Highlights included discussion of plans for the upcoming beer tasting which may be held April 30 or May 1 and plans for a Shamrock degree to be held outdoors on April 10 with a backup date of April 17.
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.
Fourteen members were in the hall and six were online for a total of 20 members.
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 no
Pledge of Allegiance x
Roll call of Officers for Fraternal Year 2021:
Position Name Present/Absent/Excused
President Tom Masarick P
Vice President Patrick Sullivan P
Chaplain Fr. Ed Guilloux E
Recording Secretary Brian Tumulty P
Financial Secretary Richard Aleksy P
Treasurer Richard 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, January and February meetings were published on the division website and emailed to members. They were approved unanimously.
Reading of communications and correspondence: none
Presidents Report by Tom Masarick:
Let me just say, I’ve had my second shot.
And I’ll encourage you guys to get it.
Also, I’d like to thank JP McCusker and co-chair Greg Rebbert for working the raffle ticket sales.
The next sales event is March 13 and 14th at All Saints Church, after the English Masses. We are in need of everyone to help sell the raffle tickets to the trip to Ireland.
And I know many of you have already done this and continue to do this. So, thank you for that.
Our sales to date, we’ll find out later. But I think we’re a little less, where we normally are, but we still have time.
Alright, the AOH Fish Fry, we’ll hear more about that which is scheduled for this Friday, March 12. And please, please confirm with Mike Curry your attendance and assignments. This will be the council’s fourth fish fry. And I would just say the first three have gone very well. It’s very safe, and I think it’s gone very well and profitable.
On March 15, we will participate in the 43rd annual Gaelic Mass in the honor of St. Patrick. I’m looking forward to it. Our Vice President will have more details when we get further into the meeting.
Unless you’ve been living under the Blarney stone, you already know that March 17 St Patrick’s Day is to one day each year that everyone, anyone calls himself Irish, if not by birthright then by spirit.
It’s a religious feast day, commemorating the saint who brought Christianity to Ireland and has ended up a day of celebrated on almost a global basis. It usually involves drinking copious amounts of green beer and whiskey shooters. St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other single national festival, largely due to Americans who consider it a holiday, although it’s not an official holiday in America.
Parades are in the heartbeat of St. Patty’s Day festivities, maybe not too much this year. The first parade took place in America, not in Ireland, in 1601 in what is now St. Augustine, Florida. And the first actual St Patrick’s Day Parade also took place in America, in 1737, although it was pretty much just a stroll down the streets of Boston. The first St. Patty’s Day parade in New York City was held in 1762, 14 years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence was organized by the Irish troops serving in the British army. Today the world’s biggest St Patrick’s Day Parade celebrations around the world is in New York City. And that concludes my report.
Introduction on new candidates:
Chaplain’s Report: No report
Report of the committee on the sick: Joe Cahill is still in really deep water and still really needs our prayers.
Events/ calendar: report by Pete Hawkins:
March 13 and 14 the Trip to Ireland raffle ticket sales will continue. Please contact JP McCusker to sign up to assist at church. We really need to sell the tickets.
March 11 is a state quarterly meeting on Zoom.
March 12 is the Friday Fish Fry that our division is co-hosting with the Knights of Columbus. Our division will run the kitchen.
March 15 (a Monday night at 7:30) is the Gaelic Mass at St. Thomas More Cathedral in Arlington, according to Jay McCarthy.
March 17 will be the Trip to Ireland raffle drawing at the Old Towne Sports Pub.
April 23 and 24 may be the church Spring Festival.
Report on the Standing Committee: No Report
Bills and Claims: Financial SecretaryRich Aleksy
None
Receipts of the Meeting (Income): Financial Secretary Rich Aleksy
Dues ———————- $72
Trip to Ireland raffle — $1,930
Total ———————– $2,002
Report of the Treasurer: Richard Ring
Starting balance for February 2021 = $15,277
February 2021 Deposits (income) = $2,098
February 2021 expense = $194
Ending monthly balance for February 2021 = $17,180
Uncashed checks none
Bank register is reconciled.
