C L U S T E R C O R N E R

Bay City Southwest Cluster

St. Hedwig, Holy Trinity and St. Mary Parishes

Bay City, Michigan

CLUSTER COMMITTEE

MINUTES OF JUNE 15TH, 2005 MEETING

Present: Nona Reinsch, Bert Gohm, Rick Sochacki, Donna Rosebush (Holy Trinity)

Mitzi Brown, Jim Heller, Leo Staudacher, Don Gracey (St. Mary's)

George Thomas, JoAnn Plumpe, Robert Kiengabaum, Geri Westover (St. Hedwig's)

The meeting was called to order at 7:00 P.M. with prayer.

Reports were given by the Executive Committees:

   Bert Gohm, Holy Trinity

   George Thomas, St Hedwig's

   Don Gracey, St. Mary's

Father Bert( Holy Trinity) reported that Holy Trinity felt communications regarding events and ideas was the most important issue. He suggested we use a separate bulletin insert rather than the cluster comer.

Don Gracey (St. Mary's) talked about four issues. Joint meetings, one religious education program, a single maintenance staff, and combined teaching of the sacramental program.

George Thomas (St. Hedwig's) suggested combined religious education program, unified Masses, pooled maintenance, shared meetings and publishing Mass schedules and all activities.

We all agreed it is necessary to have common activities, common support systems, and joint meetings. The questions then became "How do we do it?"  The two obstacles we must overcome are facilities and blending various schedules along with logistics and space requirements.

Don Gracey recommended we immediately begin holding our meetings on the same night at the same place. This would include all commissions and parish & leadership councils.

George Thomas recommended these meetings be viewed as the first step toward the goal of becoming one community with one set of councils, rather than three separate communities with three council groups.

The first meeting of Joint councils and Commissions will occur on Wednesday, September 14th, @ 6:30 PM. It will be called a Parish Leadership Night. It will be preceded with a potluck dinner at 5:30, to introduce Fr. Steve Gavit and to give the council members and opportunity to get to know each other. This meeting will be held at St. Mary's.

George, Bert, Don, Leo, and Nona will meet at Holy Trinity) at 7:00 PM on July 6th to plan this event.

A cluster mission statement is beginning to take shape. We all agreed that the Cluster not the Cluster Committee develop a mission statement by asking what is best for the community, not what is best for each parish.

     Respectfully submitted by Leo Staudacher.