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1. August 2013 Dear conquest Club Leaders, I hope you had a great summer, as we quickly approach the start of another great year for your Conquest clubs. We have spent the last few months working on the new YEAR 2 Curriculum for 5th/6th, 7th/8th and High School. I am very excited about the 86 new sessions created for the club program weekly activities, as well as the new weekly suggested activities for the younger programs and the CCC videos that replace the Golden Children’s Bible in the Father & Son Leadership program. In this newsletter, you will find explanations about other improvements we have added to Conquest, including our online training series that will be replacing training webinars. I want to thank you in advance for taking time out of your busy lives to offer Conquest to the boys in your club. Todd Brechbill Conquest National Director Latest news For about a year and a half we have been working on our new Conquest Club Program curriculum. Many of you may remember when we gathered feedback from about 200 boys and girls in our clubs with their questions about God, their faith, their friends, themselves, and the world around them. It became the foundation for our new curriculum which is now based on the questions kids have and we try to answer those question through the weekly meetings. Improvements to the curriculum include: Age groups: Based on your feedback our curriculum is now grouped into 3 age groups – 5th/6th, 7th/8th and High School. Each age group has a YEAR 1 series and a YEAR 2 series so that no one ever repeats the same content. For 2012-13 we provided the YEAR 1 series. This year the YEAR 2 series is released. New Team Leader Guidebooks: We have completely new team leader guidebooks for these three age groups with new content and a new activities. Each team leader guidebook includes one apostolic service project but there are many other options on the online team leader resource center and a place for the team leader to design-your –own project at the end of each book. The 5th-8th grade Guidebooks have 8 weeks of activities in each book. Weeks 1-7 have weekly meetings and week 8 is dedicated to go out and do the apostolic project. High School has only 6 weeks since the older boys seem to meet lessoften, and this year is based almost completely upon the YouCat. Younger Program Updates: The Father & Son and Junior Leadership Programs have been updated this year with new suggested weekly dynamic activities as well as a simple apostolic project at the end of each virtue campaign. Hopefully this will stir things up a bit, and get the younger boys doing more that just throwing around dodgeballs each meeting. 

2. Father & Son program major change The Golden’s Children's Bible is no longer used for the faith and formation segment in this program. Instead, we are providing a CCC of America DVD video for each virtue campaign (5 total). The first half of the video is shown for week 1, and the second half in week 2 – complete with questions and answers in the campaign guidebook. Boys ages 5-7 will simply love the full color animated video stories of saints and heroes! You will need a DVD video player, a computer, TV or projector to show the videos. • Saint of the Month : Blessed Karl Leisner • Leisnerwas born on in 1915 in Germany. During his youth, he became an altar boy and joined a Catholic youth group. Leisnerturned out to be a natural leader and became a youth leader in the 1930s, during the era in which the Nazis were beginning to take control of all youth organizations. In order to avoid Nazi interference, Leisner would often take his group on camping trips to Holland or Belgium. When he was nineteen, Leisner entered the seminary to be a priest and became the Diocesan Youth Leader. He organized the Catholic students into groups for discussion and recreation. The government did not like that and sent him to six months of agricultural work, where he would organize Sunday Mass for his fellow workers, • even though the Nazis opposed this. He was ordained a deacon and was hoping to be ordained a priest, but he discovered he had tuberculosis. While recovering in a hospital, a fellow patient heard him criticize Hitler. The Gestapo arrested him as a political prisoner when he was twenty-five. Prisoners often had to work outside in snow or rain and then had to sleep in their wet prison clothes. Cold weather and harsh treatment were dangerous for someone suffering with tuberculosis. A fellow prisoner in the concentration camp was a bishop who secretly ordained Karl a priest. He could only celebrate one Mass because he was so ill. When Dachau was liberated, he was taken to a hospital and he died there a few months later on August 12, 1945. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1996. “In God’s great plan, every detail is important, even yours, even my humble little witness, even the hidden witness of those who live their faith with simplicity in everyday family relationships, work relationships, friendships. There are the saints of every day, the ‘hidden’ saints.” Virtue of the Month: LOYALTY - Pope Francis • In the New Testament, friendship takes on the feature of selflessness in Jesus Christ, whose love was generous, forgiving, and sought only the welfare of those whom he loved.  YOUCAT NUMBER of the Month : #402: What is love? • Love is the free self giving of the heart. In every friendship there is love. The more a person loves, the more he resembles God.

