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St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church - Ansdell | |
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Minutes of the meeting on the Thursday 26th January 2006
Present: C.Woods (Chair), A Cawthorn, P.Crean, A.Waters, F.Dronsfield, K.Moore, A.Jones, Fr. Harry, J. Pomfret, P.Drake, E.Kelly, M.Johnson.
Apologies: B.Cawthorn, W. Kruszynska.
Fr.Harry opened the meeting with a prayer.
The minutes of the meeting of the 30th November were accepted as accurate.
Letter of Thanks
E.Gillet had written to the group commending the Christmas and Advent services
and reporting favourable comments from other parishioners particularly on the
reconciliation service and on the pre Midnight Mass carol service which had
so impressed a non catholic family that they stayed for the Mass .The group
were grateful for the positive encouragement.
Robert Bamber Singers
Pat Ormond has arranged for the Robert Bamber Singers to perform their musical
Stations of the Cross on the first Monday in Lent, 6th March at 7.30pm. C.Woods
told the group we were lucky to obtain their services as they only perform the
Stations twice each year and the Parish will be very pleased to welcome them
and we thank Pat for securing this event. It was decided to publicise the event.
F.Dronsfield will prepare a poster and we will invite St.Peters and Our Lady
Star of the Sea to participate. Fr. Harry will also extend an invitation to
Churches Together in Ansdell.
Friday night Stations of the Cross will be arranged as usual in Lent.
Eucharistic Ministers
In response to an e-mail, the training given to Eucharistic Ministers was discussed.
It became clear that Ministers commissioned at different times had received
different or in some cases no instruction on the correct action to be taken
when welcoming non-Catholics or pre first communion children to the altar. It
was felt this could be clarified to everyone's benefit.
M.Johnson reported that having written to all the Eucharistic Ministers concerning
the Parish Constitution and the Parish Questionnaire, a 90% response rate had
voted by a small majority in favour of a meeting being arranged. It was suggested
and accepted that such a meeting could be used both to discuss the issues mentioned
but also to provide an opportunity for Eucharistic Ministers to consider with
Fr.Harry any ongoing training they felt in need of and if any plans should be
made for the Spiritual development of this group.
Fr.Harry,M.Johnson and B.Cawthorn will meet to plan the meeting, which will
be held at 7.30pm on the 23rd February.
Letter concerning the 9.30am Mass
A letter had been received from a parishioner expressing his concerns about
certain aspects of the celebration of this Mass. The group expressed unanimous
disappointment at the tone and contents of the letter and felt that such concerns
are better expressed face to face than by letter in this way. An extensive discussion
took place of the points raised with the following conclusions.
v There is no dissension within the liturgy group which includes Fr Harry as
one of its members. Fr.Harry has expressed his confidence in the group in the
past and this is recorded in previous minutes. Harmless banter is seen as such
by all in the group and does not in our opinion detract from the celebration
of the Mass.
v It was felt that at the 9.30 Mass references to the 4 minute time had perhaps
been excessive and this will be addressed. It was pointed out that the references
to time at the 6.00pm Mass were perceived by three of the group to have been
welcomed as a sign of interaction between Priest and people emphasising our
celebration of the Mass together.
The sermon will continue to be 4.minutes long, this change was only introduced
2 months ago in response to complaints about the length of the service for families
and children. It is too soon to evaluate if this has been a helpful change and
as planned we will keep it under review. The group agreed with Fr. Harry that
to distil a sermon down to 4.minutes was a far harder task than to give a long
discursive homily.
Fr. Harry concluded the discussion by reminding us that constructive criticism
is always useful.
C.Woods will reply on our behalf to the writer of the letter..
Churches Together in Ansdell
Fr.Harry informed the group that there will be Sunday evening services in Lent.
These will not involve discussion groups. F.Dronsfield will prepare a publicity
poster when we have more details.
Parish Council
E.Kelly as the group representative on the Council distributed copies of the
proposed Parish Constitution and asked for them to be considered individually
and comments fed back to her.
Parish Needs Survey
E,Kelly led the group in discussing and filling in this questionnaire. It was
noted that many of the questions seemed to concern liturgy.
Lent
In view of the hour it was decided that we would consider the services for Lent
at the next meeting.
A.O.B.
Letter from P.Kelly concerning the celebration of the Passover. It was felt
that this celebration was greatly valued by the Parish and that Dr.Kelly should
be asked to continue with it. We did however feel this was more a question for
the PDT.
F.Dronsfield confirmed with A.Cawthorn that she had spoken to the organist who
has offered to play for services.
M.Johnson asked if P.Drake would give feedback at the next meeting concerning
the Liturgy day on the "With Hearts and Minds" course she had attended
and this was agreed
Date of next meeting Monday 6th February 7.30pm.
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