President's Message

President’s message – 2006 Western Region meeting

Andy Saavedra, our next President, Scott Mather, St. Vincent de Paul Center for Community Reconciliation Director, Sue Hartmann, and I attended the meeting in San Rafael last week. The theme was "Building Bridges."

We heard an address by the National president, Joe Flannigan. He described the National Twinning program in much larger terms. There no longer is a National Twinning Committee. Councils still have Twinning Committees. The National level will have Task Forces to address issues. The new categories of Twinning are; Project, Disaster, Formation, Cluster, and Stores.
Project Twinning for example includes a farming project in panama where they have 20 CMs, as well as other projects in Haiti and Mexico. The President is considering assigning specific regions of the US to specific areas of the Western hemisphere. Europe would take care of Africa, etc. For example, the Panama project might be the responsibility of the South Central region, and Mexico, the Western region.

An example of the Disaster Twinning is what we did for Katrina; Formation twinning is where we share the training skills of the formators; Stores Twinning is where we help stores in difficulty before they are stores in trouble.

There were workshops every day. Some of those we attended were:

Financial Responsibility - were we discussed internal financial controls and oversight, and the need for an Audit Committee, budgets, and the Finance Committee. We discussed the composition of the Board, and determined that only the president and officers must be Vincentians and Catholic, while it is permissible for the other board members not to be Catholic when specific skills are required. This was a surprise to me. However, this was confirmed at a later meeting (Board). There are some local options to do more than is "permissible." So far, we in Orange have chosen to have Catholics for all board members and at least half with prior Vincentian experience. However, as the number of Vincentians who would consider a board assignment dwindles, we may have to admit non-Catholics.

Homeless - There was a panel of five homeless men and a women and a chaplain. Each spoke of their circumstance and why some want to stay on the street. Many have learned to help and protect each other. What they ask of us is for help in transition for those who want to leave the streets. Some of this would be life skills. Many cannot stand following rules. One of the questions asked was, "how do you set limits to giving when the person keeps asking for money, and I give it?" The homeless people answered that that is up to you. They would understand and find help within the homeless.

Restorative Justice - There were three sessions, including a visit to San Quentin. At the first session we received preparation for the visit, and had a talk by a prison chaplain. He said that he and others were working with some inmates on a plan to define what the inmates see as solutions to many of the problems with the prison system in California. This plan, "Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A response and implementation plan," written by the Our Lady of the Rosary, San Quentin Catholic Chapel Interfaith Round Table (prisoners) was addressed to the California Catholic Conferences. The second session was the actual visit to San Quentin. We read the bishops' pastoral, "Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration" prior to our visit. Once there, we met about 20 inmates, all serving term-life sentences. They were all very friendly. We met in the Catholic Chapel (seats about 300). Several of them made presentations of sections of their implementation plan. Afterwards, we mingled some more. We were told that we could ask any question. I will make no judgments here, but the larger share of San Quentin's 7,000 person population were not afforded the same freedom, and the one I engaged said that prisons were necessary, and that this was not a safe place. The third session was a recap of the prison session. Sr. Marguerite from St. Catherine's Shelter for women in San Mateo and Scott Mather gave talks on their programs. After Scott spoke one of the active San Quentin volunteers said that Scott's programs addressed many of the issues in the inmates document. It was noted that the state does not pay for any of the rehabilitation opportunities, and that there are 600 volunteers at the prison.

Formation - Gary Flinders, the leader of the Western Region Formator group, gave a summary of the program and presented an unapproved proposal from Phoenix to make the Phoenix site available for a five-day formator training session.

Board formation and responsibilities - Bill Hallerman described the responsibilities of the officers. He noted that the approved rule, and the approved model bylaws are on the www.svdpusa.org web site. Our bylaws committee will be reviewing the bylaws to make adjustments for Orange County. He also spoke about:

• The John Carver book, "Reinventing your board" where
• Meetings and agendas
• The executive committee
• Board training

The Vision of Frederic – Sr. Kiernan provided insights into Frederic’s vision. She also had us build a timeline to identify those who shaped us in a positive way in our lives. She also said:

• We live our lives forward, but understand them backward.
• We learn more from sermons we see than those we hear
• "The love of God is inventive to infinity" SVdP.

Keynote address - Fr. Paul Perry gave an animated talk on the theme of the meeting, " Building Bridges ," and some suggestions on how to do that. Some of the things that caught me were:

• Jesus Christ yesterday, today and forever
• Give blood
• Say thank you
• Learn Spanish
• We do not think ourselves into a new way of living, we live our way into a new way of thinking
• Life is short, death is certain, what are you doing about it?
• What gives you hope?

Business meeting - The following items were presented at the Western Region Business meeting:

Sr. Kiernan - Serving in Hope can be done once/month, or as a Saturday retreat. She recommended that we talk about how we were affected by our visit when we meet to discuss the visits.

A representative from Billings, MT invited us all to their meeting in June 2007. He also spoke of a project where they manage the Social Security money for people unable to do so.

It was announce that a Voice of the Poor CD is available so Conferences can review what VOP committees do.

Steve Jenkins introduced a "Jubilarian program to honor "retired" Vincentians. Later Steve discussed the Mexican National office for SVDP. Apparently there is only one person in it, and funding is necessary to make it work.

Ben mentioned that a Stores group is working to form a Committee to help stores in trouble.

General Assembly - Roger Playwin, our National Executive Director, stated that the Rule was approved in May 2006, and that Module V of "Serving in Hope" will be about the Rule. In addition, Module V will have a supplement that is the entire Rule (all parts). There are 51 Rule statements in Part 1, 75 statutes in Part 2 (International Statutes), and 31 statutes in Part 3 (Statutes for the USA ). He also said that we need a culture of continuous learning. Then he addressed the non-profit status of the Society. One of the most important points was " If what we do is so special - and everyone agrees it is, then it is worth doing well - all of it, not just the part that gives a joy and satisfaction." This was meant to address the paperwork required to keep us within the laws of the United States. A quick summary of his talk follows:

Non-Profit Status:

• All Councils derive their status from the Catholic Directory
• In 1999 the National Council of Catholic Bishops were advised by their legal people to make changes
• The NCCB decided that if they do not control it, they should not retain it (in our case SVDP) in the Catholic Directory for non-profit status, thus we would have to apply for a separate status, and bring all the Conferences under the Council EIN.
• The Bishops can decide the timing of action, but there could be new laws that require similar action, and we do not want to be rushing at the last minute.
• In June we expect a new document from the BCCB to the Bishops to encourage them to act.
• The Bishops will help us
• Senator Grassley's committee, who brought us the new treatment for auto donations, thinks most people are crooks.

Some other highlights -

• We visited Sacred Heart Cathedral School for a simple supper (soup and bread). On the way back to the hotel, we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.
• We attended a play by the "Seldom Seen," a homeless group. The play was called "Sleeping.It's a wake up call." They presented some original acts and poems, and some read others' works.
• We attended Mass with Archbishop Niederuer at the Viasna Winery on Saturday.

All in all it was a very spiritual, educational, informative and enjoyable meeting. We will see you all in Billings next year!