Recruiting with Coffee and Donuts

Recruiting new members is vital to our Council’s future success. New members bring new ideas, talent, and energy to our Council, and they help us to reflect more fully the evolving character of our community as the greater Austin area keeps growing, and new families keep pouring into Bastrop. 

Recruiting requires us to go where the men in our Parish are -- and they are at mass. But many of the men who will strengthen our Council are not alone: they are with their families! Keeping in mind that many men are unlikely to join the Knights without their family’s support, we must recruit not only men but also, in a sense, their wives and families.

 For that reason, we should look beyond the traditional membership drive as the way we recruit. We should be recruiting continuously, creating frequent family-oriented recruiting opportunities that appeal not only to strong Catholic men but to their wives and children as well!

One way we can easily create such continuous recruiting opportunities is by presenting Knights-sponsored coffee-and-donut (or other refreshment) receptions after mass, potentially after every weekend mass. Children will bring their parents to coffee-and-donuts, and wives will bring their husbands. Once there, we will have Knights at the ready with Form 100’s to welcome them, to talk about our Council, and to invite those men to join us while their families enjoy donuts and fellowship.

You may have other, even better recruiting ideas. Let me and your other Council officers hear from you!

Our 2019 Fundraising Strategy

Our council’s mission is to share the love of Christ with our community and the world through charitable works and contributions. Effective and sustainable fundraising is the only way we can succeed in achieving our mission. At the same time, our fundraising efforts should align with Ascension’s overall parish fundraising strategy. Simply put, we want to avoid “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

A big focus for Ascension this coming year is the Diocese of Austin’s Encountering Christ Capital Campaign, which aims to raise $85M. Ascension will play a crucial role in helping the diocese to achieve this goal, and we as a Council will in turn help our Parish to be a successful partner with the Diocese. Accordingly, supporting the Encountering Christ Capital Campaign will be a major focus for us in 2019. You can learn more by visiting the capital campaign website: https://www.encounteringchristcampaign.org/.

With the Capital Campaign as background, there are three things we must do. First, we need to develop our Council’s fundraising strategy and ensure it is aligned with that of the Parish. Second, we need to identify, define, and design the fundraising programs we want to run. Third, once we have defined and designed our fundraising programs, we need to execute those programs successfully.

To get things rolling, we will kick off our 2019 Fundraising Program with a Brainstorming Session on Tuesday, February 5, in Room 206 of the Religious Education building starting at 6:30 pm. Our aim will be to identify, categorize, and prioritize a large number of creative fundraising ideas. The session will be fun and exciting with a professional facilitator to help us succeed. We have reserved an excellent room with lots of seating available, so I hope many of you will join us. We need your ideas, experience, and wisdom!

New Faith in Action Programs for 2019

As many of you know, our Council offers men a place to lead their families and communities in faith and service through our Faith in Action programs. These programs fall into four categories: Faith, Family, Community and Life. In 2019, we are working with Fr Ramiro to initiate two new programs: a Knights-sponsored Holy Hour, and a Bilingual Family Prayer Night.

Knights-Sponsored Holy Hour
As part of our Faith in Action program, we will co-sponsor the Parish’s Holy Hour program in 2019. Holy Hours are scheduled for the last Thursday of each month immediately following our monthly Officer’s meeting. After the holiday season, we will be working out the details of our co-sponsorship with Deacon Paul.

Bilingual Family Prayer Night
Beginning in 2019, we will support our Faith in Action Family programs by sponsoring a quarterly Bilingual Family Prayer Night to include prayer, a pot-luck dinner, fun and fellowship. Our Family Prayer Night will aim to include both our English and Spanish families with something for everyone. Eventually, we may co-sponsor Family Prayer Night with other parish organizations to make it a monthly event.