Updated March 01, 2021
Bylaws: Committe chaired by Rich Aleksy along with past president John Masarick, Vice President Patrick Sullivan and Dough Morrison; Rich gave the following report:
Our committee has met. We had a very good meeting. We’ve done a lot a lot of discussion there. This is a major revision to the bylaws brothers. We’ve done some cleanup. We’ve added some new stuff. We’ve deleted some old stuff that was in the bylaws. It’s not ready for it to go to division yet. The committee is still working on it. And we did give our president a draft of what we’ve got right now. We have never increased our dues for this division since we started at $24. I would ask the president, maybe you could send out a survey to find our if we want to increase them to maybe $30. It’s just a thought.
If a member is of Irish ancestry and his wife is not, she can join the Ladies AOH. But is the wife is Irish and her husband is not, he can’t join us. We’ve put a paragraph in there that we’ll discuss it once we get down the road to allow associate membership. An associate member cannot vote. We will discuss it when we bring the bylaws to the division.
Freedom for All Ireland: Dominic Preston
Good evening everybody.
A spokeswoman for President Biden said this past week that he unequivocally supports the Good Friday Agreement. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked the question about plans for a US-UK trade deal and about the by the divergent government to unilaterally change the Northern Irish Protocol as implemented. It also comes after loyalist paramilitary organizations said they were temporarily withdrawing their support for the Good Friday Agreement. This agreement has been the bedrock of stability and prosperity for all people of Northern Ireland.
St Patrick’s Day is the holy day of obligation in in the Republic of Ireland. So, I encourage everybody to go to Mass on St. Patrick’s Day if you can.
Also as well, I’ll be doing a live stream on Facebook, on March, 17, beginning at 730. Eastern Time, which is 11:30 Irish time.
Immigration: Rick Ring
My immigration story is based on the 1952 movie The Quiet Man, one of the most watched Irish movies around St Patrick’s Day.
My last two reports had ties to books which are on the reading list which I’ve sent to our webmaster, and is still in development so if anybody has any books that they would like to recommend please send them my way. Anyway, the quiet man is not based on a book put on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story of the same name by Maurice Walsh was later published as part of a collection title, the green washes Rhys Walsh was an Irish novelist, but not an immigrant. John Wayne whose real name was Mary Mitchell Barson played Sean Thornton, when was of Scotch Irish heritage, but not an immigrant.
I’d like to focus on Maureen O’Hara, the singer and actress who was born Maureen Fitzsimmons in 1920 in Dublin. She grew up in Dublin in a Catholic family and aspired to become an actress from a very young age. After acting in several theatre productions in Ireland, she moved to Hollywood in 1938 to co-star with Charles Laughton in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
O’Hara was called the queen of technicolor because when that film process first came into use, nothing seemed to show off better than her rich red hair, bright green eyes and flawless peaches and cream complexion. She was Ireland’s first Hollywood suit superstar and paved the way for future generation of actors is seeking their own voice.
Her mahogany hair and whip smart delivery of her lines created a character prototype that seemed to define her country of origin as much as Ireland defined her. O’Hara was known for playing passionate but sensible heroines, even Western and adventure films.
She made 28 films, including five with longtime friend John Wayne. They had a special relationship. John Wayne said she was the one woman who was his friend over the years. In Wayne’s words she was “a real friend, like a man would be. She’s big lusty, absolutely marvelous, definitely my kind of woman. She’s a great guy.” After Wayne’s death in June 1979, she fell into a deep depression, and it took several years for her to recover.
Over the years she received numerous awards.
Maureen O’Hara co-authored her autobiography, “Kiss Herself,” which was published in 2004.
On 24 October 2015 O’Hara died in her sleep at her home in Boise Idaho, from natural causes. She was 95, years old. Her remains were buried in Arlington National Cemetery Virginia next to her late husband Brigadier General Charles Blair US Air Force. Blair was an aviation pioneer, who helped work out the routes, and navigation techniques necessary for long distance flights.
Trip to Ireland raffle sales: JP McCusker
As of this evening we have sold 673 tickets.
However, there are a number of tickets outstanding.
