September Parish Survey - Summary of Findings Dear St. Joseph Parishioner, This fall I have been serving as your pastor for approximately 2 1/2 years. Some of the first concerns I heard early after my arrival in June, 2005, were the needs the parish had to update certain aspects of our elementary school as well as a shortage of meeting space and community gathering space. Under Fr. Bill Medley's leadership major capital campaign efforts had been launched to address the more pressing needs of our basilica church and Flaget Hall offices as well as Bethlehem High School. These efforts had been very successful, but I was told of dreams and shown rough drawings for the elementary school and a fellowship hall that dated back to the middle 1990's. Having been previously involved in such efforts during my pastorate at St. Gabriel's Church in Louisville, I offered my support for the dreams but knew that to undertake such an effort would require the support of the Parish Council and involve considerable planning. We would need to "plan our work and then work our plan." To this end I wrote Archbishop Kelly to ask permission to begin a process to establish an approximate cost and with that information to test the feasibility of raising the needed funds. In October, 2006, Archbishop Kelly gave permission to hire an architect and to establish an estimated cost. In January/February, 2007, the Building Committee began a lengthy process of interviewing from a list of 9 pre-selected architect firms from which the firm Studio Kremer was selected. This firm has a history of school design and recently has done work for the Nelson County and Bardstown City School systems. Next, in April, 2007, the Construction Committee interviewed three construction firms from which to choose a construction manager for our project and BCD, Inc. was selected. The spring and summer months were spent working through the Schematic and Design Development phases to establish the full scope and design for the grade school project. As the final aspect of planning our work, the Parish Finance Committee interviewed The Covenant Group in late July, 2007, to assist us in the capital campaign fund raising. They were selected because of their recent successes with St. Dominic in Springfield, St. Francis Xavier in Mount Washington, and several other Catholic parishes in the Louisville area. Just two months ago, in September, 2007, the Covenant Group conducted a feasibility survey of the parish. This summary of findings was shared with the Parish Council at its November 7 meeting and I now wish to share them with you. The feasibility study shows that we should be successful in our capital campaign and the Parish Council did give its approval to continue with the capital campaign based on the feasibility study. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
In the interviews and the mailed surveys, parishioners were asked to comment on 16 variables of parish life. They were asked to rate 0-5 “Importance to Me” and then 0-5 “Performance.” An area of concern would be any variable where the gap between perceived “importance” and perceived “performance” is a gap of 1.0 or greater. None of the areas evaluated had such a gap and that’s a good sign. Of significant note is that two areas actually had a positive differential, when “performance” exceeded “importance.” One was the area: Quality of the music (choirs, ensembles), and the other was: Opportunities for involvement (ways to volunteer). Responses to key questions1. I am satisfied with my religious experience at St. Joseph Church:
|