Festival Tour a Success

Late this past Sunday night working on my bulletin article, outside the window of my study/home office, overlooking the St. Saviour festival grounds, I heard the clanking of the steel from festival booths being disassembled.  After the parking lot reappears, in the wee hours of the morning, two or three volunteers with gas-powered blowers packed on their backs will blow pull-offs and all sorts of garbage into piles making the transformation from festival ground to parking lot complete, ready for morning Mass and Linden Grove School.
Crescent Parishes Second Annual Festival Tour has come to a close.  Thanks to all festival workers and patrons and special thanks to festival planning committee members below:
 

 St. John: Carolee Braun, Don Braun, Doug Bosse, Cathy Honsaker, Peggy Bosse, Peg Bailey, Barb Cassidy, Bill Huber, Marty Huber, Diane Dailey, Mary Kay Bosse.
 
Holy Trinity: Sara Daugherty, Brian Mumper, Laura Christobek, Barb Moscoe, Rob Hill, Bob Frankenhoff, Victor Schneider.
 
Nativity: Alison Gable, Kristen Kraft, Jack Mitchell, Tim Reichling, Bill Olberding, Crys Schmidt, Elise Suer, Tricia Horn, Kira Turner, Tony DeBlasio.
 
St. Saviour: Carol Richter, Linda Alvis, Kathy Bath, Terry Grau, Amy Hathorn, Terry Kerkhoff, Tony Luck.
 
One Parish Festival?
 As I marvel at the creative ingenuity, careful planning and tireless work of festival planning committees and festival volunteers, this year I found myself wondering if and when our parishes might have just one festival for all our parishes.  Likely, that sounds crazy and perhaps impossible.  However, go with me on this for a bit.

Festival Culture
 In talking about parish culture in the last two bulletin articles, festivals of one sort or another are a part of our parish cultures.  Festivals are a way to accomplish some great goals:  gather people, welcome visitors, gain some revenue.   While each of our festivals is unique in some specific ways, the general approach to festivals is not unique.   Therefore, it makes sense to say that theoretically, we could have one festival for all of our parishes.  What goods would this accomplish?

The Goods of One Festival: Unity
 Initially, we should note that one festival would bring together our five parishes in perhaps one of the most radical ways possible.  Festival leaders would be called to collaborate, and festival leaders are primary movers and shakers in parish life!  When leaders unite, so do those they serve!  Leaders would be called to reflect upon and share their parish’s experience of festival.  This sharing would foster openness and make for greater unity!

The Goods of One Festival: A Better Festival
 The second good that would come from one festival is a more squared-away festival.   Clearly, there are many commonalities for all festivals.  For example, most festivals are going to have a detailed approach to planning, with a timeline for key accomplishments.  Vendors of all sorts are hired with contracts to be signed. 

While there are common booths and attractions found at most of our festivals, such as basket raffles, bid and buy, games for kids, and concessions, there are also unique approaches to those standard booths or unique booths themselves that would make a combined festival the best of the best.  

For example, the evangelization booth at Holy Trinity’s is wonderful and could expand to have church tours on the hour and a crash course on Catholicism, making the festival openly evangelizing.   Other unique and successful booths at individual festivals include Nativity’s wine and bourbon ring toss, including St. John’s (Huber) Basket Raffle and St. Saviour’s (Alvis and others) food booths with extended menus!  Combining great things from our individual festivals might not only make for a great festival but one that could be advertised as the biggest parish festival in Cincinnati!

The Goods of One Festival: Revenue and Trust
Finally, with such a grand approach, the potential success of such a festival might outstrip all our other festivals in revenue, in part due to a consolidation of expenses and human labor.  Clearly, while we will be one parish in the future, until then just and creative ways to divide proceeds related to the involvement and volunteers from the different parishes would need to be created, which would likely have the effect of increasing unity and trust among our parishes and parishioners.

Call Me Crazy
Call me crazy, but as Mom and I looked out over St. Saviour’s festival from the rectory screen porch last weekend, I couldn’t help but dream big and wonder about a combined Crescent Parishes Festival.  What do you think?  

PLT and Parish Naming
Due to staff vacations, it has been difficult for the entire Parish Leadership Team (PLT) to gather during August to work through the naming process for our parish family.   The goal is to have five names to parishioners in September and to receive feedback from them.  Then the PLT will take that information and make a recommendation of a parish family name to me.  With that name, we will make some inquiry downtown to make sure our proposed name is one Archbishop will approve.  Of course, we don’t actually start using that name until we become one parish over the next three or so years.  However, we will have done the work which will allow that transition to happen smoothly.

Terry Wenninger Retiring       
Two Sundays ago, Terry Wenninger shared the news with Fr. Dave, Crescent Director of Worship, and me that she was ready to retire.  We know Terry is one of the most experienced music directors in the archdiocese, celebrating her fifty-year ministry mark this past year.  She related that she had done the numbers and that picking up a couple of funerals and Sunday Masses a month could enter the relished rands of the retired.  She will be retiring at the end of September, so stay tuned to plans for us to thank her and wish her well. ​

Even as she has retired, it is likely that she will continue to minister in Crescent Parishes as well as other guest ministers.  The turnaround on hiring her replacement will likely be a couple of months.
 
Sincerely and with Love in Christ,
Fr. Pat