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Present:Fr Kieron O'Brien (Chairperson), Martin Downy ,
Mary Downy, Megan Hadden; Kay Howlett, Brian Pointer, Jane Burch (Minute Secretary)
Apologies: Yvonne Bishop, Susan Line, Fr Thomas Swaffer
Fr Kieron reported that Kevin Jamieson and John Cummins, who had represented Bosham felt that they now wished to concentrate on other commitments and decided to resign their membership of the Team. Our sincere thanks to them both for all their efforts.
Sarah Whitehouse and Lucy Allman, representing our young people, also had to move on to new commitments. Our thanks to them both for their enthusiasm and presence on the Team.
The Minutes of the previous meeting held on 4th July 2006 were not available for approval due to a “glitch” in their preparation. A copy of these minutes will be sent out to the Team with the Minutes of 12th September.
Membership & Constitution of the Pastoral Team
Fr Kieron put forward the suggestion that rather than recruit new members to this team, supporting a vision made five years ago, that we continue to meet as we are until such time as changes need to be made to incorporate Selsey Parish. A new working model and vision would then need to be put into place.
Fr Kieron thought that we might consider a model followed by Fr Joe in Kenya, whereby a steering group of individual co-ordinators would meet less frequently, and that representatives from each parish community, who had their own pastoral team, would sit on the steering group.
Members of the team agreed to go forward with this idea.
Youth Matters
Fr Kieron reported that he would follow-up with Fr Benny from the Bognor Parish, the latest situation on the building works for their new parish centre, as this would provide the office for the shared Youth Worker. Action: Fr Kieron
Fr Kieron also confirmed that Beth Rogers, Reception Class Teacher at St. Richard’s Primary School, was still interested in starting a Youth Group for the post Year 6 pupil’s age range. Becky Montieth is also interested to take part in this work.
Church Building Project Update
Fr Kieron reported that the project was on hold awaiting the Diocesan’s Surveyors report on the proposal of using land at the Graylingwell site.
“With Hearts and Minds”
Brian reported that the Liturgy Group had accepted the recommendation to go ahead with the study programme “With Hearts and Minds”. This programme is a six week course leading to a deeper appreciation and understanding of the Mass and the role of different ministries. A Launch Evening, by way of introducing the course, will take place in St. Richard’s Church on Tuesday, 19th September at 7.30 p.m.
The course venues will be St. Richard’s, Chichester, Our Lady of the Assumption, Bosham and St. Peter’s, East Wittering. The six week course will start week commencing Monday 9th October and finish week ending Friday 17th November 2006. Different times, venues and dates are offered to accommodate as many people as possible.
Advertising had taken place in the newsletter and individual letters had been sent out to those involved in liturgical ministries. The course material is designed for small groups and it is hoped that group leaders can be identified at the launch evening. The participants book costing £7.50 can be sold at £5 for each person taking part.
Ecumenical News
Megan reported that Churches Together in Chichester now had a new chairperson, Rachel Moriarty. Rachel was currently looking at the structure of the organisation, and its role. A meeting of the Heads of Churches in Chichester would take place on 26th September 2006, with representatives from Churches Together in Chichester.
The NOISE, Youth Project:
Martin brought to our attention the existence of this evangelical group and its request for funding to support its work with the young people in our area. The project is supported by many other Churches in Chichester and may be a project we could find out more about.
Marriage & Family Life
Martin and Mary are in the process of preparing notes from the meeting held to look at the priority areas for marriage and family life in our parish. The main focus they found to be youth involvement influencing family development.
Marriage preparation was another area of need in our parish. At present St. Richard’s sends people to Bognor to attend a course run by the Frahers and Marriage Care offers a day course in Crawley.
Fr Kieron suggested that we find out from DABCEC if there are any suitable courses we can send couples on in order to support the Bognor parish course by offering to contribute personnel. Martin and Mary would find out about courses and identify people for training. Action: Martin & Mary
Care of the Housebound
Fr Kieron was aware that it was still very easy for people to get missed out. To help rectify this a form will be given to all Eucharistic Ministers at the Autumn Day of Reflection, requiring information on who they are visiting and how often. It is the intention that a master list should exist for welfare, receiving communion, or both. This would be kept in the parish office and be regularly updated once a fortnight.
Also, at the Day of Reflection, Eucharistic Ministers, were to be given a Service Description. This details that the first priority of this ministry is to take communion to the sick in their homes, followed by their role at Mass. It was noted that many were not aware of this first priority.
In summary, more people were needed for the Parish Visiting Group and it may then be possible to look at a geographical breakdown of visiting areas. Fr. Kieron reported that we now have a new Co-ordinator of Welcomers for St. Richard’s, Liz McCombe. More copies of the New Parishioners form were required for use by welcomers. It would be good to recruit a New Parishioners Co-ordinator.
1. Brian announced that a new Credo Issue would come out this weekend.
This would take place on Tuesday, 10th October 2006 at 7.30 p.m. in the Parish Rooms. The Chairperson for this meeting will be Brian Pointer.
NB: Minutes of 4th July 2006 will be available at the meeting on the 10th October.