The Parish Office
The changes in the way our Parish Office is staffed, and to the manner in which the Parish is administered continue to be consolidated.  Noelene will leave towards the end of November, and from then until the end of January, the Parish Office will be staffed on an ad hoc basis.  These are a quiet couple of months in a Parish, as people focus on summer, Christmas, holidays, and just generally take a break from committees and meetings.  The Parish Finance and Management Committee and the Parish Council will be considering how best to respond to staffing a parish office in the second decade of the 21st Century.

It is important that we not keep on doing what we have always done because that is what we have always done!!!  That is neither prudent use of our resources nor an honest response to the challenges of our time.  This is not a case of everything being done by technology and the human face removed from the scene.  What parish priest, which Parish Council, where is the Finance and Management Committee would do such a thing?

We are committed to bringing people closer to Christ, and we will discover all sorts of ways by which that can be done.  The money spent on staffing the office for all the hours that it was open will be used initially to refurbish the inside of our Church.  It is over twenty years since this church was opened, and things like painting need to be done, to ensure that it remains a fitting place in which to celebrate the mysteries of God.

As for the human face about the parish, that is surely best provided by parishioners themselves, rather than paying someone to do it by proxy.  The Parish Office is a place for administration, whereas the Parish Church and Centre is a place for spiritual, pastoral and social activity, which much more accurately reveal the nature of the Church and the gift of the Catholic Faith.