Fundraising Opportunity

We've just put up a new website to help your clubs afford to pay for books, badges, sashes and shirts.

Basically, all the information is on the new fundraising website: www.eccehomopress.com/Fundraising-Home.html


Here's how it is going to work:

1.) Register your group on the site's registration form.

2) Get a customer login and password by return email

3) pass the email with the customer login, password and fundraising website to club members, families and friends.

4.) When they purchase books from the fundraising website you earn 40% of that sale as a credit toward your club's purchases of supplies on the entire Ecce Homo Press website.

5. Once a month, you'll receive a gift certificate for 40% of your month's sales to use at www.eccehomopress.com

Please see the fundraising site for more details and information.

God bless you in your work for His work!
Joan Stromberg
www.eccehomopress.com

Avoiding Burnout

With summer upon us and many groups on ‘vacation,’ you may be looking back at the past year with relief that it is finally over, or anticipating next year with a sense of dread. If this is true for you, you may have a case of burnout. Whether it is family life, homeschooling, or Little Flowers/Blue Knights, burnout can be a real struggle. I know - I’ve been through it in all of this situations mentioned above at one point or another.Burnout is described as physical or mental collapse caused by overwork or stress. But even without Webster’s definition, we all know it when we see it in others but often don’t realize when it hits us - until it is too late.But it can happen and sometimes does. I hope it offers you some comfort to know that burnout happens to the best (and worst) of us. I also hope it offers you additional comfort to know that burnout doesn’t have to happen. And lastly, if it should happen, it says nothing about who you are as a person (or Catholic). We are flawed people reaching out for the grace of God in all circumstances and sometimes our arms fall a bit short. We also need to realize Satan is never idle, and the stress and overwork that causes the burnout often has his dirty fingerprints all over it.Through burnout Satan makes us feel either incompetent or inferior - two adjectives that should never be used when talking about a child of God. However, consider your own experience with burnout. Did you refuse to admit it could be happening to you and attempt to muscle through the difficulty with your sheer will and some extra prayer? Or did you crumble under it and refuse to undertake any similar work or activity again?The first approach - muscling through - is the inferiority complex of burnout. You are only burning out because you don’t pray enough, pray the right prayer, or commit yourself to the right mix of prayer, sacrifice, and sacrament. In this model burnout doesn’t happen to ‘good’ Catholics so there must be something wrong with you.The second approach - crumbling - is the incompetency complex. You obviously aren’t holy enough, fit enough, smart enough, or whatever enough to be doing this (whatever ‘this’ is!). You are not the person for the job and God will just have find someone else.Neither of these are true. Burnout happens for many reasons as mentioned above - how do you define stress and overwork? I often call it - Life!In the end, regardless of how burnout makes you feel, whatever brought you to burnout needs to be addressed. Burnout is not your ‘fault’ but perhaps you can put into place a few key resolutions to prevent it from happening again (or in the first place!).Don’t go it alone. Take the advice of Christ himself who sent out his own disciples in pairs. When starting any group (either LF or BK), insist on help. Have a sign-up sheet at the first meetings of organization and insist that everyone find somewhere to help. It can be as simple as providing the snacks or picking up the craft supplies. While many groups run their meetings as drop-off meeting, it should be expected that one or two parents stay to help out. These parents need not be leaders, unless they want to, but having an extra set of hands and eyes is always welcome. There is a place for everyone to help; encourage their participation with reminders of the Christian call to helping. You are, after all, not even asking for their coat, just an hour or so of their time!Accept the reality that others will help to the best of their ability and with their own strengths with no detrimental effect on the group. Allow other parents to bring their own talents and temperaments. They may be louder than you or more sedate. They may prefer to work straight from the book while you work more loosely. You may wish that every snack be homemade and they bring pretzels and juice boxes. The girls will gain a great deal from a variety of techniques and seeing others in action. It may not be way you like things to be done but it is not the “wrong way.” Accept gratefully and charitably the help that is offered with no criticisms, unless errors in Church teaching occur.In a group setting, rules must be established addressing how inappropriate behavior or activity will be handled. Burnout often happens because of the stress from meetings that are not the places of fun and faith they ought to be. It can be awkward when you find yourself having to correct children that aren’t your own. Making it clear beforehand with all of the parents of what behaviors are expected can help prevent, reduce (and hopefully eliminate) any problems.Feel free to step back from the guidelines for the programs and have meetings that are just fun and games. If you are feeling overwhelmed due to a belief you need to do every activity or every craft, the children are going to sense that. Scheduling an occasional meeting or gathering for a good movie, games, or a trip to a local zoo will be appreciated by everyone.Finally (and firstly), be sure to dedicate your program, the families, and children involved to the protection and watchful eye of God. Whenever you are striving for holiness, Satan (as mentioned before) is surely twitching. Making sure to always pray before planning any meetings, starting any meeting, and ending every meeting will afford you the grace you need to run a program that is fun and inspiring for both the children and the adults involved!Burnout is not inevitable but should not be unexpected. Putting into place some strong foundational expectations before meetings begin will help them from developing any stress fractures or crumbling all together.God Bless,Rachel Watkins

