Division of Duties:  On one of our recent snow/sleet/ice/rain days (and we’ve had plenty of them lately), I decided to travel up to my parents’ condo to clear their driveway and put down some salt.  Amazingly, especially for a condo association filled with seniors, the association no longer puts down salt (except on the main road) and they even further limited the times they clear the driveways and sidewalks.  This gets my mom’s blood boiling quickly.  And, believe me, she makes her concerns known to the condo association.  As she often says now, “I’m old so the filter is off!”
 
Before arriving at the condo, I stopped by at their local Ace Hardware store to pick up some salt.  While I was there, I noticed they had a sale on snow shovels.  The snow shovels I have at my parents’ house are pretty old (my dad says he bought them when they got married).  I also have this huge orange wheeled five-foot long snow “shovel” thing.  It’s the weirdest contraption in the world, but it’s still hanging up in the garage.  The concept was that you would wheel this thing around and it would scoop the snow up and then you would tilt it to deposit the snow where you wanted it.  It must have been one of those “As seen on TV” specials!  So, knowing I was about to shovel their driveway and sidewalk and potentially have to deal with a bunch of ice at the same time, I noticed this one particular snow shovel and it happened to be on sale.  It was sturdy, big and it had a very sharp and durable steel blade on its base.  This was perfect!  THIS was going to make my task interesting and enjoyable.  My mantra is: “There’s a joy in doing tedious tasks if you have the proper toys tools!”  With this cool snow shovel in hand and a twenty-five-pound bag of salt, I was ready and armed to get my task done.
 
When I arrived at the condo, I got to work right away.  When I started shoveling, I was amazed with the speed and ease with which I was able to cut through the ice sitting on their driveway.  This was way too cool.  That sharp thick steel blade made all the difference in the world.  I was able to get underneath that ice, and with a simple push, it was all breaking apart with ease.  I felt like a Coast Guard Cutter breaking up ice on the Great Lakes!  My parents thought I was nuts!  But they dutifully watched me on their Nest doorbell camera from the comfort of their chairs inside.  Within an hour, I had the whole driveway, the approach, sidewalks and porch completely cleared.  I then threw down some salt and was ready to go inside and warm up to get ready for dinner.
 
Once I got inside, I raved again and again about my new shovel.  My parents humored me and agreed it was fun watching me on the camera take care of the ice and snow. We then assembled our stuff and got ready to go out for dinner.  Once inside the car, my mom started to voice her unhappiness with the condo association again.  As she was going on and on about their lack of concerns, especially with all the seniors who live there and the fact they aren’t shoveling or salting as frequently as they once were, my mom paused, turned to my dad and said, “Why aren’t you also complaining to the condo association.  Why am I always the one to call?”  Without hesitation, my dad said, “This is about a division of duties.  I’m the payer.  You’re the complainer.”
 
Let’s try that AGAIN: SJA’s Open House Rescheduled for Wednesday, February 27.  Eventually, our Open House will actually happen!  The Open House / Learning Fair will take place from 6:00 until 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 27.  Please consider stopping by to see the amazing things happening at our school.  This is also an excellent opportunity for you to bring a prospective family to show off our school.
 
Capital Campaign Update:  Following a series of unexpected issues, we were finally able to get all the pledge cards entered into our parish database system.  Again, huge kudos go to Dina Ciaffone for spending hours upon hours going through EVERY pledge card and making sure they were accurately entered into our database.  This was no easy task.  Besides not always being able to read the writing on pledge cards, we also discovered that pledge cards were being used to send in payments too.  That resulted in some duplicate pledges that got flagged as we audited everything.   It was a bit confusing, but it’s all straightened out now.  AMEN!  As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we will issue the payment reminders ourselves at the beginning of each month now.  Sending out the payment reminders and handling the processing ourselves will save us about $1,200 per month.
 
The first set of payment reminders went out this past week.  We may still need to tweak the system a bit, but at least the lions share of the work is done.  Right now, for the quarterly, semi-annual and annual givers, your payment month(s) ended up automatically being based on the date you sent in your pledge card.  So people who initiated their pledge in October and only elected to pay annually will receive subsequent payment reminders each October.  Those who pledged in November and are paying annually will be sent reminders each November.  The same could be said for those who elected to pay quarterly.  The quarterly payment months ended up being based on the date the pledge was initiated.  I hope to get statements out to all quarterly, semi-annual and annual givers to see if they wanted to modify their payment months.  This way the payment reminders will come out the months THEY want them, rather than based on the months “assigned” to them.
 
Ultimately, it would be very beneficial if more people elected to pay electronically.  Right now we have 94 families who are making their payments through OSV’s Online Giving.  It’s super easy to join, and you have quite a bit of flexibility to set up your payment options and change them whenever you wanted.  For more information about OSV’s Online Giving, please click the MAINTAINING GOD’S HOUSE button on the home page of our parish website (www.sjascs.org).
 
Enjoy the week.  Know of my prayers.
 
In Christ,
 
gmb
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