PRESENT
Fr. Tom Egan, Fr Vincent Malone, Edoardo Albert, Ramon Landi, Sean Carroll, Gregory Howard, Brian Hunt, Pat Madigan, Gerard Barden, Patrick Bolger, Felicity Brown, John Donnelly, John Wilson and Jane Landi
APOLOGIES
Fr. Kevin Moule, Marianne Ahearne, Anuli Igboaka and Jackie Reddington.
OPENING PRAYER
The meeting started with a prayer.
MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING ON FEBRUARY 28th 2011.
The minutes were signed as correct.
MATTERS ARISING
Baby changer:
The unconstructed changer mentioned in the last minutes proved to be unusable. Greg Howard has found a free-standing model on the internet, which he will order.
Could the changer be kept in the Hall? Not sure this would be practical. It would only be needed during mothers and toddlers, and Sunday mornings. Could it be kept in the toddlers toy cupboard at other times. When it is in use, it was assumed that it would be in the disabled toilet.
Loop system:
The cables have been inserted into the sanctuary steps and the speakers will be installed soon.
FINANCE
Please refer to handouts given at the meeting.
Page 1
Comparing Dec 10 to Dec 09, offertories have increased from £185K to £187K (approx).
Total income for the quarter to March 11 is £55,827, very slightly down on the same period last year.
Expenditure has gone up from £43,286 in March 10 to £49,851 in March 2011. The excess of income/expenditure to March 11 is £5,976.
Additional expenses include higher clergy salaries. Votive candles and shop supplies are also higher than last year, but this is probably due to invoices being paid at particular times, and not about an increase in spending overall.
Page 2
Other income and expenditure amounts to £2,637 for the quarter. This includes income from the January Sale and third party collections. Since December the amount in the bank has increased by £8,613.
Diocesan Ten Year Plan
We need to survey the buildings. Chris Fanning has offered to help, but is quite busy at the moment.
Parish Expenditure Plans
New windows to the front of the Presbytery. The windows are in a very poor state of repair. A quote of £16,000, plus scaffolding, has been received from Bob Cole, who is recommended by the Diocese. He put in the windows in the Hall. Chris Fanning, the Diocesan surveyor has approved the quote and the Parish Finance Committee has agreed to an overall cost of £20,000 for this project. It is intended that any repairs to the guttering/roof tiles etc. will be managed whilst the scaffolding is in place.
A letter will be sent to Paolo Camaletto at the Finance Dept. concerning the matter.
Car park wall.
A builder has looked at this and has suggested we remove some of the plants. Fr. Tom and Chris Fanning are in discussions at the moment.
Floor at rear of church.
This was sanded down and repainted recently, but we were not happy with the results. The workmen are returning on Wednesday 11th May to redo it.
WEBSITE
Rome photos are now available to view.
PRAYER AND EVANGELISATION
The Lenten Groups used the booklet, Faithful Pilgrim, but some people thought it did not lend itself well to discussion.
We will need to purchase new Missals in November. A range should be available in September but are not available yet. We can’t replace the Parish Mass Books until then. The complete texts have not yet been finalised.
People will need to learn the new responses.
The new readings will be based on the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. As they will not be available for another two years, we will have to make do with printed sheets or buy in weekly missalettes until then.
The priests have been promoting the changes during the homilies in recent weeks, which accompany the information that is being printed on the back of the newsletter. There will be five weeks of this in total. They also talked about them during the Advent talks last year.
The intent of the changes is to make the English version a more literal translation of the Latin.
ECUMENISM
Still taking the starring role in Compass – two more articles about us in this month’s edition.
We are now printing the paper ourselves, from an email sent by the editor. Unfortunately our photocopier does not do colour printing.
The Lindisfarne trip is going ahead, two people from this Parish are going. It has proved very popular, so they may repeat it next year.