3. Conquest in the News • Over the summer Conquest offered 24 different camps across the USA and several more in Canada. Challenge also offered 18 camps in the USA and several in Canada. This makes over 50 summer camps for kids! More than any other Catholic organization! • SHALOM TIDINGS FEATURED ARTICLE: This new Catholic Magazine is distributed to thousands of parishes and wrote a great article about Challenge and Conquest. Check it out here! “Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfillment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us.” Nourish YOUR SOUL & MISSION: good reads Of catholic interest: this month If you have not had a chance to read over the speeches the Pope gave, check out the recap on the Catholic News Agency or read over his words on Vatican.va. What a great thing to be able to share with your team of volunteers to be able to get them motivated for a new year of Conquest! • As club leaders, it is important to keep yourself motivated and spiritually charged. The new Encyclical from Pope Francis The Light of Faith, is a great way to do this • and get to know the teachings of the Holy Father. • You can find a summary of the encyclical here and you can read it online here. - Pope Francis • online training videos • Based on your feedback, we are developing a series of short training videos and post them online so you can watch them whenever you like, instead of having random webinars as needed. Our new video training series will be coming out in late September and with new videos begin added regularly through the end of the year. The series will include 10 training videos for club leaders and 10 training videos for Team Leaders. Each session will be 5-10 min long and will be hosted on the Team Leader and Club Leader Resource Center online for easy access.

4. WHAT IS NEW FOR 2013-14 ? Annual Membership & Club Leader Kit The Annual Membership cost is $749 for 2013-14 and has not increased. It includes the Club Leader Kit, 1 Team Leader Kit and 6 free member kits and access to online resources and training. The Club Leader kit includes a Black Leader T-Shirt , Black & Blue Duffle Bag, Gold Coffee Tumbler, Club Leader Curriculum Planner, Club Leader Handbook & CD, Team Leader Training Guide, Conquest Calendar, Member Prayer Book, Pope Francis Holy Card, new CQ Rosary, Dog Tag, 10 Brochures and Conquest Pen. Team Leader Kit and NEW Curriculum The major improvement this year is the YEAR 2 Conquest curriculum found in the new 2013-14 Team Leader Guidebooks. Each team leader guidebook has 6-8 weeks of curriculum and includes 1 Apostolic Service Project. You can choose either 5th/6th, 7th/8th or High School. The Team Leader Kits remain at $49.95 and include: Gold Team Leader T-Shirt, 4 NEW Team Leader Guidebooks for YEAR 2 , NEW CQ Rosary, Gold Cinch Bag, Member Prayer Book and Calendar, Dog Tag, Pope Francis Holy Card, CQ Pen and more. Club Member Kit This year’s member kit includes an orange T-Shirt, Orange Cinch Bag, NEW CQ Rosary, Conquest Member Prayer Book, Member Prayer Book and Calendar, Dog Tag, Pope Francis Holy Card, CQ Pen, commitment card and more. Father & Son Leadership Program KIT Red duffle bag, CQ Gold Coffee Tumbler, New updated Adult Mentor Training Guidebook and Campaign Guidebook (Cycle A), 5 new CCC DVD Animated videos and more!

