DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ENDS

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1 Website: November 2009 Rector: The Reverend Bradley C. Dyche Priest Associate: The Rev. Dr. Beth Glover Deacons: The Rev. Deacon Keith McKenna The Rev. Deacon Sharon Manning-Lew St. Augustine s Episcopal Church 6 Old Post Road North, Croton on Hudson, NY (Office) November All Saints Day, The Rev. Dr. Beth Glover officiating DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ENDS 9:45 a.m. Coffee Hour 10:30 a.m. Children s Service 2 Monday 7:30 p.m. Outreach Committee Meeting 8 The Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost, Elizabeth Hoffman preaching 9:45 a.m. Coffee Hour 10:15 a.m. Sunday School begins 10:30 a.m. Rite II with music 11:00 a.m. Sunday School ends, children join service 15 The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Stewardship, Father Brad preaching 10:15 a.m. Sunday School begins 10:30 a.m. Rite II with music 11:10 a.m. Sunday School ends, children join service 18 Wednesday 7:45 p.m. Vestry Meeting 21 Saturday 8 a.m. 4 p.m. Diocesan Convention 22 The Feast of Christ the King, Stewardship/Commitment Sunday 9:45 a.m. Stewardship Brunch, please bring dish to share 10:15 a.m. Sunday School begins 10:30 a.m. Rite II with music 11:10 a.m. Sunday School ends, children join service 26/27 Thurs - Friday Thanksgiving Holiday, Office Closed 29 The First Sunday of Advent 9:45 a.m. Coffee Hour 10:15 a.m. Sunday School begins 10:30 a.m. Rite II with music 11:00 a.m. Sunday School ends, children join service

2 From the Rector, October 2009 Happy Anniversary?! This month, we celebrate an important one-year anniversary in the life of St. Augustine s. We have survived a full year post Recession! A year ago, we were in a spending freeze, unable to pay even our monthly bills. We were anticipating serious pay cuts for every staff member. And upwards of 15 percent of our households were unemployed in some form or another. We were facing an economic squall. It is not a happy anniversary, and yet, I believe that it is one worth remembering. It is not so much that I want to dwell on bad times. I most assuredly do not want to ruminate in the fact that, for many of us, nothing much has changed. But I still want to celebrate. In fact, I want to say that again. Let s celebrate! Pour the Veuve Cliquot champagne everyone because I want to honor what we have done and accomplished together in the past year. I want to thank God that our Christian family is still mostly intact and that we have been good to one another. I want to celebrate that we re still standing and caring! I know that we are not out of the woods. I honor that many of us still feel like we re in the depths of Good Friday. But still. Let us honor that we have put one foot in front of the other. Let us honor that we have been good to one another. Let us pause and celebrate life (L chiam). Alright, perhaps, I have been hasty in cracking the French champagne. Perhaps, we should settle for some nice, more economical sparkling cider. But the sentiment is the same. This is an anniversary worth celebrating. After all, just as much as we honor happy anniversaries, we often need to commemorate difficult ones. The assassination of John F. Kennedy and Pearl Harbor are only a few. And like those, this anniversary is bittersweet. But at least this one involves celebration, because we can at least toast to the fact that we have been more to each other than ever before. We have cared, loved, and shared more. who have best exemplified God s love and peace. We celebrate people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Harriet Tubman. We honor them. We toast them. We say that these people were God s hands in the world. We proclaim that we want to be like them. And this year, I hope that we also honor one another. You have kept us afloat. You have kept one another afloat. In light of those two anniversaries, our Stewardship theme this year comes from the book of Ruth. Ruth is the perfect model and Saint for us to uphold after our difficult year. When Ruth s husband and Father-in-Law died, she did not abandon her Mother-in-Law, Naomi. She had every right to walk away, but instead, she demonstrated God s love. She stayed with Naomi. She uttered these famous words, Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." And this should be our mantra for Stewardship and our time at church. After all, Stewardship Season is the time of year when we talk about the gifts we have been given in this life, and our responsibility to share those with others and our community. We also talk about our goals for the coming year. And Ruth and Naomi s love for one another is the perfect model for that stewardship. I realize that this year, like last year, is a difficult time to talk about stewardship. It is difficult for us too, to talk about how to support the life of the church both financially and in other ways. And yet, in light of these anniversaries, I hope that our response is more like Yes we can! Because in many ways, we already have. And I am thankful to be a part of it, and to share this journey with you. And I hope that you will celebrate with me. I hope that we can be like Ruth to one another. Happy Anniversary! God s peace, As I write, we are preparing for All Saints Day, which is another important church anniversary. On All Saints Day, we remember those of our world

