Highlights: The 2021 calendar and budget were approved. The next meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 9 with that date approved following a very lively 20-minute discussion.
This document summarizes the monthly meeting of the Father Kelley Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians held on video via Zoom and in person at the George Brent Council of the Knights of Columbus in Manassas.
Meeting was called to order at 7:33 p.m. by the Division President Tom Masarick
Recitation of the opening prayer & Pledge of Allegiance:
Our Father x
Hail Mary x
St. Michael the Archangel x
Glory Be x
Pledge of Allegiance x
Roll call of Officers for Fraternal Year 2021:
| Position | Name | By Exception: (P=Present, A = Absent E= Excused) |
| President | Thomas Masarick | p |
| Vice President | Patrick Sullivan | p |
| Chaplain | Fr. Ed Guilloux | E |
| Recording Secretary | Brian Tumulty | p |
| Financial Secretary | Richard S. Aleksy | p |
| Treasurer | Richard W. Ring | P |
| Standing Committee | Pete Hawkins | p |
| Marshall | Mike Curry | p |
| Sentinel | Dan O’Leary | p |
| Immediate Past President | John Masarick | p |
Reading of minutes from previous meeting: Minutes from the December meeting were published on the division website but not emailed to members. They will be emailed to members and approved at the February meeting.
Reading of communications and correspondence: St. Bridget’s Gala has been canceled.
Presidents Report by Tom Masarick:
I would like to see our agenda grow as have a combination of meetings both on site and via WebEx.
It will be a great journey. I like what I see online, I like what I see here in the room. And we’ll keep that up as we get further into the year.
I’m proud of our elected officers. We have a great slate of officers, each one is proven and tested.
I’m equally proud of our appointed chairmen, many that have stepped up when we have lost a few franchise players.
Also, I’ve got some great guys that have stepped up and I’m very proud of them.
I am looking forward to an outstanding year with events.
Fundraising with the trip to Ireland. Organizational.
And I want to emphasize social. I see a lot of social events this year — road cleanup, beer and wine tasting.
We have our Lady of Knock Mass and Father Kelley Mass with corporate communion.
Bylaws reviews and updates. I think you guys know this but if you don’t, there’s a new National Constitution dated July 20. And the new AOH guidelines called the Blue Book 2020. Everyone in this room should have one. All the officers have a copy. I’ve asked Rich Alesky to be our parliamentarian advocate and to form a committee to look at these documents and the recommend updates for our bylaws.
Everything we’re going to do tonight I pretty much am following those guidelines.
We have a new chairman for strategic planning. I’ve asked Mike Riley to be our chairman of to do a three- to five-year strategic plan of what are our goals and objectives are and how are we going to accomplish them.
COVID-19 has forced us to rethink some of our events.
Selling tickets is getting a little more challenging. And so, I’m looking forward Mike and you’re going to help us say okay if these are goals, objectives, how are we, how are we going to get there so I’m looking forward to that. Proposed 2021 calendar and budget. Officers got together we have a proposed calendar and budget on the table. I sent it out to everyone.
I’d like to get approval for that. I expect changes throughout the year.
Brian, I’ll send them to you to be posted on the web, but I will also send out hard copies for those who want them.
And last, but not least, I’d like to improve our meeting space this year, and get us out of the club room and basement.
The possibilities include changing our meeting to the second Tuesday of each month. That opens up the Knights hall and the Father Kelly Hall as two possibilities. We’ll see we’ll see where that goes.
And then last thing, your safety during the pandemic. The coronavirus has affected many brother Hibernians, their families, friends and members of our community. Please help our brothers and families and friends and neighbors by donating money to our food to the Bethany food pantry or other similar organizations. And that, that concludes my report.
What I’d like to do instead of following the agenda. I would like to move up the calendar and budget so we can pay bills tonight. I have distributed the 2021 proposed calendar draft and it’s been approved by the officers. There are copies on the table. I don’t know if I need approval, but I’d like you to see it if there are any changes. Dan O’Leary gave a new date fot the beer tasting to April 30. I’m fine with that.
