KOFC – Council 11091 Newsletter
Brother Knights!
The summer has gotten hotter and the world has gotten crazier. We are all hoping and praying that this pandemic will end soon. Hopefully, it will but we need to move forward with or without cooperation of the virus.
Our Knight of the Universe Ken Prigge organized another outstanding tailgate party July 26th. The pork was succulent, the steaks were magnificent, the shrimp were fabulous, and the Italian sausages were “bellissimo”. Even more importantly, everyone was able to see each other in a safe, distanced setting. We’ve been told that the diocese has decided not to allow this type of event for the time being. If this restriction is lifted before the end of the summer, we’ll try to host another one.
I attended a DD/GK meeting in Rockford the last Saturday in July. I learned a lot about my new role and about how dedicated the senior leadership in the state are. While I was complaining about attending just 1 Saturday, they are training the new groups of DD’s and GK’s for 7 summer Saturdays in a row to make sure everyone around the state is educated. Very impressive dedication and I was happy to be a part of it.
The big concern that they shared with us from bishops was that “the American family has gotten out of the habit of attending mass and that the Knights need to help with this”. I think that we need to start planning for the next big step in the opening of the church. When that happens, I think that we need to host a back to church weekend. We set up grills in between the church and McDonnell Hall and offer free food and beverage to everyone after each of the masses. Maybe we’ll do breakfast for the morning masses and grill after the afternoon masses. We need to make a big deal out of it and let everyone in the parish know. We need to start planning for this so that we are ready when it happens. I’m looking for a chairman for this.
For our August general meeting, we will return to in-person meetings for those of you who want to come to McDonnell Hall. We’ll also stream the meeting to those of you who aren’t comfortable or simply can’t attend in person. We will be discussing and voting on the proposal to help the parish with the purchase of the cameras. Call up a fellow Knight who hasn’t been involved lately and ask them to attend.
In our Help Wanted section at the end of the newsletter, we are looking for someone to head up the Manpower Projects. On Saturday, August 8th at 8:00am, I’d like to hold the first of these. We’ll be doing some work in and around our McGivney building as well as some woodworking on the Christmas tree lot trailer and tree racks. We had been targeting doing a degree on August 9th, we are going to need more time to plan and advertise it. We are going to push this off until September or October. We are looking for ideas to keep up our great work during the pandemic. Let me know if you have ideas for what we can do.
A couple of months ago, it was announced that Father McGivney is going to be beatified. The date was recently announced to be October 31st. The mass will be held in his native Connecticut. Beatification is the third step out of four steps of declaring someone a saint. It requires two important virtues of heroism and miraculous power.
Vivat Jesus!
Dave Frendreiss
GK Council 11091
