Organizing Checklists

Host Priest Checklist

• Appoint Lay Leaders (2) and Discussion Leader for the upcoming year.
• Prior to the evening, invite Guest Priest (if desired) to offer talk during Adoration and Other Priests as needed to hear confessions.
• Prior to the evening, make announcements at Mass and personally reach out to men to attend.  Also direct Director of Religious Ed to encourage teens to attend with parent and School Principal to invite teachers to attend.
• At 6:25 p.m., offer short welcome and overview of evening.
• At 6:30 p.m., begin Adoration.
• At 7:20 p.m., lead Benediction.
• At 7:40 p.m. lead dinner prayer.
• During discussion, offer input/correction as needed to ensure orthodox presentation of the Catholic Faith.
• At 8:55 p.m., lead closing prayer and blessing.

Lay Leaders (2) Checklist

Overall:

• Confirm dates for the year are on the parish calendars and with CatholicManNight founders.
• Work with CatholicManNight founders to select topics for the year.

Confirm roles and recruit:

• Recruit 1 Event Organizer and 4-6 men helpers to host food preparation and hosting for each event (can be same men; some advantages for building momentum by getting more men involved).
• Work with Host Priest to secure a Guest Priest (if desired).
• Work with Host Priest to secure additional priests for confession (as needed).
• Secure altar servers.

Build Awareness:

• Put an ongoing “small ad” in weekly bulletin of upcoming CatholicManNight event dates.
• The week before an event, place a full-page insert into the bulletin (see example in appendix).
• Put up flyers/posters in parish.
• The weekend before the event, have an announcement read at all masses.
• Build or use an existing email list for men in the parish.
• Send out 2-3 email announcements to build awareness for upcoming events (2 weeks out, 1 week out, the week of the event).
• Make personal contact with men groups (bible study, confirmation leaders, etc.) and ask them to invite friends.
• Get materials to Director of Religious Ed and School Principal for announcements.
• Organize a phone tree to call men in parish and invite them.

Night of the Event

• Act as Discussion Leader (or recruit a person to do this role).
• Ensure that CatholicManNight materials are given to the Event Organizers.
  • Make sure 2-page catechesis, email signups, pencils and prayer cards are printed and available .
  • Have raffle tickets, Bible, Catechism and other books/CDs for the raffle.
• Collect money from free will offering to cover food/raffle items and collect email signup forms.

After the Event

• Add emails to email list for use in building awareness/invites for future events.

Event Organizer (1 with 4-6 men helping) Checklist

• Recruit 4-6 men to help.
• Plan dinner menu including food and drinks (wine, beer, non-alcoholic).
• Do set up of tables and place settings.
• Prepare and serve dinner and drinks.
• Have 2 men acting as hosts to direct men to Adoration. After Adoration, men hosts direct men to meal.
• Collect free will offering and give to Lay Leaders.
• Hand out raffle tickets.
• Clean up.

 Discussion Leader Checklist

• Prior to the evening: Review CatholicManNight 2-pager topic sheet and rehearse 10 minute presentation of key points from the topic sheet.
• Prior to dinner, offer welcome and direct men regarding food, contribution, etc.
• Following dinner, do a general welcome, recognize Priests, Deacons, Seminarians and Event workers.
• Offer short background on CatholicManNight.
• Hold raffle to give away Bibles, catechisms or other books.
• Lead Discussion including presenting the topic 2-pager for the event, fielding questions and moderating discussion.
• After Discussion, make announcements about upcoming events.
• Introduce Priest to lead closing prayer.