Happy new year to you and your families! As we start this new Columbian Year 2010-11, let me introduce myself as your new District Deputy for District 27. My name is Tim Crews and I am a member of St Elizabeth Council 8747 in Milpitas. There have been some changes to the San Jose Chapter district structure that are taking place with this new Columbian Year. The San Jose Chapter remains with 20 Councils, 19 of which are active. However, the State Council has reorganized the district structure and our Chapter grew from four districts to five. Some of the 20 Councils have been realigned within those districts.

This realignment is intended to level the workload of the district deputies. While having as many six Councils within a district is a heavy workload, it was not the largest. Last year there were districts in Southern California with as many as eight Councils under one DD! The State Council has taken steps to level things so that in general DD’s have no more than five Councils. Here in San Jose all of the DD’s have responsibility for four Councils. And it is important that even inactive or suspended Councils be accounted in the responsibilities of the DD.

Here is a summary of the District Deputies and their Councils.

DD-25 Mario Veloro

2677 Palo Alto

4926 St Sebastian, Sunnyvale

4981 St Francis of Assisi, San Jose

9851 Msgr. John T. Dwyer (inactive)

DD-26 John Pozniak

3436 Our Lady of Fatima, Cupertino

3523 Fr Joseph M Geary, San Jose

5277 St Lawrence, Sunnyvale

10180 Our Lady of Peace, San Jose

DD-27 Tim Crews

4112 St Victor, San Jose

5796 St Peter the Apostle, Milpitas

8747 St Elizabeth, Milpitas

8993 St Patrick, Sunnyvale

DD-28 Mike Seixas

879 San Jose

3474 Bishop O’Dowd, San Jose

8133 St Maria Goretti, San Jose

9718 La Trinidad, San Jose

DD-29 Dr Jerry Gandara

2469 Gilroy

6965 John N Neumann, San Jose

8265 Morgan Hill

12853 St Ignatius of Loyola, San Jose

All of the district deputies are new this year except for the returning veteran DD-25 Mario Veloro; District 29 is new to the San Jose Chapter. All of the district deputies did attend the DD Workshop at in Ontario at the end of June and were installed during the closing Mass. Now each will conduct the installation of the Council officers within their districts.

The main job of the District Deputy is to provide information and assistance to the Councils, especially as they work through the Columbian Year towards Star Council. All of us are available to serve the Grand Knight and his staff of officers to answer questions, provide suggestions and guidance as to how to accomplish the myriad of tasks and reports during the year that will go towards achieving that goal.

For District 27, I look forward to meeting with each of the Councils and getting to know all of the officers, members, and their families. There is a lot of information to be shared and I will pass it along as we get together. It would be easy to simply pass along all the information to the Councils all at once. Having been through the fire hose treatment at the workshop myself, I would prefer to offer information in a timely manner, as much of it will relate to events scheduled throughout the year.

One concept I took away from the workshop is that District Deputies serve the Councils and that is what I plan to do to the best of my ability this year.

Vivat Jesus!,