Grand Knight's Blog

2020/04/28

May Message

Brother Knights,

as I write my May Grand Knight’s message we are over six weeks into our Physical and Social Distancing protocol issued by the Governments. We have been apart amongst our family, friends, neighbours and co-workers. Yet we as a Catholic Men’s Family Fraternal organization I feel have been more closer than ever before if not physically but we have been closer spiritually especially during this time of our religious calendar. I know that we as Council could not get together for our various programs and meeting but I hope that we stayed in touch with one another and I hope that we talked to our members and deceased members wives that are shut in or alone and let them know that they are not alone during this time of uncertainty. We have the technology at our fingertips to talk, text, email, message, facetime to check up on people from our couch or kitchen table.

There have been many webinars that were put on by our Supreme Office and by our State Office in regards to what could we do to continue to function as a Council from how we can hold meetings through virtual settings, through the phone and what proper avenues we could use. The Supreme webinars have really been about how to keep in touch with our Council members because if we do not keep in touch we could lose many valuable members to our council that we forgot to reach out to them. The State run webinars have mainly dealt with retention and Council Officers. These both are open to all Brother Knights.

I know that we need meetings and programming to continue. We have been active while this pandemic has us apart. We have been visible virtually by sending out the Protection Prayer in time of Pandemic. We also sent out a Novena for Easter. Fr Louis has offered us Sunday Mass through Facebook which is helping us lift our faith and spirits up. We have people form our Council and Parish that have set this all up so that we can continue to practise our Catholic Faith. I would like to thank John Curry and Rick Dubois for getting the prayer and the novena out to our members and also to our Parish family. Great Job! I know that we have many savvy tech people in our Council who might be able to help us get us hooked up so that we can have our regular meetings again starting this month. Whether we go through the phone or email. Please call me and we will see what the best way to go.

I asked our F.S. Henry Kweens to send out an updated Budget for this Columbian year to the Executive for feedback into what we need to cut or add to our budget. With the declining funds from bingo what we could do for a new fundraiser or what else can be done. As of Thursday April 24th , no one has offered any feedback to what we could do. I am asking the Executive to look at the budget and see what needs to be changed or kept. We need to do this before the next Columbian Year. Otherwise we are leaving the next years Executive in a bind for what their need of funds.

As "The Word" is being published this weekend so to is the Annual State Convention is being held virtually because of the pandemic. The Convention Booklets were just sent out last week through email and there has been a short chance for resolution feedback. As a Council we have had not a chance to discuss any resolutions and we apologize for that.
 
I would like to express on behalf of our Council our deepest sympathies to Gerald and Louise Farkus and also to Lewis and Gloria Lozinski on the passing of Gloria and Louise’s brother Ron Wrishko who passed away recently. He was a Brother Knight in Saskatoon. May he rest in peace.
I hope that you and your families are safe and are continuing to care for one another.

Another Humble Servant,
Jeff Krasowski - Grand Knight


2020/03/25

April Message

Dear Brother Knights,

As I write my April message we as not only as a Faith Community, a Province, a City, a Country, a Catholic Men's Family Fraternal Organization and a World are in a Health Crisis with the novel coronavirus Covid-19 Pandemic. We are asked to follow the guidelines and protocols that have been put in place for us to follow. We butneed to follow these guidelines and protocols if we are to fight through this virus.

I am saying this because after a lot of prayer and reflection I have come to the decision that we as a Council postpone all activities and meetings until further notice. Let me be clear that I would like to make sure that all of you my Brother Knights are kept well informed of what is happening with our Council's well-being.
That many of our activities are being put on hold for the short term. I understand that some may be having questions and concerns regarding what our plans as a Council has in place. I am going to admit that I do not know for sure what these plans are but together we will answer these questions and concerns and we will make sure you my Brother Knights are well informed either through email updates, by mail notices or by phone. I want to make sure that we all are understanding that we are doing this to make all less anxious of what is happening to our Council. These are times when we as a Catholic Men's Family Fraternal Organization we are at our best. It is times like these that we pull together and we offer our basic principles of our Order Charity, Unity, Fraternity and Patriotism to not only our members but also to our Family, Church, Community and Country. We are all leaders and we need to lead through Prayer, Action and Faith that we all can get through this tough time.

I have thought about what would our Councils forefathers have done back in the early years of our Council's beginnings with the Influenza outbreak and I just could imagine the fear that they must have had and then their thoughts of how to help their fellow family member, parishioner, neighbor get through that time. We have the same chance to make a difference even if it is only through Prayer and keeping Social Distancing as our "sword and shield" in our battle against this virus.

