Present
Fr Tom Egan, Gerard Barden, Patrick Madigan, Libby Biberian, Greg Howard, Tom Egan, Sean Carroll, Edoardo Albert, Brian Hunt, John Donnelly, Kevin Keenan.
Apologies
Fr Vincent Malone, Melanie Gibbons, Felicity Brown, Ray Landi.
Minutes of last meeting
Minutes of the meeting of 19 March 2012 were signed as being correct by the Chair.
Finance
Brian Hunt provided an overview of the accounts for the three months to 31 March 2012. Expenditure for the quarter was £44K, which is around £5.5K less than the same period in 2011. The overall balance at 31 March 2012 was £277,206. There are funds available if required to finance projects such as boiler replacement, floor painting etc.
Security around the church, Parish Centre/Presbytery was discussed. The main cost involved in improving security appears to centre around the installation of extra cabling required for additional CCTV cameras. It was suggested that it might be possible to link new cameras via Wi-Fi. Fr. Vincent will make enquiries as to possaibilities.
Fundraising
The next planned giving drive has been pushed back to the end of the year.
Prayer/Evangelisation
The first communion and confirmation programmes are progressing well.
Training is underway for the new alter server volunteers.
Marriage preparation courses are continuing. Lots of the couples undertake the course here but get married elsewhere i.e. Ireland, Italy etc.
Ecumenism
Nothing to report.
Website/IT
The password for the parish Twitter account has been mislaid and will need to be re-set – confirmation will be sent automatically to the Parish Office which is the admin account
The Wi-fi network has been successfully extended to the upper floors in the presbytery providing Internet access.
The communion and confirmation group photos will be put on the parish website - Fr Tom will ask the photographer for copies and will pass these on to Edoardo to upload.
Parish Hall
Nothing to report.
AOB
· Recruitment Drive
The original date pencilled in for this event has now passed. Gerard has had difficulty obtaining contact information for the various groups. He will e-mail Jane and Father Vincent for details of group leaders with a view to setting up a parish database.
This is particularly important given the parish’s legal requirements in terms of ensuring that all volunteers requiring a CRB check have valid one in place. Once details for all groups have been collated the database can be used for tracking CRB compliance. N.B. the scout group are responsible for administering their own CRB checks for leaders and helpers.
A new date for the recruitment drive was discussed and agreed. It has now been proposed it will take place on Sunday 1 July (pending contact with the Group Leaders and their appetite to do so). It may be possible to combine it with the parish AGM which is scheduled for the same day.
· Parish Barbeque/Sports Day
This will take place on Saturday 7 July. Gerard has spoken to Joe Sutton who has agreed to run the barbeque. Gerard will look into organising the sports side of the event.
· Finance Committee
Brian is standing down as chair of the Finance Committees, though he will continue to prepare the parish accounts. Gerard thanked Brian on behalf of the Parish Council for his hard work and dedication over the last twelve years.
· Parish Council elections
Gerard will e-mail members asking them to indicate if they wish to stand down from the parish council for 2012-13. If he doesn’t hear otherwise he will assume that all wish to continue.
The next meeting will be the AGM on Sunday 1st July. The next regular meeting will take place on Monday 24 September at 8:15 pm.