Stewardship Minutes

Stewardship Talk
Rob Fleenor

My name is Rob Fleenor. I am the “sound guy” who sits in the back of the church at the 11:00 mass and tries to remember to keep the volumn turned up when Father B delivers his inspirational messages each Sunday. My wife, Susie, and I have been regulars at St. Nicholas since our marriage here in 1990. We have two children, Kristi and Ben. I have been asked to share with you what it means to me to be a part of the stewardship community at St. Nick. I will do so through the following story. I must pay tribute to a few people who have played an instrumental role in what I call a journey of faith. First, there is Peg Bartalotta. Peg invited me into the fold. With her guidance, love, professional attitude, and a great supporting cast, the finished product is something we all are very proud of. My thanks to Peg for her faith in me. Peg set the bar very high for this production. She demanded perfection. I quickly realized that if I was going to meet her expectations, I needed to find people that could lend their expertise to the process. That’s the job of an executive producer, right? That process required an audio engineer. Thanks to my friends at Audio, Light and Musical, I found a young man named Joe. Thanks to Joe, you were able to hear the voices and instruments that made up the wonderful recordings of the gathering to my right, our Folk Group. But there was more. Voices and engineers alone do not make a CD. There was my friend Mary, who took many of the photographs that appear on the CD jacket. Skip at Windmark Recording Studios in Virginia Beach pointed me in the direction of a “CD Mastering” facility located in Nashville Tennessee. Swift Music Group not only produced for us a high quality audio master, but also made the professional copies of the CD’s.. This little company is owned and operated by a husband/wife team who have been in the music business for over 40 years. More about them later. Then there was mother nature. She decided to play the role of a Hurricane, and invited herself to the party in Nashville, during the duplication process of our CD. On the morning before the hurricane headed toward Nashville, I received a phone call from the owner of Swift Music Group. Paul and I had spoken many times before. He was the person who always answered the phone when I called. He always had a story to share about his many years in the music industry, He spoke about the many friends he had made, his involvement with the Grand Ole Opry, the “legends” of the music industry that he had met and worked with. He always took the time to mention how often God had blessed him, and how he loved to have the opportunity to share his blessings with others. His stories were always filled with vibrance and color. His conversations always ended with, “God Bless You. But on the day of his phone call, the day before the arrival of the hurricane, he called to tell me not to worry. He called to tell me that no matter what direction the hurricane decided to take, our Cds were going to arrive on time. His company had never missed a delivery date, and if they had to work 24/7, we would get our CD’s when he promised. His call ended as always with “God Bless You”. The CD’s arrived on my front door five days later. After delivery and distribution of the CD’s, I made sure I took the time to thank all the people who made the final product possible. I call my friends at AL&M to thank them for referring me to Joe. I called Joe to thank him for all his hard work, his many hours in the editing studio. I called Skip at Windmark and thanked him for setting me up with the people at Swift Music Group. I called Swift to thank Paul and his wife for taking such good care of us After thanking Peg and the Folk Group for making me feel a part of the fold, I thought my journey of faith was over. I was wrong. A couple weeks later I ran into the owner of Windmark Studio, his name is Michael. I told Michael how helpful Skip was to me during the early part of the production process. I shared with him my experiences with the people at Swift who had made the creation of our first CD a successful one. I told him about my conversations with Paul and the many stories he had to share. Michael shared some of his own experiences with Paul, told me that he had the pleasure of visiting with him on occasion when he traveled to Nashville. As we concluded our conversation, Michael turned to me and asked, did you know that Paul was blind? Needless to say, I was speechless. I encourage each of you to be more like Paul, to count your blessings, to get involved. Thank you for listening to my story. I will be in the social hall after mass to answer any questions you may have.