I am suggesting that we postpone our Executive and General Meetings for the month of April. I am also hoping that if Orest and Johannes are in agreement that we continue to publish "The Word" because this is one way of keeping you informed of what is happening in our Council. Therefore I would like the Executive and the Trustees to work together in getting a new Executive for the Next Columbian Year for the May Meeting. I have also asked Henry our Financial Secretary to have the 2019-2020 Budgets updated and sent to the Executive and Trustees for their thoughts on what needs to be changed for next year's budget.

Finally, we need to keep all of our Council's members and their families in mind during this time of global uncertainty by keeping them and all mankind in our thoughts and prayers.
To all, please keep safe and healthy during this time.

Another Humble Servant,
Jeff Krasowski - Grand Knight


2020/03/02

March Message

My Brother Knights,

As we begin this Season of Lent, we as Knights of Columbus members are called to be a cornerstone of the Catholic Church. We often think that we need to give up something or to sacrifice something during this special time in our Liturgical calendar.

There are many things that I can think of that we as brother Knights have far too often take for granted that we might accidentally lose our focus on what makes us a Fraternal Catholic Men’s Family Organization. That is right I wrote Fraternal Catholic Men’s Fraternal Organization. To me, we are a big family. We like to help our brother knights who cannot do things that they once did. We enjoy talking to our fellow brother knights asking how their families are doing and when asked we like to talk about our families and mention how well they are doing. This is great but what happens when we know that a member is sick or in distress and we figure that someone else will mention it at a meeting before “The Good of the Order” part? We stay quiet.

I mention this because we all know of someone who is sick or in distress in our Council or Parish. We often, myself included, stay silent not mentioning someone that is not feeling well or are alone when we can be taking a moment to think about them and their families and say a prayer. We, can also if we want we could visit them and see how they are doing even if it is only for a few minutes. We are all charitable especially during this time of year trying to help make our world a better place, let us not forget our fellow brother knight’s who need our support and prayers for their families who may need our help in Carrying their Cross and be there for them at their time of need.

We are the cornerstone of the Church, our Parish community, our families and our community.

Another Humble Servant,
Jeff Krasowski - G.K.


2020/02/01

February Message

My Brother Knights,

I hope that you and your families are staying warm during this up and down winter temperatures. I would like to thank all brother knights and their families for the many volunteer hours that you have spent this past year for the Good of our Order and Council. Whether you have helped out at the World Curling Tour Bonspiel held in tow, helped work at bingos, in the Church, visited the sick, or even volunteered in the city, we appreciate your generosity of your time and talents.

I hope that all have received the new edition of the Council Roster. I know that I accidentally missed a few members who are holding very important chairmanships on our various committees for missing you and your committee was an oversight on my part and I am truly sorry that I forgot you.

Another Humble Servant,
Jeff Krasowski - G.K.

2020/01/05

January Message

As we prepare for a new decade in this 21st century; we begin to look back and take stock of what we have not only as individuals but also as a Council of our achievements. We look back at our accomplishments for these past ten years and we can see what we could do better in these accomplishments.

As individuals each of us have had something or many things that were gratifying to us. We also as individuals have had times where we wish we could have wished that we could have had a do over and turn back the clock a did something or somethings differently.

As a Council the same can be said about our past 100 years. There has been a lot of change for the better and the not so great. When many of us joined the Knights of Columbus the new programming was called Surge in Service in which there were 5 service program categories, Church, Family, Youth, Council, and Community. Each of these had sub-committees under each of them to help get more members involved with the programming of our Council. We had leaders great leaders for each of these programs and there were programs that we all enjoyed and when we were asked to help out with a particular activity we were happy to take on the challenge. The programs at the time were done very well but if we could tweek them up a bit then that much better the outfit might be. Today, we are in the second year of Faith In Action and many programs have changed some for the better and some need some more fine-tuning.

We all can appreciate what new challenges can bring to us as individuals and as a Council. It brings out the best in our abilities and attributes to make things better. It brings new ideas to the forefront  and maybe some ideas that we have not really given a chance to reach their goals. As in the decades past, new members bring in new ideas and as a Council I believe that we are listening to these new ideas and are trying to adapt them in to our programming to try and help make a difference to this changing world that we live in.

Yes, we have different criteria we must do for these new positions in our programming but these are not as challenging as them may seem and we make them out to be.  With today’s world, we need to be more prepared and adaptable to protect ourselves and also the Seniors and Youth with whom are becoming more vulernable . With this in mind we to be diligent in how we approach seniors and youth with even more sensitivity than in the past. I write this as a little reminder that we need help in filling in some of our Program Chairmanships, Community.

Finally, our new roster will be out shorty in the next month even if we have not filled these positions. I know that an updated roster will help all to see our  members that are still in our Council.

Another humble servant,
Jeff Krasowski - G.K.