable night for all.

Secondly it is my great pleasure to point out that we were blessed with five new babies and two more on the way in July, to members of our council. This is particularly special for the council because many of the fathers are members of our executive board or else program directors. In December my FS Richard Yoner welcomed another new grandchild to his family, and the father is also a new member of the council. Following that another of Bro. Yoner’s sons, Troy Yoner our council recorder and youth director, saw the arrival of another baby in February. Eight days later our Deputy Grand Knight, Darren Allen and his wife had a new baby girl, followed another eight days later by my own new addition on March 10th. Roughly five weeks past this our family director, David Allen, who is also the brother of our DGK, brought his wife in to deliver their new baby boy.

We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of babies from the families of our Church director Craig and Corrine Keller, and our prospective new membership director Greg and Karla Bird. It is our plan to bring all the happy new families together for a family photo to send in to you at State and to Supreme as well. We felt that it was an interesting way to point out the young ages of some of our more involved members.

We also revamped the Family of the month and Knight of the month programs within our council this year. Having a uniquely young wave of new members joining the council in Leduc, we felt that it may serve more of a purpose to bring the two programs together and use it to highlight a family that maybe is not well known, new to the group or the parish even, or maybe just a little bit shy. We designed it to help reinforce the sense of community within our parish and help to introduce people to each other as well as inviting them to get more involved. What we did, in a nutshell, was to have our family director (David Allen) select a member who was new to the council, and do a little interview write up about them. Accompanying this were some family pictures that we would display on a large panel in time for the monthly pancake breakfast in the church, as well as in our newsletter. At the end of each write up you are invited by David to approach these folks the next time that you see them and introduce yourself to them. Also we are all encouraged to personally invite them out to whatever functions are going on within the parish.

I would very much like to say that this seems to have become a resounding success, as approximately 90% of the selected families have proven to become quite involved with our parish in one way or another. Many members are in a high percentage of attendance and volunteering within the council activities. It is my opinion that this may be worth investigating as a State program in the future for those councils who may have not already done this. I found that it was more than a little difficult to try to pick out special families and knights for each month in following the program as laid out by Supreme. In fact it seemed to have become more of an inconvenience than something with value backing it. Our little adjustment has made it a viable and valuable program for us. And it is totally free, which is another thing that we didn’t know quite how to address with the old version. Should we be maybe giving the family of the month a free dinner somewhere or a little gift of gratitude? Now we give them a free pancake breakfast, and the value of the program is in creating community strength as well as family bonds within our parish.

Our membership goals this year were to not focus so much on information sessions and recruitment drives, but to instead work on making the Knights of Columbus in our community, a group that truly lived up to having something for everyone. We felt that if we could breath some new life into our programs and activities, that this would create an attitude within the council again that this was something to be proud of and that in turn this would attract new membership. Our quota for membership this year was 7. We recruited 12 this year. Unfortunately we also felt the need to deal with delinquent membership as this is an issue that has been somewhat avoided for a while. We had six members sign withdrawals at the beginning of the year and that brought our recruitment numbers down to 6 total. As an executive, we all understood what we would be in for when we dealt with the withdrawals and so really the surprise is not that we are one short, but that we were even close to quota at all.

Further to this, our program initiatives are based on the recruitment/retention cycle. Our recruitment will naturally increase if our retention is solid for the right reasons and not just because of the numbers. This means that some of the delinquent members that have maybe let things go because of lack of interest or reasons of that type, may in fact decide to instead of signing withdrawals in the new year, make an effort to clear things up and possibly even get involved again when they see the good things being accomplished by the council in a practical and down to earth manner. This is my great hope anyway. It all comes from one of last years withdrawals telling me that he was leaving because the Knights really weren’t what he was looking for or thought they were. This was a case of an arm twisted into joining, becoming a disappointed member leaving for better things. I try to inform them all when they join that there is something for everyone, but no one will bring it to you and put it on your lap. You must go out and find it. Our order is endless opportunity, but no plan, program or idea moves itself, and therefore it requires you as a new member to take it on when you find the right one for you, and carry it to fruition.

Finally I would like to report to you on an event that we in Leduc suffered this year. As other councils have had, we had a member fighting Cancer. Bro. John. He was a young retiree from the Edmonton police force, and worked as a carpenter from home. Two years ago, his family suffered the loss of one of their two daughters to Cancer as well. When his condition was brought to my attention as GK, I was ashamed to admit that I had never formally met him or his family yet. Another council member lived across the street from Bro. John and served as my connection to the progression of the illness. I learned that they got together with other neighbors twice a day to pray the Rosary with him and his family. I felt that I would like to come and pray with them. Then it occurred to me that maybe we could get a group of council members to come by one night to pray outside in Bro. John’s front yard. When I suggested this, the group came back to me with a larger idea. Their hope was to schedule and work out a 40-hour prayer vigil for him, to be held in his garage, so that he might be able to come out and join us if he was up to it.

So we set out to book time slots for the 40 hours. It was to be held over Easter weekend and so we ran into some issues with people being already committed to other things. I was afraid that we might not be able to find enough people at first to fill the schedule of 2 per hour minimum. But it wasn’t long before I discovered differently. I would estimate that of the 80 man-hours of prayer we needed to schedule, we filled approximately 120 –140 total, including those who committed to praying from wherever they would be. It turned out to be a busy and successful event to plan. Bro. John was too sick to be with us and in fact he spent that weekend in the hospital, but news of our efforts made it to him regularly. I was fortunate enough to be invited to go and share in a Rosary prayer with his group of family and friends one afternoon following this, and I was lucky enough to meet this special man.

Bro. John died on April 25 in the hospital in Leduc. His family and prayer group were very effected by the efforts made by the community and the Knights of Columbus. For me it was a real eye opener and I found the desire to address the facts in my report in our newsletter. I mentioned the fact that when we pray, it is in fact God’s will that we are praying for and not for a miracle contrary to that. If it was God’s will that Bro. John come home to Him, then we should all feel grateful and happy for the success of our vigil. I also suggested to them all that maybe it was God’s will that Bro. John’s last task would be to bring together a huge group of His children and start something very good. Our loss as a family, community and parish is also our gain in this extra special gift from God through Bro. John and his family.

Subsequently, more of the prayer group of neighbors has joined the Knights of Columbus. Three in fact and two more on the way in.

In closing, I want to thank you for all your support and patience with myself and our council this past year. My intent in writing to you was to share with you what I feel to be the part of the order that I truly value the most as well as maybe some insight into what may have been a somewhat confusing year when you looked into our council this year. I didn’t feel that any of the forms that we submit could truly reflect the importance of the things that we did accomplish this past year and I wanted to share our success with you. Hopefully it finds in you all the same cherished treasure that it finds in me.

Sincerely

Christopher Carr
Grand Knight
Fr. Leduc Council #7061

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