And anything that anything that impacts the budget.
After a discussion about what events have been canceled and which have not, the calendar was approved in a unanimous voice vote.
On the proposed budget, Dan O’Leary made a motion to accept it that was seconded by Rich Aleksy.
Tom went through the details of the expected revenue which totals $15,702.
Tom also went through the proposed expenditures, noting it is a balanced budget of $15,702.
Tom summarized by stating that this is our starting point. I think the big thing was to cover the ticket sales from last year and this year. Everything else is pretty similar to last year, and there’s some things like Joe said, we’re going to have to do the fish fry and some things differently. It’s going to change throughout the year. We don’t know how our raffle ticket sales are going to be. We don’t know what events will be held.
Tom called a vote and the motion to accept the budget passed by a voice vote.
- Chaplain’s Report: No report
Propositions for membership: none
Report of the committee on the sick: No report.
Bills and Claims: Financial Secretary — Rich Aleksy
Submitted by Tom Masarick payable to the national AOH for national per capita $796
Submitted by Thomas Masarick payable to the Virginia AOH for state per capita of $135
Submitted by Thomas Masarick for fraternal supplies for name badges $48.25
Submitted by Thomas Masarick payable to Rich Aleksy for postage stamps $55
Total $1,034.25
Report on the Standing Committee: No Report
| Committee | Chairman | Report / Discussion |
| Events/Calendar | Pete Hawkins but Tom M. spoke | January 16 we will have the installation of officers in All Saints Church after the 5:30 Mass Rick Ring suggested that the past president’s installation dinner be postponed until a later date. Members voted in favor of postponing the dinner until spring. |
| Freedom for all Ireland | Dominic Preston | First of all I wanted to let you know that Ireland is closed. Ireland’s daily COVID rate is the highest in the world. According to figures published by the Our World in Java organization, the seven-day rolling average is 1,394 cases per million. That’s ahead of the UK at 810, Portugal at 735, and the USA at 653. As of 2pm today, 1,582 COVID patients were in hospital with 146 of them in intensive care. Figures show that Cork University Hospital has the largest number of Coronavirus patients with 135. It is followed by the University Hospital Limerick with 122 patients, and 104 in Dublin. The incidence of more infectious variants of the coronavirus first detected in England has risen further in Ireland. The prime minister said he was told by the Chief Medical Officer a new variant accounted for 45% of the most recent 92 samples. |
| Historian | This about a fellow by the name of Thomas Bella McManus. McManus was Young Irelander in the rebellion of 1848. He was exiled to Tasmania, but he escaped to San Francisco, where he died in poverty in January of 1861. At that time, the Fenians and the Union Army were running short of recruits. They decided to use his death to generate support for recruiting. They took his body out of the grave and transported it from San Francisco to New York, where he had a funeral Mass celebrated by Bishop John Hughes. They had a great eulogy at St Patrick’s Cathedral. Afterward he was taken to Dublin, where about 150,000 people lined the streets of Dublin, for a funeral a possession to the cemetery. And he was laid to rest on 10 November 1861. | |
| Immigration | Rick Ring | I’m going to start something and talk about well-known and Irish immigrants who made a difference, or have a unique story. Some will be well known, some will be not so well known. The first one that I’m going to talk about is Frank McCourt. McCourt was an Irish American who is widely known for his best-selling memoir Angela’s Ashes. It’s an honest account of his poverty-stricken childhood in Limerick during the Great Depression. Something I found interesting was that the Great Depression hit Ireland harder than the United States. Despite immigrating and living in Brooklyn, McCourt’s parents decided to return to Ireland, but ended up worse off. His father was a troubled alcoholic from County Antrim who eventually abandoned the family. His mother continued to struggle to feed her four remaining children without any money. McCourt eventually returned to the United States at the age of 19. And that’s where he ended up living out his life. His novel Angela’s Ashes was later shown on screen, which caused controversy among the Irish community, but many natives felt McCourt was a brave hero who revealed the truth about the slums of Ireland and the cruel judgments that were often bestowed on starving families. |
