PRESENT
Fr. Tom Egan, Fr. Kevin Moule, Fr Vincent Malone, Edoardo Albert, Ramon Landi, Sean Carroll, Gregory Howard, Brian Hunt, Pat Madigan, Marianne Ahearne, Gerard Barden, Patrick Bolger, Felicity Brown and Jane Landi
APOLOGIES
John Wilson, John Donnelly, Anuli Igboaka and Shaneez Hassan.
OPENING PRAYER
The meeting started with a prayer.
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING ON NOVEMBER 1st 2010.
The minutes were signed as correct.
MATTERS ARISING
Covered by items on the Agenda
FINANCE
Comparing the year ending December 10 to the same date in 2009. See handouts from meeting.
Offertories have increased from £185k to £187.5k (approx). Overall income increased from £238,380 to £240,771.
Expenditure was also up by about £2,000 leaving the net recurring income for the two periods pretty much the same.
The three months Oct – Dec for both years were comparable, which is good considering the national situation.
Parish Activities include payments for the Lourdes trip in 2009.
Specific Donations in 2009 were mostly for the benches.
The new sanctuary flooring cost £18,000.
The Bank Balance went up from £188k - £232k at the end of 2010.
Tribute must be paid to the Paper Shop Ladies who do a remarkable job, generating £1,500 for the parish funds from sales in the shop last year.
WEBSITE
Photos from the Rome pilgrimage have been sent to the technical people to be uploaded onto the website, as there were problems with the disk they were on.
Some of the items on the website are getting old. Could they be cleared away from the “home” page?
PRAYER AND EVANGELISATION
There will be a Pastoral Letter this weekend concerning the Lenten booklets, “Faithful Pilgrim” which covers the Papal Visit last September. Our Lenten talks will study this book.
We will also be selling “Walk with Me”, which features a reading and a meditation for each day during Lent. There will be Sunday expositions, a sacrament of the sick Mass, two Penitential services and Stations of the Cross on Fridays. We need to find volunteers to lead the Friday evening session.
ECUMENISM
We are still being strongly featured in Compass thanks to Felicity, who rounds up the items. Both Fr Vincent’s Ordination and our trip to Rome have been mentioned. Compass also offers advice and helplines for people who are getting into debt.
Churches Together are organizing a minibus trip to Holy Island in Northumberland in August.
Compass now comes via email and is printed by the churches themselves. If we can get it in the right format we should be able to upload it to our website. Need to liaise with the editor.
FUND RAISING
There were no issues directly related to fund raising.
Fr Kevin and Pat Bolger reported back from the Diocesan Financial Conference in January.
Parishes have been recommended to have a Ten Year Plan – a “Financial Multi-Year Plan”.
It should include an asset survey of the church, hall and presbytery. It should look at the roof, drains, fittings, boilers etc. and have an idea of costs if anything breaks down/needs fixing. It should also feature input from Property Services and other informed parties, eg. re. building regulations.
It should be reviewed regularly to keep possible problems/requirements/”wish list” items in the forefront of our planning.
Matters currently facing the parish:
The wall on the road side of the car park needs taking down and replacing with a lower wall and railings as it is cracked and liable to fall. We can reuse the old bricks.
The windows in the House need replacing as they are rotten.
The concrete floor at the back of the church needs work done to prevent the constant need for repainting.
We should try to link fund-raising to specific cases as and when they occur.
The Diocese will be holding a consultation exercise to determine how parishes are able to maximise fund-raising. We all need to support this initiative as many parishes are not sustainable, which is a great problem. The Sick and Retired Priests’ Fund is about 13 years away from running out of money on present projections. Many of the other parishes in our Churches Together are struggling.
Other Dioceses are holding Consultation exercises and have found them very useful.
PARISH HALL
The baby mat on the baby changer needs replacing.
There is a new free-standing changer in the cupboard at the back of the Hall – why hasn’t it been made up yet?
The light fitting and the radiators in the Hall need servicing.
Has the Precision H&S report been followed up?
PARISH TEAM
RCIA: There are six people on the programme who will be either baptised, confirmed and/or received into the Church on Holy Saturday. This is about average for the size of our congregation. They are a fairly young group and all seem genuine.
Sometimes we get people asking for adult Confirmation so that they can get married abroad in countries where it is a requirement and unfortunately we can’t always help them if we are in the middle of a course.
Confirmation: There are 60 on this year’s programme, with 10 catechists. This is because there are two school years taking part (9&10). The course ends on 26th March with a session with Ten Ten. The Confirmation itself takes place in Westminster Cathedral at the end of May.
New Missal: This will start on the First Sunday of Advent and we will be introducing the changes from September. There is a lot to relearn. There may be a new translation of scripture readings in a couple of years time, which makes it difficult to purchase new books now. We may have to get missalettes/use handouts for a while.
The hymn books may need updating as well as the psalms and responses will change. There are also new mass settings which the choirs are learning at the moment.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
SOUND IN CHURCH. New equipment has been purchased and hopefully will be set up soon. The Loop System will use the old speakers.
CHILD PROTECTION. Is there a current database of all our volunteers? Nicky would like a copy.
All the new Confirmation catechists have been checked.
The new CRB form has not been issued yet and we are still using the old one. The Diocese may create their own one.
REPAIRS AND RENEWALS. If we are using professionals all the time are we losing touch with parishioners who have the necessary skills and who may be able to help us more quickly and cheaply, especially with regard to matters raised by Precision?
FUTURE MEETINGS
Finance Team – Tuesday 3rd May
Parish Council – Monday 9th May
AGM Sunday 3rd July
Finance Team – Monday 26th September
Parish Council – Monday 3rd October