3 St. A s website The website is a valuable resource when you have a question or are planning the week. There is a parishioner s only link. Here you can find schedules, current and past Bellringers, the current parishioner directory, etc. This is the link: Book Group Bookgroup: The next meeting will be Sunday, November 15th. We will be discussing IN THE EYE OF THE STORM: SWEPT TO THE CENTER BY GOD, written by Gene Robinson. Gene Robinson is bishop of the tiny, rural Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, but he's at the center of a storm of controversy raging in the Episcopal Church and throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion involving homosexuality, the priesthood, and the future of the Communion. This book offers an honest, thoughtful portrait of Robinson, the faith that has informed his life, and the controversy that continues to rock his Church. - Church Publishing. We purchased a few copies and they are available in the Parish House for $ Stewardship Brunch Sunday, November 22 nd During coffee hour, we will gather for a pot luck brunch to celebrate our thankfulness, in keeping with our Stewardship theme, Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God, for this year. Please bring an entrée, side dish, salad or desert to share. Please come, carefully consider how you would like to honor your thanks, and make your pledge for Wreath Sale Tis the Season: Our annual wreath sale is scheduled for Saturday, December 5th. The wreath sale will take place as usual the first weekend after Thanksgiving. You will be getting a call to put your order in a few weeks. We will need lots of help with the calls, making bows, decorating the wreaths, and finally selling them on Dec 6th. Look for a sign up sheet in the Parish Hall. This effort generates several thousand dollars and is an important piece of the budget. Besides it is a great way to get into the spirit of the holiday season. We guarantee that everyone can learn to make beautiful bows on Tuesday, December 1 st at St. Augustine s starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Parish Hall. International Mission Trip We are proud to have two of our youths accompanying St. Johns on their Mission Trip to Nicaragua. Bennett Rosenow and Henri Huntington will be representing St. A s in July of As a parish we will be sponsoring them on their trip. As the year progresses we will be holding several fundraisers to help pay for their trip. Currently, if anyone has frequent fliers miles with Delta Airlines to share, please contact the Parish Office. V estry Nominations The Vestry is the group that makes policy, legal, and financial decisions for St. A's. It is the group that holds vision, planning, and the day to day needs of the church together. The Vestry meets on the third Wednesday, beginning at 8 p.m. and will go on retreat in February of The term is three years. Please contact Greg Kaebnick, the clerk of the Vestry, before January 10, 2010 to nominate yourself or someone else. Election of new officers will be at the Annual Parish meeting after the 10:30 service on Sunday, January 31, 2010

4 A word about Stewardship: Dear Fellow St A s Parishioners, I was invited, this year, to chair our church s Stewardship Committee. When I say invited, I mean when Brad asked at the Vestry Retreat who wanted to chair Stewardship, and there was a really long, long (really long!) silence, my mouth suddenly said I d do it. The reason that I said I d do it was primarily because I was sure I was a very bad choice for the job; more on that later. Stewardship season is a time when we come together, and think about what we have accomplished in the last year and what we plan to accomplish in the next. Much of the focus is on our financial situation and our monetary pledges for the next, but the more fundamental topic is that of Giving, which includes money but also includes Gifts of time, energy, patience, listening, building, teaching, cooking, singing, fish abuse*, and so much more. Over the next three weeks we will be exploring these difficult topics in church and, hopefully, at home. I ll be preaching on the Stewardship theme on Sunday the 8 th ; Brad will preach on the same theme the following Sunday, and on the 22 nd, we will all drop our 2010 pledge cards in the offertory plate, then celebrate with a festive potluck brunch during coffee hour. As a Vestry member, I can tell you that the story of our year at St. A s began in a difficult place. Our church s raw financial planning begins with the monetary Pledges made by our membership. More than 70% of our Operating Income comes from our members pledges; the other 20+% comes from fundraising and other sources. When the Finance Committee sat down to review the 2009 pledges, they found that we were facing a 12% decrease in expected income. In order to offset the decrease, the Finance Committee recommended to the Vestry that all paid staff members (Father Brad; Mother Beth; Kim Stucko; Laura Ravotti) have either their salary or hours cut in order to reduce payroll. Other cuts in spending were advised, bringing us down to a truly bare bones budget. It was honestly agony. I am entirely certain I am not the only person who drove home crying on more than one occasion. And so the year started out, in a way that felt as if it could break us all into pieces. But somehow we didn t break; we came together; and managed to keep moving forward. Astonishingly, though there was nothing easy about this year, it was not the worst year ever: it might even have been (dare it be said out loud?) a Good Year. Despite the privations of the budget restraints, we continued to do Good in the world and do Good to one another. We fed the hungry through our Peekskill Soup Kitchen ministry; we launched the Recessionisto! support group for the unemployed; we sent our teens into the city to aid the homeless; we sent more of our kids to experience third world living through a weekend at Heifer International; we raised money for the hungry by participating in the Harry Chapin run; we continued to support the Carpenter s Kids; we continued our ministry to rebuild Bay St. Louis. And although we were unable to pledge as many dollars toward our parish as we might like, we upped the ante in our pledges of time, effort, cheer and old-fashioned sweat equity. We began a tradition of affordable, fun, family-friendly Parish Dinners that not only raised some cash for the church, but brought our community together. JuneFest came around, and long-time parishioners who had planned to retire from their exhausting volunteer chairmanships decided this was not the year to rock the boat and stepped up once again. As most of you know, the result of that Herculean, genuinely self-sacrificial Gift was to increase our JuneFest take by about $8500. We applied for a few grants, and got them. Then the copy machine coughed up some phlegm and had to be replaced. So it wasn t entirely a Lifetime Feel Good Movie of the Week. And now we enter Stewardship Season anew we will be asking you to think about the financial commitment you can make to St. A s in The Finance Committee will have to take those pledges and see what kind of budget they can responsibly write for the coming year. Here is why I knew I would be bad at this job: I find it ridiculously difficult to let go of my need to feel financially safe. I am dreadful at giving beyond what is easy and comfortable. But in order to ask you to take deep stock of what you should give not what you can give, I need to pledge to do the same. The

