Minutes from the meeting held on March 21, 2006.

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

We reviewed and accepted the Minutes of the February meeting.

We discussed the work we have been doing on our mission statement. The consensus so far is that most people like our existing mission statement but we are still looking at whether or not we can make it more directed toward our actual mission. We will continue to seek suggestions and revisit it next month since we are a small group of members this evening.

An update on adult education began with a discussion of the planning for the listening session. Norma Murphy gave a brief summary of the committee meeting and asked for opinions from the whole pastoral council as well as volunteers. We need people to take a lead role in areas like communication, training of facilitators, food, logistics, finance and others. We believe our session will occur sometime in October 2006.  The committee for this event will probably meet a few times a month and we will give you an update each month. Volunteers are needed, particularly for the communication and training piece. Howard Lotis volunteered to take on the communication effort. Several people volunteered to be facilitators for the listening session. Discussion continued regarding prizes that we may be able to get from local businesses--perhaps gift certificates for dinners, a car wash, bakery and other small prizes. It is all geared toward making it attractive to come to the meeting as well as having a little fun. Norma Murphy will solicit some volunteers over the next month for some of the lead roles.

Regarding the showing of films,we agreed to continue offering the film on a monthly basis. People really seem to enjoy the evening of film and discussion. The book discussion will also continue.

A Virtus Training for Sacred Heart Parish was held on March 7th. Sister Mary Joan Lofgren, CSJ,  conducted the training and we heard the audience was very pleased with her presentation. Sister Mary Joan is willing to conduct other training session if there are more people that need to attend.

Father O’Brien mentioned that there is a Catholic men’s conference that was held on March 4th in South Boston. Five thousand men attended. There is also a Catholic women’s conference held where three thousand women attended.

We discussed the 2010 initiative which is a strategic plan for the Catholic schools within the Archdiocese of Boston. A consulting company has been hired to work with the Archdiocese on the evaluation of all aspects of the school system, the changing demographics, enhancing curriculum, enhancing identity and many other criteria. They expect to complete the project by the year 2010.

Regarding the establishment of a parish nurse program, which will primarily consist of education and health screening, we hope to set up a meeting shortly and start analyzing how and when to begin. We hope to use the space at the convent. Perhaps we can also do a Health Fair and/or blood drives. Many mothers of Sacred Heart School are nurses who may have an interest in volunteering some time. 

We discussed issues within the church in Germantown. On a regular basis, every other month within the Quincy churches, food will be given to Holy Trinity Church. The parish office is in Germantown. Another group, Friends of the Unborn, will also be a recipient of some assistance from our church. 

Next September 2006 we will need about 5 new pastoral council members because of vacancies due to the limits of tenure.

Our next PPC meeting will occur on Tues, April 25, 2006 at 7:30 PM.

Members in attendance this evening were O’Brien, Kubera, Murphy, Feeney, Squires, O’Day, Lotis, Salenius, Riordan and Letham.