Dear Brother Knights:

My term as Grand Knight is coming to a close and thus I have arrived at my final Grand Knight’s message. This has been a great experience for me, and I hope that the Council has benefited in some way from my tenure. I know I have personally benefited, and I can’t thank everyone enough for all of your support and help this year.

I have just returned from our State Convention and I found the entire experience to be eye opening and quite honestly a lot of fun. The convention is going to be held in Sacramento next year and because of that I wanted to provide some observations in the hope that many of us attend next year.

• • There were two masses at the convention, an opening mass and a closing mass. The first mass was celebrated by our current State Chaplain, Bishop Oscar Solis of Salt Lake City, who as he pointed out has a very Hispanic name, but he is actually 100% Filipino. I honestly have never heard a funnier priest/Bishop say mass. If you ever have the opportunity to hear, or meet this man you really should. The mass was co-celebrated by over 40 priests and deacons. As you can imagine it was quite a site. In addition, the closing mass was celebrated by the Archbishop of Los Angeles and co-celebrated by the Bishop of Orange. There were two altar boys who’s only job was to hold the Bishop’s hats and deliver them at the appropriate times during mass. There were four different sets of 4th degree Color Guards escorting everyone and anyone. If you are interested in pomp and circumstance, just attend the opening or closing mass at next year’s convention.

• • Our current State Deputy, our State Deputy elect, our current State Chaplain (the Bishop), and our next State Chaplain were all in the seminary together as young men in the Philippines.

• • Most of the meeting was just like our monthly business meeting, except the officers on the dais were the State Officer’s. They held the exact same format for elections, conducted the same budget process, and passed resolutions the same way. And the more than 500 voting delegates acted the exact same way – there was even a guy who kept abstaining on every vote.

• • We had zero chance of getting our three resolutions passed, but they did make me famous. I stood up without a microphone and asked the State Advocate who was reading our first resolution (the place was fairly quiet because we were the 67th, 68th, and 69th resolutions to be read) and asked if this is when I advocated for people to vote in favor of our resolutions. He instructed me to walk around to a microphone, which I did, but everyone in the room was watching me do this. Then I gave my speech, which boiled down to the fact that we needed to modernize as an organization if we were going to survive. That little speech received a standing ovation and although they voted all three of our bills down, at least a third of the open assembly voted in favor of the bills, surprising our State Officer’s in my opinion. But this episode provided me instant fame, because after that, random guys would stop me and my wife all over the resort and want to talk to me about technology, modernization and the terribly antiquated systems that we use. They would stop us in hallways, at lunch, in the elevator – it was remarkable. And it turns out that several Council’s already accept on-line payments through
    Square and through their websites.

• • Everyone was very friendly and part of this was due to the fact that we all have something in common which made the experience very comfortable.

• • They performed a live first-degree ceremony during the convention in front of more than 500 people and during this they inducted 37 new Knight’s. The first-degree team that performed the ceremony had supposedly tried out against three other teams and won. I can honestly say, that if I memorized my part, and Sheldon memorizes his part, we could easily beat these guys and perform at next year’s convention. George Mills, Dale Edwards, and Matt Lucien are simply head and shoulders above when it comes to their parts. It turns out that very few Councils state wide have first degree teams and many of them utilize a DVD or provide scripts to new initiates.

• • I learned that there are only two sanctioned charities that are under the State Umbrella. The first is the “Brother’s Helping Brother’s” which most of us know as the 365 club. During the convention, a majority of the Grand Knight’s in attendance walk up and hand a check to the heads of the charity and the Council number is called out to the audience along with the City of Origin. Our council collected $1,100 dollars and donated it to the charity. The second charity is the Knights of Columbus care home facility located in Marysville CA. This 20-unit living facility provides apartments and three meals a day for Knights of Columbus in need for approximately $1,200 dollars per month. This is a very worthy and well-intentioned charity, except for their funding is down nearly 80% since its founding. You are reading that correctly – very few Council’s donate to this charity known as the Columbian Retirement Home. It would probably be a very good idea for us to figure out a way, as a Council, to voluntarily donate to this facility and organize an afternoon where we drive up to Marysville and help them out in
    some way.

As we look ahead to next year and into the future it was also insightful to know that nearly every Council I spoke with is struggling with the same issues. I met councils with their own halls and not a single one of them signed the paperwork for Supreme. In fact, two of them flat out told Supreme to forget about it or they were quitting with the threat of becoming a Parish men’s club. All of them complained about the inability to drop brother Knights who did not pay and who had not paid in over five years. They complained about the cumbersome paperwork, the lack of technology and the difficulty with attendance. But through all of the complaints, there was always the acknowledgment that the organization is founded on and continues to be an organization for good. We simply exist to do good things and help people in need. We can all be happy to be a part of an organization that purely exists to do good things.

Thank You,
Bryan McKrell
Grand Knight, Council 953

SK Garrett Thomas recently returned from a trip to Washington,
DC and shared with us these pictures from Arlington National
Cemetery.

Above is a memorial plaque displayed at the Tomb of the
Unknowns donated by and proudly bearing the Knights of
Columbus logo.

Below is a plaque at President John F. Kennedy’s grave site
bearing the famous words of his inaugural address. The 2011
restoration of this plaque was underwritten by the Knights of
Columbus. Kennedy, of course, was both a Knight and the the
first Catholic president.

Brother Garrett reports that the Knights are quite well represented
in Washington, DC, due in large part to the many patriotic displays and activities in which the order participates.

The nominations committee has nominated the following slate of officers for the 2017-18 Columbian Year. The slate of officers will be voted on at the June business meeting. Nominations may also be accepted from the floor at the June business meeting, provided the nominee has agreed to serve if elected.

Grand Knight – Adam Struck
Deputy Grand Knight – Garrett Thomas
Chancellor – Michael Litwin
Warden – Clif Bachmeier
Recorder – Matt Curran
Treasurer – John Watling
Advocate – Fred Struck
Inside Guard – Greg Wolfe
Outside Guard – Tom Nulk
3-Year Trustee – Bryan McKrell
2-Year Trustee – Lewis Muñoz
1-Year Trustee – George Mills