DDC Spring 2024 Meeting Recap
The Dallas Diocese Chapter of the Knights of Columbus held its Spring 2024 meeting for the first time ever at St. Pius X Catholic Parish, the home of Council 14568. Our hosts’ parish hall provided ample space to accommodate the nearly 70 members in attendance and their Audio/Visual equipment gave us a very effective medium for our presentations. This was the first time we’ve held the DDC meeting on a Saturday morning, and we weren’t sure what attendance numbers to expect. While the numbers did drop a little from our last October meeting which was held on a Thursday night, we had some pretty good feedback from those present.
Our Worthy Diocesan Deputy Mike Courtney made a couple of major announcements:
- Our Dallas Chapter not only met but exceeded the promised Charity Goal to the Bishop
- Safe Environment Program training from Supreme will from now on be recognized as an appropriate form of training for SEP renewals by the Catholic Diocese of Dallas
- Mike Courtney also passed out 44 – Quick Start Honor Roll Awards from Texas State Charities as well as 17 – Lone Star Awards of Excellence and 4 – Lone Star Awards of Excellence With Distinction from The Texas State Council. Congratulations to all of the winners
Our Chapter President Jake Fleischer announced we are taking nominations for the DDC Awards of Excellence for the 2023/24 Fraternal Year. The DDC Awards of Excellence categories are:
- Chaplain of the Year
- Council of the Year
- Knight of the Year
All entries are due no later than June 22, 2024 and can be emailed directly to johnfleischer7@gmail.com.
During the Chapter Updates segment Jake reviewed the Council Elections Process, as a reminder of how mastering the council administration basics can help us run our councils effectively.
SK Reed Fontenot, one of the Candidates for Texas State Council office was present to announce his candidacy for State Warden. Reed is a member of St. Gabriel the Archangel Council 12153 in McKinney. The elections will take place at the upcoming 120th TSC Convention in Houston at the end of April.
Under the Education Topics segment Jake covered the policy from Supreme that Councils and Assemblies may not provide security services to parishes or to any other organization and Kevin Quinn covered the importance of converting E-Members to full Council Members in order to foster Council growth.
Jake covered 11 different Program Updates including American Wheelchair Mission, RSVP, Silver Rose, Evangelization and others. Program Directors were present to meet with individual Councils for 30 minutes at the end of the formal meeting.
Our Chaplain, Father Joseph Mehan was present to open and close the meeting with prayer and blessings for the group. The Pledge of Allegiance was presented by Color Corp member SK Jack Ayers.
Finally, we wish to extend our sincere gratitude to the members of Council 14568, especially Brothers Eduardo Valenzuela, Dallas Emergency Response Coordinator; Grand Knight Felix Estrada, and their team who were on hand to help set up the room for the meeting and provided coffee and doughnuts.
After the meeting a small group of us attended the local Pancho’s Restaurant for some social time and to partake in their well known Mexican buffet.
The meeting presentations can be downloaded by clicking the image below:
Click here to see more photos (password: ucansee)
Photography courtesy of BK Alex Hernandez, Council 6065.