5 question we need to ask ourselves at this time is not how much can I give without having it affect my life? Instead, we need to ask the much harder question how much do I have to give so that it DOES affect my life? Because that is a Gift, and one that will not just help this church continue to be the place that it is but more importantly, it is one that will alter us. We will be better if we Give in ways that change who we are. Can we? Whatever your ultimate decision regarding the number you pledge, we ask gravely and emotionally that you DO pledge. Our goal is to have 100% of our active membership make a pledge to the church this year, of whatever monetary sum they believe is right for their family. The Vestry and Father Brad have chosen to publically lead the way, and want you to know that they are all committed to making a formal pledge to St. A s this year. Please join us in that act, knowing that in doing so you are making a tangible sign to show that Giving is the road that you have chosen to walk in this life, in pale imitation of the Christ whose eternal Gift sets the standard for each of us. Profoundly with love, Elizabeth Cornwell Hoffman Chair, Stewardship Committee *Thanks again to the valiant Rosenow/Moore Reluctant JuneFest Fish Wranglers, who rise to the occasion every year selling fish, despite having to sneak down to St. Mary s for confession and absolution after committing the remaining goldfish to the Hudson River. Reminder: Stewardship Brunch at 9:45 on Sunday, November 22 nd. Please bring a dish to share. S t e w a r d s h i p C o m m i t t e e Stewardship Season/Committee: Stewardship is the acknowledgment that everything (and that means EVERYTHING) we have is a gift from God. During Stewardship Season we ask you to think about how you share parts of what you have been given, with the parish and with others. Stewardship Season also includes the time of year when our Vestry makes plans for the next year. During Stewardship Season, therefore, we ask you to make a financial pledge for the coming year to help continue the work of the parish. We also invite you to think about how you are stewards of all other things we have been given: time, talents, opportunities, etc. The theme for this year's Stewardship Season will be from the book of Ruth: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." Stewardship Season culminates in a festive brunch at which we celebrate all of the ways which St. A's acknowledges God's gifts and shares them with others. We also ask that your pledges to the parish for 2010 be made at this time. Stewardship Committee: Important Dates: November 8 th, Elizabeth Hoffman will be preaching at both services November 15 th, Father Brad will be speaking on Stewardship November 22 nd, The Stewardship brunch will take place between the services during coffee hour. Please bring a dish to share.

