SSJC-WR COMMITTEE MEETING– Minutes 2019 10 05
Holy Angels Byzantine Catholic Church
2235 Galahad Rd. San Diego, CA 92123
Present: Fr. George Morelli, Diane Alves, Mark Hartman, Anthony Porrello, Sally Provencio, Jim Trageser, Fr. James Bankston, Pastor Paul Bieber, Bob Greenwell
The meeting opened at 10:36 AM.
Opening prayer: Fr. James Bankston.
Chairman’s Report: Fr. George Morelli opened the meeting. He said that while the conference at St. Katherine’s College was moderately successful, handicapped access was a problem which should probably prevent our reusing that facility. Turnout wasn’t as high as he had hoped but was explained by time of year (June 29th during summer break).
Someone mentioned that St. Katherine’s will be moving to Chula Vista, so they might host our conference some day at their future location. For our next conference, St. Rafael in Rancho Bernardo was suggested. Msgr. Dennis will check the parish schedule to see if May 30th is available.
Vice Chairman’s Report: Fr. James Bankston didn’t have anything to add.
Secretary’s Report: I (Diane Alves) passed out copies of the previous meeting’s minutes which had also been emailed to members of the board by Fr. George. Then I asked if everyone approved the minutes. Motion to approve the minutes: Msgr. Dennis Mikulanis moved that we accept the minutes, Second: Bob Greenwell. The minutes were accepted by those present.
Treasurer’s Report: Bob Greenwell said our net income was $2.16 and the new bank balance is $2,585.13. He reported that I (Diane) had paid dues which were due in July Executive membership is $50. General membership is “any contribution.” Dues are overdue for most members who should pay ASAP. About the conference, Bob reported that Linda Grasser accepted $210 rather than $270 as reimbursement for buying sandwiches. I mentioned that I was reimbursed for bagels.
Discussion followed that we should budget for food for our next conference and possibly call in the food order the day of the conference (this time the sandwiches (too many) were ordered in advance). Secretary’s note: I’m not sure how the bank balance was reconciled considering that our reported balance was $2,382.97 at our last meeting June 1st. In the future, I think it would be best if Bob reported the balance at the previous meeting and the income and expense items/totals, then the new bank balance.
Light of the East Newsletter: Jim Trageser said the newsletter is scheduled to be available November 1st. Father George’s column is due to him in two weeks. After discussion we decided we should report on two churches in the East County. One should be the Chaldean Cathedral because of its architecture — someone volunteered to take pictures (who? Please let me know). It was mentioned that the Chaldeans also have a monastery. The other East County church should be a nearby Roman Catholic church (we didn’t discuss which one that would be). There was some discussion of whether we are doing Eastern and Western or Orthodox and Catholic categories. I suggested using three – Catholic, Orthodox, and Eastern Catholic. Jim vetoed this idea for now because two sheets of paper, eight pages is working well when we have two categories. He said we might change this in the future.
Historian’s Report: Anne was not available today for a call in. There was a question how far back we store records and where? The answer was “to 2006.” I don’t think the “where” question was answered. We did decide that the old records could be scanned to an electronic archive labeled “closed.” That might mean the paper records would then be destroyed which will have to be decided. Msgr. Dennis mentioned that Cathedral Catholic High School’s library is now electronic, but he thinks the books are stored somewhere. He asked if our records include an ecumenical and religious archive. That question wasn’t answered. Note: Our minutes from SSJC-WR since our beginning are on our website, www.lightoftheeast.org and in the website dashboard, old web pages for previous events still exist.
Website Team Report: Fr. James Bankston is our webmaster, but this time I (Diane) reported a problem I experienced when attempting to post an event on our website, the Sister Vassa talk that we were co-sponsoring with Holy Angels Church. I “fixed” the problem (including some references internal to the website) by changing http to https (Firefox’s suggestion). At the meeting I just mentioned that I hacked the website by changing URLs to https which I’m not sure was legal since we were supposed to purchase an SSL certificate.
Fr. Bankston then mentioned that he couldn’t troubleshoot or fix anything because he hasn’t even been able to see the problem which leaves me to resolve it. Note: I believe I have finally solved the problem. I will email the board about the website and the fix which hopefully works for everyone.
Old Business: Now that the conference is over, we only have new business.
New Business:
Next Conference: We discussed holding our next conference at San Rafael on May 30th or possibly and John Paul II University at an earlier date.
We also discussed our conference topic. Msgr. Dennis mentioned icons or “Icons for Dummies,” and everyone liked that idea so much that we quickly settled on it (the only competing idea was church architecture). The Timken museum in Balboa park was mentioned, I’m not sure if it has icons or church architecture exhibits or both. Someone said it has Russian Faberge eggs!
Possible speakers were discussed. Fr. Bankston mentioned Andrij Chirovsky of Tucson, a spirituality of icons scholar who is, I believe, Eastern. Another possibility is Fr. Abbot Damien Higgins of Redwood Valley, CA who does iconography workshops Is he Western? Do we really have Western iconographers? It was said that many Western Christians don’t even know what we are talking about when icons are mentioned, but icons are common in the East. Apparently Russian Cosmonauts have a chapel with icons at their launch site. Pastor Paul (Lutheran) said they have several icons in his church.
Later in our discussion, the topic was formally decided by consensus to be “The Spirituality of Icons.” We don’t know yet if we will have a workshop or what the extra costs would be in that case. The Spirituality of Icons topic was settled on by consensus, but we still need to work out the details.
Parish festivals: Jim Trageser is interested in our getting involved (a booth?) at parish festivals. Mark mentioned getting in touch with clergy? There are big festivals at Saints Constantine and Helen (Greek), St. Spiridon (Greek), St. George (Serbian), Mission San Diego de Alcala (Roman Catholic), others? I asked if we are still working with St. Paul’s Irvine (Greek). Fr. George said he would get in touch with Fr. Steve who might know some iconographers.
Clergy Conferences: Something was mentioned about clergy conferences . . .
World Youth Day: A letter from Austin Miller in July (to Msgr. Dennis?) asked if it was feasible to get involved in World Youth Day which Austin attended in Poland in 2016. Apparently, Catholics and Orthodox were represented there. Msgr. asked if youth and priests travel together? That question wasn’t answered.
Whoever received the letter from Austin should send it to Fr. George. Where and when will the next World Youth Day be held? Motion to support Austin: Fr. Bankston Second: Pastor Paul and accepted by consensus.
Next Meeting: November 9 at 10:00 at Holy Angels which will be our standard default place.
Motion to Adjourn: Mark Hartman Second: Jim Trageser
Closing Prayer: Msgr. Dennis at 11:53
Respectfully submitted by Secretary, Diane Alves