Roman Catholic Parish of Crowthorne and Sandhurst
- Parish Pastoral Council -

Draft Minutes of the PARISH PASTORAL COUNCIL meeting
held on Tuesday 8th April 2008 at 7.30pm in the Sandhurst Parish Centre

Present: Father Kevin, George Fanning, Ann FitzPatrick (Vice Chairman), Rita Paxton,
Dave Fuller (new member of PPC), Lawrence Gaffney (chair and minutes).
Shelagh Stirling attended as an invited guest.

Opening Prayers led by Father

1. Apologies for absence
Margaret Derlacki, Jim Nairn.

2. Agree Previous Minutes
The Minutes of the meeting of 5th February 2008 were approved and signed by the Vice-Chairman.

4.a. Liturgy -Stations of the Cross and Hunger Lunch sign-up sheets to be produced and requests to be put in Newsletter (Done).
Katharine Fitzpatrick will be asked to lead Children's Stations of the Cross (Done).

Tuesday Mass at HG will be postponed to 7.30pm. This will clash with the evening Confirmation session at HG and Katharine will be asked to reschedule it (Done).

All Triduum Masses will be held at IC this year. It is be explained and emphasised to parishioners that the Triduum is one service and that all Masses have to be held in the same church (Done).

4.b. Justice & Peace (incl. CRB) - A notice will be put in the Newsletter to inform everybody about CRB procedures. (Done).

Shelagh Stirling will also update the church notice boards to ensure that the correct CRB Policy and Procedures are on display (Done).

4.c. Youth -Details of the St. Michael's Youth Group to be passed to Katharine for the Confirmation candidates and published in the Newsletter. (Done).

4.e. Outreach - Our parish is due to lead the Churches Together in Sandhurst Ecumenical Service on Sunday 11 May at 6.30pm in the Coffee Spot.
Update - Is Margaret planning something for this? Need to find out (Action Rita).

4.f. Catechesis - An RCIA course needs to be started after Easter.
Update - Gareth Heard to be approached. (Action Fr Kevin).

6. New Pastoral Initiatives - Details of the Lenten Bible Study and Meditation to be put in Newsletter (Done).

4. Parish Pastoral Update by :

a. Liturgy - Rebecca Brunel-Walker is interested in assisting with Children's Liturgy. (Action George)

Children's hymn books for the Children's Liturgy are available in the church office.

Members of the congregation at the recent baptism at 9am Mass expressed their appreciation of the "lovely" ceremony.

b. Justice & Peace (and CRB) - 26 completed sets of forms are currently being processed. An additional meeting will be arranged for those who missed the first round of CRB sessions. (Action Shelagh).
Next year the "Enhanced Vetting and Barring" system will be introduced.

c. Youth - "Churches Together in Sandhurst" has appointed a Youth Worker. Need to find out more and publicise in the parish newsletter. (Action Fr Kevin and Dave)

An ecumenical football match was advertised - but only on the day it was to be played. (Though this information turned out to be wrong anyway!)

d. Social & Communication - The Social Committee's St Patrick's Dance was a huge success (with 178 tickets sold). The next event will possibly be a parish bbq though no date yet. After that will be "Tea at Three" in August.

e. Outreach - Children's Liturgy has the beneficial side-effect of drawing back to Mass some parents who might otherwise drift away.

f. Catechesis - Baptismal Preparation sessions will be held on the first Saturday of the month, as required., 10am - noon. Next planned sessions are on 3rd May and 5th July.

g. Mission - See item 6a.

h. Pastoral Area - see item 7a.

5. Pastoral Initiatives Update

a. Prayer Group - This is being led by Angela Greenwood. Fr Kevin will advise on
progress.

b. House Mass - Fr. Kevin, Rita and Margaret will meet to organise this.

c. Bible Study and Meditation - The Lenten exercise proved worthwhile and was enjoyed by all participants.

6. New Pastoral Initiatives

a. Parish Mission 2009 - Fr Kevin, Rita and Dave to investigate.

b. Advent Bible Study and Meditation - Wednesday evenings after Benediction. George and Lawrence to organise this nearer the time.

c. Easter Vigil Celebration - Fr Kevin plans to have a parish celebration after Easter Vigil next year.

d. Portsmouth Youth Day - Christ the King - George Fanning will contact Peter and Katharine with a view to organise a trip to the Portsmouth Youth Day (on the last Sunday in November) by the Confirmation group.

7. Issues for this meeting:

a. Pastoral Area contingency Mass times - A contingency plan for dealing with any future reduction from three to two priests for an extended period in our Pastoral Area was discussed, such that each parish would continue to have at least one Sunday Mass. These proposals will have to be discussed by all PPCs in the Pastoral Area before being put to all parishes simultaneously in September for approval. (Action Fr Kevin)
Additional transport requirements for the parish need to be considered by the PPC. Fr Kevin will supply a list.(Action Fr Kevin)

b. CRB diocesan form - Fr Kevin thanked Shelagh for the huge amount of time and effort she has invested so far.
It was proposed that the "job application" format of the diocesan CRB form was not suited to our parish needs. To be discussed further outside the meeting by Fr Kevin, Rita, Shelagh and George. Rita to coordinate. (Action Rita)

8. Any other business

a. Fr Kevin has sent letters of thanks to Martin Stubbs and Steve Whitbread for their service to the parish as members of the PPC.

b. Still waiting for the structural report on the IC church roof.

c. PPC details to be updated. (Action Lawrence)

d. JAC Fr Kevin will speak to the committee about "Just Around the Corner" (JAC) later as there was insufficient time at this meeting. Agenda item required. (Action Lawrence)

9. Date and time of next meeting.
The next meeting will be on Tuesday 13th May at 7.30pm in Sandhurst.

Closing Prayers led by Fr Kevin

Meeting closed at 10pm
---------------------------------------------
Distribution: Father Kevin Margaret Derlacki George Fanning
Ann FitzPatrick Lawrence Gaffney Jim Nairn
Rita Paxton David Fuller (Shelagh Stirling)