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Minutes of 4th July 2006 Meeting

Present: Martin Downy (Chairperson), Fr Kieron O’Brien, Fr Thomas Swaffer, Yvonne Bishop, Susan Line, Mary Downy, Lucy Allman, Megan Hadden, Sarah Whitehouse, Brian Pointer, Jane Burch (Minute Secretary), Kevin Jamieson.

Apologies: John Cummins

Minutes of the Previous Meeting

The Minutes of the previous meeting held on 25th April 2006 were read and approved.

Matters Arising

Youth Worker

Lucy had emailed Ray Mooney regarding a permanent or trainee Youth Worker and was awaiting his reply. Fr Kieron reported that St. Philip Howard had a full-time Chaplain starting in July who would be an asset.

Flower Festival at St. Richard’s during Festivities

Fr. Thomas reported that this was all up and running this week. Today being the first day. The Flowers in the church were very impressive and a good number of people attended the talk.

Marriage & Family Life

Martin and Mary reported that ten people had met with them to discuss a way forward, looking at priority areas, and that a report summarising their findings would be produced for bringing to a future team meeting.

Agenda Items

St. Richard’s Church Project

At the Open Meeting on 16th May 2006, comments were received on the artists impression of the proposed developments to the church. Some radical ideas were put forward including to research the possibility of selling the current site and looking at relocating the church, school and other buildings on land at the old Graylingwell site. Fr Kieron reported that a decision had been made to approach the Diocesan Surveyors asking them to do a land valuation and calculate the cost of rebuilding the Church/Presbytery/Parish Centre/School. Until their report had been received, plans to develop St. Richard’s would be put on hold. It was hoped that their findings to this proposal would be known within a couple of months.

Action: Fr Kieron

Other comments were:

• To relocate would give the opportunity for a larger church, parish centre.
• The school would be more accessible and have improved parking
• Fears of losing the community around the school, taking it away from the city centre
• Graylingwell site sold in chunks with one having provision for education i.e. Education Authority/Schools/Diocese
• Concern whether plans to increase seating at St. Richard’s by 60 places was enough
• Another architectural option – build out two partitions, shorten the sanctuary and add more rows
• Concern that the existing congregation attendance was not factoring in new housing in Chichester and increased population requirements for the future

Amalgamation with Selsey

Fr Kieron reported that this will take place when Fr Michael retires some time in the near future. In the meantime we needed to be thinking about such questions as:-

• How do we cope with providing Sunday Masses?
• The Pastoral side of caring for a community of 120 (Mass attendance) plus expanding numbers during the summer months
• Mission work among the 10,000 inhabitants in the Selsey area e.g. migrant workers, new housing and young families
• Keeping Selsey an independent parish
• Do we operate as a team of priests ministering to parishes or install paid Parish Administrators?

We discussed some proposals to change of Mass times:

In conclusion, as soon as the news is announced regarding the retirement date for Fr. Michael, it was suggested that the three Pastoral Teams of Chichester/Witterings/Selsey have a joint meeting.

Ecumenism

Megan reported that the next Fifth Sunday Service would be held on 31st July at Christ Church. Also, Churches Together were making representations regarding the closure of certain departments in St. Richard’s Hospital.

A.O.B.

1. Sunday Open Air Parish Mass

Fr. Kieron mentioned that this may possibly have been the last one considering the dynamics of next year!! Some feedback comments from the event:

• 400 people counted
• draws in non-Catholic spouses
• public occasion – First Holy Communion children can be seen
• Wittering Mass – kept on
• Original idea was for the bringing together of Nutbourne/Bosham/Chichester
• Questions what do we mean by parish?
• Bosham – no Sunday transport of buses!
• Flyer – advertised the event as a Family Day for children not a Parish Day - style of advertising needs consideration for any future event

2. Flower Festival

Kevin suggested that appreciation to Pat Ware and her team should go in the newsletter. Lucy commented that she thought the flowers/event was a fantastic effort.

Action: Fr Kieron

3. A & B News

Brian commented on the lack of news from our parish in the A& B News and suggested that we considered having a representative to write for Chichester and enter articles and photographs. Fr. Kieron would speak to John Frost about this.

Action: Fr Kieron

4. Adult Formation

Brian reported the diocese had advertised again the post of Adult Formation Co-ordinator. Dearnery activity – it was hoped that two representatives from parishes, Bognor and Chichester, could work together on a deanery level sharing information. The diocese had appointed a new Social Concerns Co-ordinator, Fiona Reeder. Deanery Co-ordinators for social responsibility i.e. for our area could be Miranda Lichfield.

5. Bosham

Yvonne reported that the M.A.D. Group had decided to ask for volunteers for jobs in Bosham and were having a meeting soon to discuss the response. They were using the “Sharing Our Gifts” booklet. Also using a Volunteers Book, Yvonne would get a copy of each member of our team.

6. Visiting New Parishioners

Susan reported that visiting new parishioners still slipped through the net of the Welfare Group. Something the Welcomers could do would be to give out New Parishioner Forms

7. Youth Worker

Sarah requested that the Youth Worker job description be amended for someone on a placement. She was also awaiting a response from Ray Mooney.

8. Megan was concerned that the description of the role of Eucharistic Minister in the booklet used by Bosham Parish did not reflect the true meaning of the ministry. Fr. Kieron reported that a full Ministry Job Description will be handed out on the Day of Reflection in October

9. Mary asked that when priests are absent and there is no Mass in the parish can there be an automatic Eucharistic Service? Fr. Kieron responded that this does happen, even at short notice. However, there only needs to be a Eucharistic Service if there is no other Mass in any other churches in the parish.

Date of the Next Meeting

This would be held on Tuesday, 12th September 2006 at 7.30 p.m . The Chairperson for this meeting will be Fr. Kieron.