5. WHAT IS NEW FOR 2013-14 ? Father & Son Member kit This year’s Father & Son member kit includes a chocolate T-Shirt, Brown Cinch Bag, NEW CQ Rosary, Conquest Member Prayer Book, Member Prayer Book and Calendar, Dog Tag, Pope Francis Holy Card, CQ Pen and more. Junior Leadership Program KIT Red duffle bag, CQ Gold Coffee Tumbler, New updated Adult Mentor Training Guidebook and Campaign Guidebook (Cycle A), 5 St. Joseph saint books and more! Junior Member kit This year’s Junior member kit includes a grey T-Shirt, Grey Cinch Bag, NEW CQ Rosary, Conquest Member Prayer Book, Member Prayer Book and Calendar, Dog Tag, Pope Francis Holy Card, CQ Pen and more. DID YOU KNOW You can download TonSof files From the conquest Website for your Club & team leaders? Team leader training dilemma? One of the most frequently asked questions and requested items at this time of year are team leader training material to get your team leaders geared up for the new year. We suggest using the following presentations from the Club Leader Online Resource Center. (1) Conquest and Challenge 2013 (Method and Materials) (2) CQ TL Training - How CQ works - TL Guidebook Training (3) Then take a moment to plan out the first month of meetings. (more training will be available by the end of Sept) Registered club leaders can just login to the Club Leader Resource Center or Team Leader Resource Center to find training presentations, games, activities, promotion and planning materials.

6. FAQs YOU ASKED AND WE ANSWERED! 1- Do I need to buy the team leader guidebooks for year 2 or can I use the ones I have? Will you be changing the Year 1 Team Leader Guidebooks next year? Last year we released YEAR 1 curriculum and this year we are selling our 100% new YEAR 2 cycle curriculum. It is important to get the YEAR 2 curriculum because otherwise the boys will be receiving the same material as last year. We consider it important to make sure the Conquest material is always new and improved with examples, videos and updated links for the team leaders to use. For that reason every year we will update the curriculum. 2- Can you tell me a little bit about the Year 2 Curriculum? The Year 2 curriculum is based off of the questions boys have and has new activities and content for each weekly activity. There are also over 80 new saint stories in the Year 2 curriculum so the boys can get to know more about the lives of the saints. The online Team Leader Resource Center has tons of games and printouts for the weekly activity as well. The High School Curriculum is even a little bit more special and the weekly themes actually are the questions from the YOUCAT. Each week covers certain content and numbers of the YOUCAT, with fun activities and saint stories. The entire four book series covers all the content and is a wonderful YOUCAT study for the high schoolers. 3- What does the Annual Membership include? The Annual Membership includes about $400 worth of material – a club leader kit with the planner, handbook, CD and team leader training guide; 1 free team leader kit including 4 guidebooks with over a year’s worth of material and 6 free member kits. The remaining portion of the membership goes towards the development of the actual material (graphic design, writers, printing, packaging, shipping, online store, web development, accounting – all the fun behind the scene aspects that get the Conquest program in your hands.) The Annual Membership barely covers our basic costs and that is why we do not offer any other discount besides our Early Bird specials in April and May. 4- How do I explain the Annual Membership to the families? As the club leader, you don’t really need to explain the membership to the families (although you can) but rather you can come up with a membership fee for the boys and explain that to the families. We sell the member kits to you at a very low price so that you can turn around and give them to the boys who pay the membership fee, helping the families see something in return. As with anything in life, it comes down to the value that people see in Conquest. We are all willing to pay for things that have value. We all know the cost of sports or dance classes. All of those activities require uniforms and supplies. Parents are willing to pay for those. For Conquest, it is helpful to explain to the parents all that their boys are receiving – peer mentoring, growth in their faith, a chance to do service and a cool member kit with a cinch bag, t-shirt, calendar, prayer book and other fun items. So let’s do the math: If you have 20 boys in your club, and the annual membership is $749 and additional member kits cost $22.95 , it will cost each boy around $50 a year. If you meet for 10 months out of the year, that will be $5 a month or $1.25 a week. When you help the families see the value they are getting for $1.25 a week, I think they will be more likely to commit to the membership fee. 5- How do I access the club leader and team leader resource centers online? As a club leader, if your club has renewed you will receive access to the online resource center by September. The team leader resource center can also be accessed from your account. If you forgot your password or cannot find it, contact customer service and we can reset it for you. customerservice@missionnetwork.com or call 855-556-6872 6- If I forget my login information or need help with an order, who do I contact? Any questions about passwords or online orders can be handled by Anna Kulway in customer service. 7- As a club leader, do I need a copy of the team leader books? If you like, but it is not needed. You have a curriculum map in the club leader online resource center and in the club leader handbook. You also have all the activities and handouts on the club leader CD. Check out the att

