Parish Pastoral Council Tues 24th Nov 2015

Members present: Fr.Declan Mulligan(P.P.) Clare Ward(chair) Oliver Haire Sharon Livingstone Catherine McQuillan Ann Clenaghan

·  Prayer read by Sharon

·  Apologies from Collette Baine and Meabh Lenehan (invited guest)

·  Clare read an email from Cathy Duff, declaring her resignation from the PPC . Following some discussion it was decided that Clare should invite her to meet with herself and Declan to see if she might reconsider.

·  Minutes of previous meeting were approved.

·  Clare read the outline of a recent report from Meabh about our online presence.There are currently 328 ‘likes’ on Facebook and she says this shows a steady growth and compares favourably with other parishes in the diocese.This led to discussion about our website and the need to develop a new more vibrant one.Declan had sourced two quotes for web design and maintenance and it was agreed we would require a couple more quotes before advancing.Declan mentioned Lifetime, a parish management system which we might adopt when we are up and running with new website.

·  Catherine suggested we invite parishioners via the bulletin, to go to our website and register their email addresses so as to receive information and updates on parish events.

·  Moving on to our constitution,Clare read the final draft and we all approved it and she agreed to forward it to Bishop Treanor’s office.

·  Clare told us that she had met Fr Colm (PP of Genavy parish) and had mentioned that she was in Aghagallon PPC.He thought it would be very beneficial for both parishes to get together and ‘compare notes’ but perhaps in a few months time as we are further advanced than them .

·  The tri-fold leaflet was next on the agenda. Clare had brought along the first draft and we went through it to build it up...e.g.Welcome group...greeting at church door, offering tea/coffee after mass, maybe producing and distributing a “welcome pack” to new parishioners.

·  Catherine offered to put an appeal in the bulletin for more volunteers to assist the hospitality team with various events over the Advent and Christmas period.

·  Under the heading Prayer and Reflection, we decided to offer prayer cards at regular intervals during the year for home use. These would be free of charge and could be picked up in the church porch.

·  The rest of our tri-fold leaflet was satisfactory and Ann offered to ask Joe Nelson to take some photos of our stained glass in the church which we then might use to adorn the borders of the little publication.

·  On the subject of the housebound of our parish, Catherine told us that she had called the Loughshore Befriending group and had had a great conversation with Bernie, their representative. It seems that although there are those in our area who need this service, there is a distinct dearth of volunteers locally to provide it. Declan agreed that we could invite Bernie to make an appeal for volunteers at one of our masses.

·  Oliver and Sharon shared their experiences of their two days attending “Called and Gifted”

·  Someone suggested we should publish our Events Calendar on FaceBook and our website, all were in agreement.

·  Catherine thought we could perhaps ask the JPII candidates to help with the hospitality following the carol service, again this was welcomed.

·  Sharon had to leave early so Ann concluded the meeting with a prayer.

·  Next meeting Tue 12th Jan 2016 at 7.15pm

·  Executive committee meeting immediately after mass on Tues 5th in the conference room.