Recap: 1st Annual National Conference
Fr. Joseph Tuscan, National Director of the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers, led the National Conference on July 21-22, 2023. This was a monumental meeting because a National Conference has never been organized in the history of our Archconfraternity.
As Fr. Tuscan wears many hats in his role as Director as well as in his Order, he is interested in restructuring his connections with the local Confraternities so that his time is spent more efficiently. We have over 1,000 active Confraternities in the U.S. Province. He is more than happy to continue to visit local Confraternities and give parish missions, etc. But to meet the need of connecting with every Confraternity, he would like to organize 3-4 Annual Regional Conferences, structured by time zone.
We spent a lot of time during Q&A sessions clarifying various needs from different Confraternities. Then Fr. Tuscan asked for volunteers to begin considering the needs for a Conference next year. Kendy Troiano met with anyone interested in serving on the planning team. The dates for next year's Conference are July 27-28, 2024, in Pittsburgh. Mark your calendar! We would like all four officers to attend, or a suitable delegate. Check back here for updates!
This year's Conference was small but mighty. The vision is for all Officers to meet next year. We will use the Conference as a place to be restored and gather information and news and take it back to our local Confraternity in lieu of Fr. Tuscan traveling around and giving the annual updates. In the future Regional Conferences may be open to Christian Mother members too, but we're not ready for that yet.
We received greetings from a few other Capuchin brothers -- namely Rev. Fr. Lester Knoll, OFM Cap., previous National director of the ACCM, Rev. Fr. Robert Marva, OFM Cap., Provincial Superior of the Capuchin Province of St. Augustine and Rev. Fr. William Grahm, OFM Cap. who is a canon lawyer and helping us with the new edition of "Mother Love".
As far as resources go, we received a new Welcome Packet. This resource is something we could hand out to ladies when they attend their first meeting or ask for more information about the Confraternity.
Much fruitful information was gleaned listening to the Q&A sessions and talking to other Officers about how they structure or run different things. We didn't do any brainstorming about particular areas (fundraising, getting new members, etc.), but it sounds like that would be helpful for future Conferences.
A HUGE thank you to Fr. Tuscan, Jill Turok, and Kendy Troiano for putting together such a wonderful meeting.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
