April 21, 2009
A Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Defense League (CDL) was held, pursuant to notice, on April 21, 2009 in the offices of the CDL, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Present at the Meeting were the following Board Members: Pat Phillips, Ed Wollerman, Cletus Tauer, Stella Lundquist, Tom Schramer, Fr. Skluzacek, Kelly Rowe and Ray Marshall. Pat Shannon participated by telephone.
Minutes - None available.
President's Report -Newsletter. I had been sending out a sporadic newsletter. Ray Marshall will take that over. [As of 7/24/2009, Ray is doing an excellent job. I hope everyone is availing himself of this.]Membership - Dick, Ed and Pat met with Bob Kennedy re manpower for CDL activities. He had two points to make; first, we are unlikely to recruit undergrads for a variety of reasons. They are busy and tuned in on another wavelength. Second, a more likely source is from the parishes. From pastors who will recommend them, we may find young adults who are "re-establishing" their faith, and now have families, and might be receptive.
There was discussion of specific directed activity programs, which, if we held such an event, might be a source of recruits. Fr. Skluzacek added comments here. My notes include: "draw young crowd", "young married", "Fertile (grounds?)" and "needs catechesis".
Treasurer's Report - Cletus discussed a "preliminary" balance sheet. The net is that we have about $14,500 in available cash (checking and CDs). Operating Statement updated report is to be mailed out.
Miscellaneous - Cletus complained about the change in our de facto mission about 5-6 years ago in de-emphasizing education. Merlyn reiterated his caution on placing too much emphasis on electronic media, e.g. Internet, to the exclusion of others. Fr. S brought up a point about Steubenville and "Defending the Faith". However, the specific point was not recorded.
Progress - Also sometime back, the Executive Committee voted to assign the topic of marriage to the status of special project. We did follow up on that in two ways, Kathy Laird came to the office to meet with us (excellent session) and the last Defender was devoted to that topic. With the resources we have, it is not clear how much further we can take this.
Pat Phillips, Monday, July 27, 2009