What we can learn from the Charmin man

Attended a planning/marketing meeting for my son's Catholic grade school tonight.
It made me think of a book on marketing which my wife has, entitled "Hey Whipple, squeeze this!"
The first observation: the most organized group they are not.

His school faces a deficit of $320,000 when a benefactor dropped out, as well as declining enrollment numbers.  I attended this meeting to see what I could bring to the table, and because my wife who actually is the Chair of their marketing committee has had a migraine all day and would not have stood for their shenanigans without offending someone.  They can't focus on one thing at a time, they don't think "BIG" and they are approaching most everything half ass-ed.  There is no consistent approach (except to be consistently bad/half ass-ed) and their message isn't well defined.  (That's where Whipple came in, or Dunkin Donuts, or Target or any of a dozen others you could think of.  Consistent message, to the point, you know what's coming but somehow it makes you think about buying it /donating to it/joining it anyway.)

The other problem is that we have church hierarchy to contend with.  We can't approach other parishes who might act as feeders into our school (since they don't have their own) without first having our Father contact their Father.  We can't ask our own parish to pony up to support the school without Father doing it or approving it.  So here is how high this issue ranks on the importance scale; Father Rich yet again was not in attendance.  So as I have ranted about in a previous blog, it feels as if forces both outside AND inside are arrayed against us. To the point that he won't lift a finger to help us, the scuttlebutt (and I am normally not one for conspiracy theories) is that the Diocese of Pittsburgh has already told Father that we will be closing but they are letting us go through the motions of trying to keep the school open.

So I waver almost hourly.  I alternate between having an energy that we will not be defeated, having found an article just today that seemed like divine providence, and a sense of absolute defeatism that we have only 4 weeks to meet an imposed deadline by the Diocese for fundraising and enrollment numbers for which the task seems overwhelming.

But I think in the end I have determined to give this my best effort, if anything just to spite the Diocese, the grumps in the parish, and most of all our boat anchor of a parish priest, Father Rich.  It's going to be an interesting April.  Next up, volunteering for an open house Sunday April 11th.

As Sting once sang, "sending out an SOS" (Save Our School)