Membership

Membership Report October 2022

St. Louis Archdiocesan Growth Region   
As the Archdiocesan Growth Director I am working with DDs to help them motivate District Councils to achieve Supreme assigned membership intake goals:

DDs are working with District Councils to be scheduling some type of Church drive or some other recruitment event every month supported by:
– A monthly exemplification going forward so there is always a place for councils to take newly recruited members or Online Members who have joined the order.
– Councils are to utilize On Demand exemplification if newly recruited members or OMs cannot make the next scheduled exemplification.
– No recruited or OM member should wait longer than 2 – 3 weeks to join a Council as a 3^rd Degree Brother Night.
 
Online Membership As of 9/26/22
11 Districts / 62 Councils support the St. Louis Chapter

DDs are the drivers of helping Councils use all tools available to increase council growths more quickly. This month Chapter Councils
– Intake increased by 35% to 90 or 26% of yearly goal
– # of Councils increased by 81% to 29 of 66
– There are 58 available Online Members to convert into Councils
– OMs converted into councils is 39
– Those converted OMs accounted for 59% of new members this last 30 days

All of these tracking numbers tell Online Membership is still the main method of recruitment. Online Members have increased by 39% over last month, and Online Membership is the reason why many more of the Councils that support the St. Louis Chapter will achieve and surpass  assigned Supreme intake goals to achieve “Star Council”!!!

Supreme Regional Growth Director Joe Ramirez in St. Louis on October 11-12

Joe Ramirez “Huddle Meetings” were conducted October 11^th at Council 9981 in Chesterfield & October 12^th in Cottleville at Council 7198. Each meeting generated some very good dialog.   Many Council leadership teams boasted about the very positive way Online Membership is growing the councils with younger men in the 42 to 45 age group.  The men are looking for ways to grow in their faith and their desire to grow together with other Catholic families in their parishes.   The comment that came up at each meeting was the “wondering what All Things New” was going to do to their councils.  Simply put, there will always be a Knights of Columbus Council in parishes.

The inevitable closings that will happen soon – they will be for the right reasons. Parish populations have been reducing every year – so there is no surprise there.  As St. Louis Archdiocesan Growth Director I have been merging councils in St. Louis North City & County, and will be gathering information from Council members that will be attending parish focus meetings as they occur during the months of October, November and early December.  Those meetings will tell us where we need to start looking at other locations around the St. Louis Archdiocese to get ahead of the parish closings. The Knights of Columbus will be known as the “Strong Right Arm” of the Archbishop to facilitate a smooth transition and have unified and productive Councils in parishes where Councils were not. This will give us new opportunities to grow even stronger. We will function as the “Supporters” of local parishes with programs that “Evangelize”, making them growth-centered, warm and welcoming parishes that help grow the “Faith” in parish families.  

Fraternally,
Dick Kobylski 
Chapter Trustee & State Chairman for Online Membership Program