Churches Together are supporting some Iraqi Christians living in this area. We probably don’t do enough to inform our parishioners of the problems and difficulties that are being faced by Christians in the Middle East – the Holy Land etc. Our Good Friday “Holy Places” collection is meant to help them, but it’s title is probably a bit misleading. Christians in the East need help with schools, orphanages, universities etc. Their numbers have dropped a lot in the last decade or so. Could we get someone to come and talk to us about this? Aid to the Church in Need specialises in this area.
CT Stations of the Cross was very successful, and it was suggested that it be held at a different church each year. Fr. Tom was happy with this idea.
FUND RAISING
The Diocese have been talking to all the parish priests about a campaign to raise £40 million over the next ten years to make up losses and shortfalls in their charities. The Sick and Retired Priests’ Fund is particularly susceptible at the moment. They also hope to boost the Trinity Fund and the St John Southworth Fund.
Priests have been asked if they are willing to make appeals to individuals. Fr Tom is very happy to support parishioners who have ideas for this fund raising.
There are new legacy leaflets available and Patrick Bolger will get some for us.
Work will start on the Gift Aid return as soon as all the figures to 5th April are in.
PARISH HALL
Groups using the Hall are still leaving the main door open well into the evening, and presumably long after they could have closed it. The Hall bells were installed for this purpose – groups should be reminded. There is some small scale thieving going on, eg. tea money on Sundays. We need to keep an eye on it.
PARISH TEAM
FHC.
We had two groups making their FHC last Saturday, 7th May. It all went very well, and the advantage was that everything only needed to be set up once. The folk group stayed for lunch, provided by Celia. This will be repeated next year.
Two of our children were unable to return from abroad in time for the ceremony, so will receive their First Communion at the 11.15 am Mass in a few weeks time.
Can we provide a couple of group shots for the website?
Confirmation.
We have 63 candidates, who will be confirmed at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday, 28th May. We are currently not getting a lot of information from the cathedral as to how the day is being organized.
We used a new catechetic programme this year, which was enjoyed by the young people and the catechists. Sadly there are no Confirmation courses being produced in Britain, so we use American ones. Fr. Vincent is trying to get hold of one that the Diocese of Middlesborough have produced for their own use.
We had a number of catechists, so we were able to have small groups. Fr. Tom was very impressed with them at their reconciliation session, and TenTen, who provided the “away day” this year, also found them a pleasure to work with.
Next year the course will be offered to Year Nine children only.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Altar Servers.
We seem to be very badly off at the moment. Some masses don’t have any at all. Is it because parents aren’t encouraging their youngsters to honour their commitment? We have a rota for them. We should encourage more adults to join the team.
We need to ask the altar servers themselves why they don’t come. Perhaps they have changed the mass they regularly attend.
Extraordinary ministers.
Similar problem – some masses are better attended than others. A rota is provided. We need to encourage more people to take on these ministries.
Readers.
Grace Lyons has had to retire from the rota organization, as she is moving out of the area – Harriet Albert is to take it over.
Bereavement Group.
It was suggested that we should have one in this parish. Patrick Madigan said he can provide some information to help us organize a group.
TenTen.
The group are having problems with funding at the moment, which has affected their plans. They are looking to make up a shortfall of £50,000 over the next three years. TenTen do important work in our schools and with our young people. They have a booklet, which asks for people to become Friends of TenTen. Perhaps they could do an appeal at Mass, and we could distribute their booklet to the parish at large.
Volunteer database.
This would be of great help to Nicky Madigan, to help make sure that all who need to be are CRB checked, but it would also be useful generally within the parish. We do have some lists of each groups, eg. for rotas, but there isn’t an overall one.
Should extraordinary ministers be checked? They tend to visit people they know, and/or who are their friends.
The CRB rules may be changing soon.
Fr. Tom thanked the Parish Council for the work it did and the support it provided. As in all jobs, being a priest can be stressful sometimes.
Edoardo announced that he intends to stand down as Parish Chairman at the AGM, and has asked Gerard Barden to step up in his place.
FUTURE MEETINGS
AGM Sunday 3rd July
Finance Team – Monday 26th September
Parish Council – Monday 3rd October