| Trip to Ireland | John M. filling in for J.P./Greg | Last weekend we sold 84 tickets for $960. |
| Parade | Vince Fitzpatrick | We are going forward and will decide by Feb. 22 whether to hold it. |
| Pro-Life | Mike McManus | No report |
| Webmaster | Brian Tumulty | The website is improved with the assistance of our state webmaster Patrick Shea. The minutes are also posted there. |
| Political Education | Vince Fitzpatrick | No report |
| Veteran’s Affairs | ||
| Hunger Project | Bart Emanuel | No report |
| Project St. Patrick | Rich Aleksy | No report |
| Charities | Rich Aleksy | As we start the new fraternal year we need to keep our ears open. We also are doing Project St. Patrick |
| Bylaws Committee | Rich Aleksy | |
| AOH Strategic Plan | Mike Riley | He proposes we take stock of our current activities and engage our members. AOH Strategic Plan – fit parameters of AOH: friendship, unity, and Christian charity Q1 – Take stock of current activities. · Target, identify and recruit new members; engage them · Enhanced communication skills: listening, public speaking, and writing · Assess current fundraising activities; determine new fundraising activities – assess return on investment; trip to Ireland tickets · Assess community-oriented events, are we truly meeting a need: hunger project, Catholic charities immigration services and refugee programs · Success and continuation of on-line meetings during this pandemic · Engagement with elected officials; AOH Commonwealth goal Need a copy of the AOH Blue Book. |
| Bingo | Tom Masarick | We brought in $100 in January. Some members are no longer interested in volunteering and we will do it through June. |
| Audit | Vince Fitzpatrick Jerry Partsch Patrick Sullivan | The original date of Jan. 19 will not be met and Vince will get back with a new date. |
| Club Room | Tom Masarick | Closed for another month. |
| Bereavement / Committee | Tom Masarick | |
| Music | Jerry Laffey | It is more enjoyable to listen to music than to think about it. The song a Blue Green Bangle is a cross between Irish music and country music. Try listening to it on YouTube. |
| Spring festival | Uncertain of its status. |
Receipts of the Meeting (Income): Financial Secretary — Rich Aleksy
Dues of $1,277
Initiation fee $20
Bingo Kitchen $83
Raffle for the trip to Ireland $960
Magnets $10
Total $2,350
Report of the Treasurer: Richard Ring
Starting monthly balance for December 2020 = $ 13,393
December 2020 Deposits (income) = $604
December 2020 expense = $35.98
Ending Monthly Budget Balance for December 2020 = $13,961
Uncashed checks none
Bank register is reconciled
Updated Jan. 01, 2021
Unfinished business:
Rich Aleksy said he found the division’s charter and the national AOH is making a new one for us.
New business: Rich Aleksy said our president has talked to several people about changing our next meeting to the second Tuesday next month. The charter allows us to change the date from the second Monday of each month for one month. We also can change it for several months.
Rich made a motion to change the February meeting to the second Tuesday using the big hall which is Bishop Russell Hall. Tom said that will open up the possibility of using Father Kelley Hall.
After a lengthy and sometimes lively 20-minute discussion, there was the vote was 10 to 8 in favor of the February 9 date. Tom M. said the meetings will continue to also be available remotely on WebEx.
Rich Aleksy said the bylaws committee is looking at making the switch to Tuesdays a permanent one. There also was a lively discussion about whether to change the bylaws.
Tom M. said the Hibernians are paying $500 annually to the Anchor Club and we deserve better space.
Dan O’Leary said the Old Town Sports Pub is available on March 27 for an officers’ dinner.
Good of the order:
Vince is having his knee replaced Feb. 1
Prayers were offered for Vince and those suffering from COVID-19.
Adjournment: 8:58 pm