6 Financial Operations through September 30, 2008: Expenses Paid Revenues Received Administrative $ (24,803.02) Fundraising $ 29, Priest $ (60,173.24) Plate $ 8, Service/Progra m $ (16,055.44) Pledge $ 95, Diocese $ (16,407.75) Space $ 3, Outreach $ (1,872.86) Investments $ 5, Property $ (21,889.80) Mem. Fund 0.00 TOTAL (deficit)/surplus $ budgeted deficit $ (11,598.59) $(141, TOTAL $142, ) and services offered during Each employee experienced a cut in hours or salary, including Father Brad. With cuts in salaries, hours, and programs, as well as the use of another $5,000 from the Memorial Fund for operations, we were finally able to present to Vestry a balanced budget for 2009, with pledges anticipated at $130,000. With actual pledges of less than $120,000, however, we will need to either raise an additional $10,000 above and beyond the revenues contained in the budget, or cut another $10,000 of salaries, hours, programs and services. In the meantime, we will be faced with many challenges as we attempt to operate the church we love with less financial resources than it takes to keep our employees employed, to keep our church insured, warm and lit, and to fund our music, education and outreach programs. Treasurer s Report: ~submitted by Holly Anzani, Treasurer We have ended the third quarter of the year with a small surplus rather than the deficit contained in the budget, most of which is attributable to the success of JuneFest. We have also done an excellent job in managing our expenses, which has also attributed to our improved operations. Additionally, we applied for a grant from the Diocese to help offset the added expense of offering music at both services. Our application was successful, and will help to reduce the music expense both this year and next year (receipt of this grant was not included in the budget). JuneFest was budgeted to generate $14,000 for operations; we actually made just over $22,000 (we did not budget for a dinner and auction during JuneFest this year). Also, FoodFest brought in just under $3,000, although not all of the winners have yet paid. These three sources of revenue helped get us through the summer months, when pledge income dropped significantly. At present we are close to $11,000 behind our budget in pledge income, a significant shortfall in expected revenues. Also, with regard to pledges, it is important to keep in mind that the budget assumed receipt of $130,000 in pledges, as compared to the less than $120,000 that was actually pledged. Of more concern, however, is the outlook for the remainder of The $130,000 in pledges in the 2009 budget still resulted in a reduction in programs

7 St. Augustine s Episcopal Church 2010 Stewardship Commitment As a cost saving measure, we have included a pledge form with this letter. Please mail this form back to the church, place it in the offertory basin, or your pledge to the parish office (august@bestweb.net). Please put Stewardship 2010 in the subject line. If you have any questions about pledging, please contact Elizabeth Hoffman (cornwellhoffman@optonline.net or ) and/or Father Brad (bdyche@bestweb.net or ) Name(s) Address In gratitude to God and to help support St. Augustine s, its congregation, work in our community, and the diocese, I/we make the following pledge for the calendar year Please fill out one box below: $ per week $ per month $ per year Would you like to receive envelopes to use for your pledge? Yes No, thanks Signature (s): Date: Signature (s): Date:

8 Coming in December: Sunday, November 29 The First Sunday of Advent Tuesday and Wednesday, December 1 and 2 Making bows Thursday and Friday, December 3 and 4 Decorating Wreaths Saturday, December 5 St. A s Wreath Sale Sunday, December 6 Christmas Pageant Rehearsal 10:15 am Sunday, December 13 and Saturday, December 19 Christmas Pageant Rehearsal 10:15 am Sunday, December 20 The Christmas Pageant 10:15 am Thursday, December 24 Christmas Eve 4:00 p.m. Children s Christmas Eve Service, Holy Eucharist Rite II 7:00 p.m. Family Christmas Eve Service, Holy Eucharist Rite II 10:00 p.m. First Service of Christmas, Holy Eucharist Rite II Friday, December 25 Christmas Day 9:00 a.m. Holy Eucharist Rite II

9 Enclosed is your 2010 Pledge Card Join us on Sunday, November 22nd, at a pot luck coffee hour, between the services, and place your pledge card in the offertory plate. St. Augustine s Episcopal Church Rector Rector Emeritus Priest Associate Deacon Deacon The Rev. Bradley C. Dyche The Rev. David B. Wayne The Rev. Dr. Beth Glover The Rev. Deacon Keith McKenna The Rev. Deacon Sharon Manning-Lew 2009 VESTRY MEMBERS Senior Warden: Duncan Cleary Junior Warden: Jen Brehl Treasurer: Holly Anzani Clerk: Greg Kaebnick Class of 2009 Holly Anzani Ed Godek Class of 2010 Cathie Elliott Anya Steger Class of 2011 Elizabeth Hoffman Laura Seitz Greg Kaebnick David Wixted Leigh Anna Harken Meeting Schedule: Vestry, 3rd Wednesday, 8:00 p.m. St. Augustine s Episcopal Church 6 Old Post Road, North Croton-On-Hudson, NY Address correction requested NOVEMBER 2009 Dated material - please deliver promptly