New England Conference

Come visit Ecce Homo Press at the New England Catholic Homeschool Conference in Chicopee, MA on June 6th and save! Conference goers save 15% on all materials and get free shipping on supplies they wish shipped to their homes.This conference is a perfect opportunity to check out new items, stock up for next year and get catalogs and materials to help build your club for the coming year.If you plan on stocking up for the next year's clubs, just shoot me an email (eccehomopr@aol.com) and I'll make sure I have the supplies you need. See you in New England!

Foam Sword

Are you afraid your boys will enjoy their craft swords a little TOO much? Here's a great link to a site to make a safer foam sword.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2236100_noodle-foam-sword.html

New Look, New Books

My dear son, Joe, graduated from Franciscan Univ. of Steubenville in December. I've been anticipating his graduation for some time. Not just because he'll be a college graduate but also because he holds a bachelor of arts in English composition. A very handy degree for a publisher. He also has worked for Ecce Homo Press during the summer for the last few years. So Joe is with the company full time and we decided Blue Knights needed a little face lift. Thanks to Joe, we've edited, reformatted and perfect bound the Year 3 and 4 Blue Knights Leaders and Member's Guides. They now have new illustrations, new covers, and the member's guides have new, easy for children to read biographies. The Craft Companion also has a new cover and crisp new photos and illustrations. We also now have memory cards for Years 2, 3, and 4. These are packaged in sets of 10-one for each saint plus one of St. Joseph, patron of Blue Knights.

We'll be featuring these items and more in our monthly newsletters. The newsletters will also have discount codes to get these items at deep discounts. Other items in the newsletters include leader training, idea and craft activities for the groups, and frequently asked questions. If you aren't signed up to get the email newsletter, visit the website at http://www.eccehomopress.com/ and scroll down to the bottom of the page to sign-up. The next newsletter goes out March 21, 2009.

Caution: Craft not for human consumption!

I just wanted to pass on a heads-up from a customer who warned me that the craft in the first year of Blue Knights has a suggestion to use fishing weights to weigh down the front end of the spear. Some fishing weights may contain lead, so if you are uneasy about using them, you might try to use steel ball bearings instead. We used them because we had them around the house for a science experiment on the viscosity of glycerin (huh?) and so we used them instead of the lead and they worked fine. We picked them up at the hardware store.

If you use the lead fishing weights, make sure not to get them mixed up with your snack (same goes for the steel ball bearings, too, for that matter!

New Year, New Club

I've noticed a trend over the last few years of Little Flowers and Blue Knights clubs starting in January rather than September. This has some definite advantages. January is typically a slow month without a whole lot going on. Since it is the start of a new year, a new beginning for a club falls right in line with a new resolution to learn and teach virtues in our families. Since the clubs are flexible, you can start wherever and whenever you want. You can still do one virtue a month, work through the summer and finish by September. Or, you can really dive into the material and make the study last longer. Whatever works for you will be fine for the children involved, I'm sure. 

So if you've been hesitating in starting a club, now's the time to start! Just to give you a little more incentive, EHP will offer a 10% discount on all orders placed from now until December 31, 2008. Just type in the discount code: CLUB09  Orders must be placed online at the website: www.eccehomopress.com 

Have a Holy Advent!