I put out an email as an email today asking that all the tickets in money be in this weekend.
My concern is that we’re coming up on the 17th and I don’t want to going into the drawing without having everything under control.
Pro-Life: Mike McManus – no report – Tom Masarick said Mike needs help getting to the meetings and he would appreciate if someone stepped up to help him.
Political education: Vince Fitzpatrick – no report
Veterans’ affairs: Doug Morrison
I would highlight for those of us that are veterans out there. I provided a link to the Veterans Administration that shows various documents and benefits that are available to us as veterans from the Veterans Administration that includes disability. There’s a disability checklist. There’s also a burial checklist in the form that can be filled out to be predetermined on your eligibility to be buried in a national cemetery.
Strategic plan: Mike Riley
We have taken on some of the goals I presented in the strategic plan. There are three that I’d like to share right now. The first one was that we were going to take stock of our current activities. And so, my question is, are the bingo kitchen and the AOH fish fry a good use of our member time? Are we selling Trip to Ireland tickets at these events? Are we providing membership applications to people at these events?
We should think every year that every member should buy at least three tickets.
We’ve had the road cleanup, we are getting ready to do a degree event, we do wine and beer tasting and the Hunger Project. As you know, these expose the division to the public. I will continue to conduct a thorough and candid evaluation of the current programs and make recommendations to modify existing activities as requested.
Number two, in the strategic goal was to target, identify and recruit new members, engage them. And I would hope that at the upcoming degree that we target these new members for opportunities to participate in our activities.
The third goal that I think we’ve been prepared to engage in is enhancing our communication skills, which includes listening, public speaking and writing. As part of the degree rehearsal and execution, I would hope that we would work on our public speaking skills. Some of the other things that I would like to consider is publicizing our events. We should try to expand the number and variety of community special events. We could hold an oratory event, whether it’s for high school students or the public in general. And this will give us an opportunity to engage and empower the community and to share some of our fine Irish history. And am still seeking a copy of my blue book. That’s my report.
Webmaster: Brian Tumulty – I posted the February minutes within two weeks after the last meeting and have begun sending out the division emails at the request of our president.
Hunger Project: Bart Emanuel – No report.
Project St. Patrick: Rich Aleksy – No report.
Bingo kitchen: Tom Masarick –
We’ll take a look at that the prior to June so you can make a decision here. I’ll just say the Club Room continues to remain closed primarily for COVID reasons.
Beer Tasting: Dan O’Leary –
Right now we’re still restricted to 40 people. They are supposed to on April 1 possibly lift the restrictions. We are scheduled for April 30 for the beer tasting. Another idea, which I can research, we could run it outside. Attendance, I think, is dependent on the size of the lot, so could be 500 to 1000. So, if I find out what the parking lot permit is and what the tent permit is. I could look into that. I really believe that would up the sale of the tickets.
I can do that and have all the figures, hopefully, a week or two.
And another option is that we can change the beer tasting from Friday to Saturday afternoon, May 1.
Unfinished business: Patrick Sullivan reported in the upcoming Gaelic Mass on Monday, March 15 at 7:30pm St Thomas Moore Cathedral in Arlington. There is an online link to it so you don’t have to go in person if you wish to participate.
Sullivan said he and Mike Riley have been working on the upcoming shamrock degree. We’ve reviewed the current materials and they look good. We’re planning on 10 April as the target date and if that doesn’t work out for whatever reason, 17 April is going to be our backup. And we wish to have an outdoor event, so we can keep social distancing. Mike is looking at various parks and we may have a keg of beer afterwards. For those officers who will participate, we ask for you to memorize your part. We have 19 to 21 possible candidates.
New business:
Tom Masarick said on March 16 he’s asked Dominic Preston, and Jerry Lafferty and Kevin Byrne to help put together Irish music on via WebEx with Dominic on the keyboard and Jerry and Kevin on the bagpipes from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Brian Tumulty suggested our division should make charitable donation in support of the Gaelic Mass.
Good of the order: Prayers were offered for our brother Joe Cahill and for all Hibernians and their families as we go through this COVID and get the vaccine.
End at 8:58 pm
