On Wednesday, 4th February 2004, Fr Pat convened an open parish meeting to consider six questions proposed by the Westminster Diocese as it gathers information towards the eventual development of a Future Pastoral Plan of the Diocese.

The meeting was chaired by Mgr. Henry Turner, our local Dean.

Approximately sixty parishioners attended and worked on the questions in groups. An opportunity was given for people (who were unable to attend or those who had further ideas) to put answers in writing by Saturday, 14th February. Four people availed of this.

• An inclusive, open, welcoming place serving the faith needs of the community
• committed to evangelisation
• centred on the Gospel, the Eucharist and Prayer
• with a priest who could devote his/her time to duties exclusive to the ordained
• with fuller, dynamic, lay (trained) involvement
• with greater ecumenical and inter-faith collaboration
• with the evolving role of women lived out – consultation/ordaination
• with married priests and deacons
• with local mass centres
• with a youth ministry but without ageist attitudes
• with transport organised for non-car owners

For one group the vision for the future was a return of the ‘traditional parish’

• Increase in faith sharing groups, ALPHA, CAFE and AYWL
• Lay activity very evident – the number and variety of groups in the parish
• Good schools  Increasing population
• Youth involvement – e.g. Youth KGB
• Good Sacramental preparation
• Good liturgies – especially children’s and a variety of musical styles in worship
• Greater awareness of social needs and realities – child protection in place
• Greater ecumenical involvement
• Greater use of the Prayer Room – now several hours of adoration every day

One group saw few signs of growth – the parish was not a friendly place.

• Get to know them and their needs......Invite them to our functions
• Appropriately pool resources – personnel, training programmes
• Share our good experience of collaborative ministry
• Have well-publicized, fixed Mass times and organized transport

Two groups thought that it would be difficult for us to support another parish effectively – partly because we are such a large parish.

• Let them get to know us – our strengths and weaknesses and accept their expertise
• Pool resources/ share priests.....(use their clergy to support the mass centres, thus spreading the load across all neighbouring parishes)
• Shared training
• Joint groups/ merging and amalgamating some
• Combined services/ fixed mass times published in every parish/ organised transport.

• Have a better understanding of the priest’s workload and relieve them of all that is non-essential
• Have a parish administrator
• Have more volunteers (including the young) to do routine pastoral duties e.g. visiting the sick etc
• Train and develop people to organise and provide Eucharistic and other types of services
• Have a deacon
• Prayer
• Make them part of our community – invite them into our homes .... take care that they are never isolated especially if they are on their own.

• Worship and prayer as the key element of parish life – a growing community of love and witness
• Fewer priests .... fewer masses
• Deacons.....marries priests? Women priests?
• A responsible, trained laity taking leadership roles for a fixed period of time
• Greater involvement on the part of more people including the young
• Sharing our resources non-competitively with our neighbouring parishes
• Being grown up and taking on realistic responsibilities which could make the role of the priest a more attractive one and thus foster vocations
• Better organised ...awareness of practical needs e.g. transport
• Consultation before change of mass times
• With local mass centres thriving
• Twinned with an overseas parish
• A community of communities