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Parish Meeting 8th February 
10:00am Parish Centre 

Parish Meeting Minutes

07/12/24

The meeting started with a few minutes of prayer

  • Sabbatical – Fr Chris thanked everyone for their prayerful support during his recent sabbatical. He thanked Fr Lister, Deacon Keith and all those who volunteer and who kept the  parish running in his  absence.

  • Changes in the Deanery – Fr Chris - There has been a decline in the numbers of priests in the deanery, due to ill health and priests being assigned to other positions. As already announced Fr Chris is to be Parochial Administrator of Our Lady of Walshingham in Netherton as well as his duties with St George’s . The deanery has lost 2 ½ priests over the last few months going from 8 full time priests to 5 full time and Fr Lister who is a part time priest in the deanery (having chaplaincy responsibilities at Hope University). There needs to be a period of reflection on provision of Masses across the deanery and the times of those Masses. There is also a need to consider the wider pastoral provision and demands made on the clergy for their responsibilities to schools, care/ nursing homes, housebound and sick.

  • Mission – Mass going population has declined in the Parish and as mentioned in the last meeting we need to examine the Parish mission. We have 13 people being welcomed into the Church over the next few months there is potential for the parish to grow.

  • Web Site – Paul Symes - Thanks to everyone who has read the web site and contributed to the web site in any way.

  • Analytics

    • We continue to get on average 600 views a month, this has been constant since April of this year .

    • This means in reality there are on average 2500 pages being read every month .

    • The average read time for people on the site is 6 minutes 25 seconds, which in industry terms is very good. It also means that people are not just viewing the web site they are reading it

    • We have had 37 enquiries up to yesterday morning via the ‘ contact us ‘ forms on the web site. A special thanks to Antonia for dealing with all the requests from the web site.

  • As promised at the last meeting the health and well being page is now live

  • Safeguarding is going to be updated in the New Year, With many thanks to Stuart and Anna for the resources for the page 

  • New this month, prayer resources on the ‘Praying through Advent‘ page.

  • The Pastoral Development Bulletin from the team at the Archdiocese is now updated every two weeks. (Next to the newsletter.)

Many thanks for all the support given . Paul is always on the lookout for a story, he doesn’t always get information of what is going on, so if you know something is coming up let him know, or even better if you want to write a small article and let him have it, and he will publish it.

  • Safeguarding – Stuart Burke – DBS checks are all now complete , hopefully all will be well for three years .

  • Finance – Report from George Aldridge  The financial report covered

1. Parish financial statement for ten months to October 2024

2. A financial forecast for the twelve months  to December 2024

3.  An outline budget for the twelve months to December 2025

 

Each statement resulted in a financial deficit


For the year 2024 income from parishioners plate collections and bank standing

orders were showing a ten percent increase  over the previous year

                       

A question was raised about whether there would be a combining of financial resources of St George's with Our Lady of Walsingham ?. Fr Chris said as the parishes are not amalgamating finances would  not be combined and would be dealt with on a parish basis.'

  • Kitchen/ Parish Centre –  Parish Centre is running at a lost and the costs are being met by parish and parish reserves are diminishing each year.

Negotiations with the interested nursery provider are still on-going- the current negotiations include them have full and exclusive use of the main hall, and kitchen, with the front of the building being made into an outdoor area for the children. The parish would have the use of the lounge area, with a kitchen being fitted, for parish use in that area. This plan if agreed at the meeting would go before the trustees at their next meeting in March. This would guarantee the parish an annual income which would be used to support the parish use of the centre. A discussion followed and there was a general agreement that if negotiations continued and were successful the final agreement would be brought to the next meeting be fore being submitted to the trustees.

  • Christmas Services – Fr Chris

Reconciliation Service – Tues 17 December 7:00pm

Christmas Eve –    Carols  6:00pm

                                      Vigil Mass   6:30pm

Christmas Day       10:30am

Boxing day and holiday season until 2nd January  Mass at 10:00am

New Years day there will be coffee morning after 10:00am Mass

Christmas cards will be delivered to the housebound in the next few weeks

  • New Lectionary – The Parish will start using the new Lectionary when the new screens have been installed and are operational, hopefully early in the new year. Volunteers will be needed to provide support in preparing the power points for readings and hymns to be used at Mass and to operate the computer during Mass. Negotiations are still on going with the company providing Live Steaming of services, hopefully this will be operational in the new year.

  • The meeting finished with a prayer 

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