Irish Cultural Society of San Antonio

Irish Cultural Society

of San Antonio Texas

MINUTES 15FEB09

IRISH CULTURAL SOCIETY MEETING - February 15, 2009
The meeting was called to order at 3:08pm with
an invocation given by Sister Carmel and the 
Pledge of Allegiance led by Vice-President Lou
Kelley. The minutes were read and accepted as
read.  Bob Barron gave a cumulative treasurer's
report covering the past 3 months. He said that
one of our CDs had matured and was deposited
into the ICS checking account, bringing our
operating budget to a total of $8,357.32. He
explained that several checks for larger amounts
than is usual on a monthly basis will have to be
written to cover the costs of the Irish Heritage
Day and the upcoming St. Patrick's Day dance.
As of this date we do not know if either event
will be a "money maker" although if the past few
years are any indication, they will not. Lou 
reminded us that there will be an audit of the
books this fall. Carolyn Dowd apprised us of the
exorbitant rise in fees the city was requiring 
of the Harp and Shamrock to continue having the
street and river parades and the Alamo Irish
Fest at La Villita. The fest has been cancelled,
but the street parade will still take place on 
March 14th at 11 am.  Sheila Carolla, our program
chairperson, let us know that her husband's white
truck will be the vehicle used by ICS in the Harp
and Shamrock's St. Patrick's Day street parade,
and she invited us to come participate. She
reminded us that today we are having a wine and
cheese party in lieu of the food we normally
bring for our break.
Kay, our membership chair, has tickets for the
dance and also for the chance to win a Vespa in
aid of renovations to St. Patrick's Church here
in town. That is the congregation that hosts a
luncheon for the Irish of San Antonio after the
celebration of Mass at their church on St. 
Patrick's Day each year. Ethna, our social chair,
asked that we bring lots of homemade Irish
goodies to the Irish Heritage Day "sampling
table" down at SAC.
The scones and breads were a big hit at last
year's IHD, and she's hoping that the more food
we have, the more money will be deposited in the
"donation jar" to help cover our costs.
Our publicity chair, Brenda, has been busy
sending out flyers about our upcoming events to
parishes, Catholic TV, Today's Catholic,
libraries and coffee shops. Lou asked for an
update on scholarship. The erstwhile chairperson
informed him that it was her understanding that 
there was no longer a scholarship award given 
out, per the vote taken by the board last August.
Lou commented that the scholarship information 
was still up on the website. The chair informed
him that having it on the website didn't make it
so, and requested that he remove the information
from the website so that students would not submit
an essay in the next six weeks for which no award
money had been budgeted. He declined.
To be continued... 
No new business today.
The business meeting was adjourned at 3:30,
followed by an entertaining program of Nora 
Olivares reading some of her published poetry and
Lou Kelley leading us in song on his guitar after
we had helped ourselves to wine and cheese.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan S. Feeley
Secretary