Meeting Minutes 1/5/00

Sister Parish Committee meetings are held the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 7 pm. in the school. Newcomers are always welcome. If you have questions, please contact any of the members of the committee.

What follows are the minutes of the Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2000 meeting.

Discussion was held on where to have the retreat this winter on the weekend of Feb. 18-20. It will not be at the Getten cabin. Under consideration are Wilder Forest, the Duluth Comfort Inn, and the Villa Marie Retreat center in Frontenac. If you are interested in going this year contact Louise by January 12th with your opinion. Louise is eidsmoel@aol.com .

Margaret presented a proposal for self study she is considering from April through May to learn Spanish and stay with a family in Guatemala. She is asking our committee to fund ½ of the expense or $675. She would also spend 3 weekends in TNII and would conduct some committee business as well as interface with the TNII youth. As a part of this request, Margaret would agree to come to SP meetings once a month and would like to see continued involvement with the youth groups. There will be no youth delegation in the year 2000. The committee agreed they all support greater collaboration with the youth and funded Margaret's request.

News on the next delegation: TNII has agreed that November of 2000 should be the time for our next delegation. The delegation will tentatively be made up of 4 TNII youth and 4 TNII adults traveling to SJA. The money from Mission Sunday will help to support the delegation.

We had one of our longest and best correspondences from TNII on Dec. 9th describing the Christmas season there. You all have had the opportunity to read that letter. It is archived at http://www.pconline.com/~sja/tn.htm .

Denis Mudderman of SP Inc. has asked each linkage to feedback on strategic plan questions he provided. The committee spent considerable time answering the 7 questions. Louise will respond to Denis with our answers. The questions involved identifying challenges, strengths, solutions, and long term visions.

Louise asked for and received feedback for priority topics to be discussed at the Northern Advisory Board meeting she and Mindy will attend on Jan. 14-16.