Pastor's Pen - May 1, 2016

Fr. Chuck and I are legally bound to inform you at this time of the fact that the position of parish corporate trustee/ treasurer at St. Paul Parish is open for nominations. Please read the following.

A parish trustee is an active, responsible lay parishioner who is called to serve the parish as a member of the corporate Board of Directors and acts in a leadership role as a member of the Pastoral and Finance Councils. Each parish has two lay trustees, one serves as the parish's corporate treasurer and the other as corporate secretary. Each serves a two-year term, with no limitation on the number of terms. Here at St. Paul we have staggered the terms of our trustees so that we don't have both positions vacant simultaneously. This year we will have an election for the parish trustee-treasurer. Candidates must be practicing Catholics who are parish members and who are at least 25 years of age. Each candidate must submit his/her name along with the signatures of 10 parish members who support that person’s nomination. The deadline for submission of your nomination to Fr. Chuck and myself is May 20, 2016.

The State Statutes allow the pastor to nominate one candidate in addition to those who seek their own nomination. If only one candidate is nominated, that person takes office without an election, subject to the approval of the Archbishop, the parish's corporation president. If there is more than one candidate, an election is held among those parishioners in attendance at the Masses on a particular weekend and a simple majority determines who the trustee will be.

The trustee-treasurer is responsible for parish treasury activities, including the care and custody of funds, assets, credit and insurance matters, supervision of banking and finance reports, and signing of checks. Many of the above listed tasks are managed on a day-to-day basis by the parish business manager.

If you have the basic qualifications to serve in the role as parish trustee-treasurer, please consider nominating yourself.

May the Holy Spirit move you!

Fr. Ralph