Minutes from the meeting held on February 22, 2005.

The meeting began with a Scripture reading and the parish prayer.

We welcome our new parochial vicar, Father James McGowan. Father McGowan was recently the pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Belmont which closed on December, 2004. His appointment took effect on Feb. 1.

An update on the reconfiguration—specifically Star of the Sea. The Friends of Star of the Sea met with Bishop Lennon to inform him of their appeal to the Vatican. To date, we have 80 people who have registered for Sacred Heart parish and of course others who have not officially registered.

The transitional team met on February 2nd and they are reviewing the process used for welcoming parish members of Star of the Sea. They do want an assessment of what went well, what could have gone better and will continue to look at how to get information on this process.

Regarding the adult formation/education initiative we are looking for ideas on good films and books. There seems to continue to be an interest on the part of our parishioners who have enjoyed the programs. Father O’Brien will be attending a workshop on March 18 at Boston College for adult formation, specifically the Little Rock scripture series. We should look at different ways of continuing this effort.

Father O’Brien reported on the success of the Dec 26 open house which was held in the convent building. All those who were able to attend said it was a wonderful setting and they had a great time. We might want to look at the date for next year. Perhaps it was too close to Christmas. The next event will be the play/Irish musical done by the Reagle Players on March 12th. There will be a wine and cheese party followed by a light supper and then people will be bused to the Reagle Theatre in Waltham. All tickets are sold Any other suggestions for this type of social for the parish would be welcome.

We had a discussion on the use of the convent building and many ideas have been reviewed and discussed with a number of people. More to come.

We have been meeting every Weds with St. Ann parishioners regarding the planning and offering of Lenten liturgies. It has been a really good experience to plan together and everyone has enjoyed it. A schedule of services offered will be published soon.

An idea was presented to think about a volunteer group to join any number of tasks establishing a beginning and end that may entice parishioners to volunteer. If they know it is a short term commitment it could be attractive.

Father O’Brien discussed the review of a program being done by St. Agatha in Milton called the parish nurse program. It is handled by volunteer nurses. Some of the activities would be a flu shot clinic, blood screening, blood pressure, nutrition programs and some work may involve working with the hospitals. Parish nurses would be available during certain stated times and may offer services as a health educator, health navigator for some complex issues and advisor for resources available for people of all ages. We thought it would be very worthwhile to provide these kinds of services to the parish. It was decided to begin to scope it out and perhaps we should start with a meeting with some of the nurses in the parish and possibly invite the coordinator of the Milton program. It would be helpful to hear from the person directly regarding the programs strengths and weaknesses. It would be great to hear success stories.

Glastonbury Abbey contacted us to tell us about their Bookstore Outreach Program. It benefits the monks but also benefits the parish by receiving a portion of the proceeds from the sale of books. We plan to choose a day to do this in the near future.

Those present this evening were Rosemary Kubera, Rose Marie Feeney, John Princiotto, Father O’Brien, Norma Murphy, Maureen Conway, Deborah Riordan, Deacon Salenius, Howard Lotis, Rick Rossi, Richard Letham and Margaret Kinsella.