As the newly selected Lay Director for Cursillo, I would like to thank Nick Lang for his Stewardship as the Lay Director for the past three years.   He has done a great job of guiding the Cursillo Movement in the Belleville Diocese.   Nick gave me a great turn over with a well-organized set of Cursillo records and has been available to answer my question since then. In addition to Nick, I would also like to thank everyone who has served in the Secretariat positions as well as those in the Sub Committee chairs for their Cursillo work.  We will need replacements for some positions: Evangelizer, Post-Cursillo, Cursillo and the Secretary whose terms of service have ended or are ending soon.  Thanks especially to Chris Leja for assembling the Evangelizer, getting our web site working and handling the 4^th Day emails, to Julie Weber for handling the Secretary position,  to Tony and Sharon Gugliotta  for their work as the Post-Cursillo Chair and to Ann Haubrich, and Bob and Katie Emge for all the work they did on the Cursillo Chair.

My first action as Lay Director was to attend the Region IV Fall Cursillo Encounter which was held at the Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center in Cincinnati, OH on 13-15 October.  I was pleasantly surprised with the talks and the way the encounter was organized and run.  Many of the attendees did not speak English so the talks were conducted in English but simultaneously translated to Spanish for the Hispanic community.  The Mass was also conducted in both English and Spanish.

In my term as the Lay Director for the Belleville Diocese, I would like to continue providing great weekends for our candidates and I would like to move ahead with the selection of Parish Representatives for Cursillo which was started by Nick Lang.   To be realistic, we are not going to get representatives for all the parishes in the diocese but I would like to start the effort with some of our more active parishes.  This will also contribute to a second goal which is to improve the awareness of Cursillo in the Catholic Community.  I would like to improve coverage of Cursillo in Diocesan publications and I would like to see more of the 4^th-Day community wearing shirts with “Cursillo” or “De Colores” logos.  Other ideas that will make the Cursillo better known in our Catholic Community are welcomed.   De Colores

Bob McCormack