on this in the past year; however, that does not mean that it is not an important task.  We will continue on this in 2008.

 

 

Finally I want to report on the Sabbatical fund that has been started for Denzil.  One of the duties of the Sr. Warden is to be the Rector’s advocate, to ensure that he is doing his job, but also to ensure that he is not doing so much that his health is being impacted.  Denzil has been with us for over 17 years and during that time we have grown tremendously.  However, this means he has been away from the academic atmosphere of seminary for some time and it would be good for him to have a significant block of time away from St. John’s to do some study and not have to worry about day to day operations.  What we have done is establish a special fund that will cover a three month sabbatical.  Individuals are contributing to this and I expect that the vestry will also add to this fund, as necessary. 

 

We had planned to have Denzil take a sabbatical in 2007 and that didn’t happen.  Every year that we delay in this is another missed opportunity for us to help him renew and refresh his already considerable skills.  We are blessed to have him and we need to take care of him.  Hopefully he will be able to schedule and take a sabbatical this year.

2007 St. John’s Race Report

 

 

Well 2007 certainly was a remark-

able year when it came to earnings

from all the hard work that was

done by our St. John’s Race

Team of Volunteers.  As usual our team worked their hearts out at both the NASCAR Nextel Cup Races in July and the IRL Races in September.  In addition to this a small group of volunteers manned the Monster Truck Rally at the end of the season in October to earn money for breast cancer research.

 

Our efforts produced the following:

 

NASCAR – 3 days of volunteering, approximately 33 strong, manning as many as 5 booths selling over $93,000 of product and earning $5,982 from Levy Restaurants and an additional $1,915 in cash tips that go directly to St. John’s.  This totaled $7,897.89 !!

 

IRL – 2 days, with 20+ volunteers, manning 4 booths and selling $36,415 of product and earning $2,510 and an additional $731 in cash tips, again going directly to St. John’s.  This totaled $3,241 !!

 

The grand total for both events, including tips was over $11,139 for St. John’s!!!!

 

As mentioned a small group, 13 strong, worked the Monster Truck Rally, a one day event, to raise money for the Susan B. Coleman Breast Cancer Foundation and earned over $900 including tips.

 

But it wasn’t all work, oh no! After all the work we had a fantastic thank you party for everyone who volunteered complete with too much food and plenty of other refreshments and lots of good fellowship and lots of stories to pass around.

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t send a great, big thanks to Rob and Deb Lindstrand and Todd Sheetz and Tim Williams who helped organize all these events.  And especially a sincere thanks to all the volunteers, both within the parish and those who aren’t members of St. John’s parish for giving of their time and efforts.

 

We can all be proud of this effort in 2007 and let’s hope that we can exceed these amounts in the 2008 Racing Season which is just around the corner.

 

Blessings,

Mark Secor