On Wednesday the Parish Council held its regular monthly meeting. On the agenda was a range of matters from the important work by our St Vincent de Paul conference in the Parish, to the Parish’s 30th anniversary.
At the top of our discussion was the upcoming commissioning Mass for our 2023 World Youth Day pilgrims. We are lucky to have 10 pilgrims going from our Parish to these celebrations. We ask as many parishioners as possible to join Fr Troy and the pilgrims for this commissioning Mass at 9:30am on 16 July 2023.
We reflected on the hard work our St Vincent de Paul conference is doing. At this difficult time of winter and cost of living pressures the demand on their time and services is extremely high. The Council would like to acknowledge the great work our Vincentians are doing and ask that the Parish continue to make a contribution each week with food donations and other support.
Further the conference is looking for new recruits. If you have a little time and want make a positive constructive difference in the community please consider joining the conference.
The work to refresh the Council is ongoing. We’d like to thank those who have volunteered to join the Council. Our next step is hold a discernment activity under Fr Troy’s guiding hand for all current council members and the volunteers to reflect on their personal and spiritual calling to the Council. This event will occur at 7pm on 19 July 2023. Post this activity the Council will hold a formation event to consider the Council’s role to make the Parish spiritually and collectively richer. More on this in our next update.
The Council is pleased to announce we will be celebrating the Parish’s 30th anniversary in the week 8 to 15 October 2023. The week long celebration will be a mix of spiritual and community events to recognise this significant milestone. The week aims to have events that cover the breadth of the Parish with activities in Hall and Gungahlin, and events that range across our children, youth, families, multiple cultures, seniors, and much more. Please mark this in your diaries to join us for masses, dinners, expos and other Parish activities.
At this time of First Holy Communion and with prompting from parishioner’s letters, we took the time to reflect on how we reach our children and make them a regular part of our Parish activities. These young people are the future of our Parish and an important group to reach and develop into life long members of our global Catholic family. Many good ideas are flowing among the Council members and we need some more time to formulate these ideas into actions. If you have any ideas you would like to put into the mix please contact a Council member so that we can roll these ideas into actions.
We have been advised by the Catholic Education Office through Good Shepherd that the hall will undergo redevelopment in the last half of the year. The full impact and dates are not confirmed but the redevelopment will impact Masses for around 12 weeks. Please stand by for more information.
Lastly on 26 August 2023 we will be holding a Quiz and Games night to build community and start our road to send more pilgrims to World Youth Day 2026. So start getting your teams of about 8 together and monitor the Parish Bulletin and Facebook for details on the event.
That’s all for this month. But if you have anything you think the Council needs to know and consider please reach out to us at Mass, by letter or email. This will help the Council serve you.
Regards
Sean Ryan
Acting Chair for the Parish Council