7. CONQUEST NATIONAL VIDEO CONTEST • Best practices are a strange thing. Everyone wants to hear what the other clubs are doing to learn and be inspired by them… but no one sends in their best practices to the national office so that we can share them. You inspire each other with your work and you never know how much you could help another club. We have decided to not only ask you to email in your best practices- but we have taken it one step further and created a best practice video contest! • CONTEST CATEGORIES: • 1. Service Project Spotlight – Example of planning the apostolic project, during the project and the results of the project. (complete) • 2. How a Conquest Weekly Meeting Works – Using the Team Leader Guidebooks, show how a weekly meeting develops step by step. • 3. 60 second Challenge- Interview the boys in the club or their parentsabout how Conquest has helped them. • 4. Team Leader Testimony – Interview a team leader about how Conquest has helped them. • 5. Church or School – Interview a parish priest, youth minister or school leader about how Conquest • has benefited their parish or school. • 6. Virtue and Friendship with Christ – Explain how Conquest helps the boysgrow in virtue each month and grow in their prayer life. • 7. Team Leader Training Example- Make a How to Video on training team leaders. • FIRST PLACE PRIZE = $150 CREDIT FOR YOUR CLUB, bragging rights and become famous and seen by all the clubs nationally in training/promotional videos! CONTEST RULES: December 1st , 2013 is the deadline to submit all entries. All videos should be YouTube compatible. Each entry should include at least 2 pictures and a 4 sentence summary of the video. Videos should be between 3 – 10 min long. Permission from parents and participants should be given to use videos to share with other clubs. Submit videos by sending an email to info@conquestclubs.comwith Youtube or Dropbox link. NEWSLETTER News DIY CLUB NEWSLETTER If you like what you see in this newsletter, you can download the template from the Club Leader Resource Center each month and adapt it to send out to the members and parents in your club each month! Download it in a Power Point easy to use format.

8. Haven’t renewed yet? Renewing your club only takes about 5 minutes! Simply visit the Conquest website www.conquestclubs.comand it is a simple 2 step process. Registration instructions can be obtained by emailing info@conquestclubs.com and asking for a copy. You can simply go online and order your member kits, team leader kits and club leader kits and add younger programs. Remember that your annual memberships expire July 1st each year, so it is imperative to register no later than Sept 15th. All clubs that have not renewed by Sept 15th, will be removed from this mailing list. If you have any questions or need to talk through difficulties, please contact Todd Brechbill at tbrechbill@missionnetwork.com Ordering Materials & Shipping Times Orders are processed and shipped from our fulfillment center typically within 3-5 business days after payment is received. All orders placed in the preorder season have already shipped. If you have an urgent need for your materials, please contact customer service and we will try our best to accommodate your needs. Please keep in mind that fulfillment / handing only ships on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Rush orders may require additional fees. The High School Team Leader Guidebooks are currently backordered and still being published. If you ordered these, your team leader kit has / will ship without the books. The books will ship as they become available in stock at no extra charge to you. The first two books are expected to arrive by mid-September. If you need materials prior to this date, please contact Todd Brechbill directly. Contact us if you have any questions! National Director: Todd Brechbill tbrechbill@missionnetwork.com 260-438-3042 direct Customer Support / Admin: Anna Kulway customerservice@missionnetwork.com855-556-6872 God bless you for all that you do!