Tech Problems on New Year’s Eve:  The setting was New Year’s Eve at Jackie and Lonnie’s house.  This was Jackie and Lonnie’s first Christmas in their new home and very inch of that house was decked out for Christmas.  I’m sure Lonnie couldn’t figure out if he was living in Warren or up in Frankenmuth!
 
At one point in the evening, after chowing down the food and snacks, we started recalling how we’ve often talked in years past about watching the fake Netflix countdown they do for younger families and then call it a night.  I’ve heard of this Netflix fake countdown before and I have to admit it’s a pretty nifty idea.  This way, younger kids can feel like they’re part of the official countdown to the New Year before they head off to bed.  It may be a nifty idea, but what’s this world coming too? We have fake countdowns to the New Year and we celebrate Midnight Mass at 10 p.m.!  Good heavens!
 
As the reminiscing continued about watching the fake countdown, someone (actually I think it was my mom) finally said, “Well, let’s stop talking about it and just do it.”  Within seconds the tired crowd perked up and momentum was growing to clean up the cozy basement, get the sparkling apple cider out, push the remote starts on all of our cars and find that Netflix countdown.  Jackie was dumbfounded.  She looked like a deer in headlights.  She was speechless and frozen for a few seconds but then spoke up:  “Are you serious?  You’ve got to be kidding.  Are we REALLY going to end this party now?  What about all the stuff I made?  I must throw some awesome party!”  I think some were so excited about leaving early and finishing before midnight that things were already being taken upstairs to the kitchen before Jackie could even finish her thoughts.  She finally gave in and the tired crowd sprang into full action knowing that waiting for midnight wasn’t going to be in the plans for this year’s party.  It was amazing how fast the basement and kitchen got cleaned.  As many were cleaning the kitchen, my task was to find that Netflix countdown video.  Surprise, surprise, but I was having some tech issues getting this all set up.  As the crowd assembled in the living room and it was now obvious I was having issues and was being stubborn in not wanting to give up, my brother-in-law Jim said with a laugh, “At this rate we may still be here until midnight.”  I rolled my eyes and realized I had to give in.  So I went onto YouTube and found the countdown from Tokyo that had been recorded earlier (Tokyo is 14 hours ahead of Detroit).  Since I didn’t know how long this clip was, I had to fast forward and reverse it multiple times to get it to the 5 minute mark.  There we sat … the whole crowd … watching this countdown from Tokyo and not understanding a single thing they were saying.  All we could understand is the small digital countdown timer on the corner of the screen.  It was pretty funny.  We had our sparkling apple cider in hand.  Coats were being assembled.  Cars were getting their signals to start remotely.  All was set … just a typical New Year’s Eve but just an hour and a half earlier.  Then, the countdown came.  It was “officially” 2019 at 10:35 p.m.  Glasses clinked.  Sips were taken.  Cheers were made.  High 5s were given.  Hugs were exchanged.  Coats were put on.  We were then out the door.  Yikes, this is absolute proof we are old.
 
SJA School Open House/Learning Fair Rescheduled to Wednesday, February 6:  The Open House/Learning Fair that was to take place this past week was rescheduled to this coming Wednesday, February 6, 2019, from 6:00 until 8:00 p.m.  It was rescheduled because of the closings that took place last week as a result of the extreme wind chills.
 
The Open House/Learning Fair is a great opportunity for you or prospective new school families to come and see the amazing things being accomplished at our school.  Speaking of prospective new school families, WE become the most important advertisers of the school.  We can send and/or post all kinds of print or social media about the school but the most effective form of advertising comes from US and OUR word of mouth.  Let’s do all that we can to promote the amazing things being accomplished at St. Joan of Arc School.
 
Maintaining God’s House / Capital Campaign Update:  Because of a variety of reasons (technology issues being one of them) we are a bit behind in providing you with a capital campaign update.  We had difficulties uploading all of the pledge cards into ParishSoft (our parish census and contribution system).  Even though Our Sunday Visitor provided us with an Excel file with all the information, we could not upload it into our system easily.  We tried.  So, God bless Dina Ciaffone, our business manager, for undertaking the tedious task of keying in all the information from the pledge cards into our system.  With this work almost done, we will soon be able to provide an update as well as produce invoices for those who requested them for their selected term payments.  The plan had been for OSV to handle the invoice and payment redemption part of the campaign but the cost ended up being $1,200 per month.  We decided we could handle this in the office once we got the information entered into our system.  We didn’t anticipate this added clerical/administrative redemption task, so it has just taken us a bit longer than anticipated to get ourselves organized (it was worth the wait considering how much we would save over the course of the campaign).  For those who are already sending payments without invoice statements on their pledges, I thank you!  We will also soon provide further information about paying electronically to all those who requested the information.  So, stay tuned.
 
One item I can report on is that with the payments that have already been made, we have paid off our 2018 CSA!  Now, everything received beyond our CSA goal ($232,664) gets transferred to our savings as a “refund.”  Based on payments made thus far, we have received a “refund” of $116,761.  This amount has been transferred as a payment toward our loan for the roof project, thus bringing the loan balance down to $228,020.
 
Enjoy the week.  Know of my prayers.
 
In Christ,
 
gmb
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