MEETING MINUTES

St. Isidore Parish Pastoral Council

October 13, 2005

Members Attending: Glenn Bunnell, Rev. Richard Butler, Deacon Charles Cornell, Laureen DiBenedetto, Nancy Dome, Mark Douglas, Kathleen King, Jeff LaPlante, Carole Makary, Susan Peabody, Ed Reverdy, John Sangermano

Members Absent: Rose Colosi, Tim Garvin, Kim Tocci

Evening Prayer

Minutes: Meeting of September 8^th reviewed.

New Members Welcomed

Laureen DeBenedetto, Carole Makary, Ed Reverdy

Update from the pastor

Distributed.

Orienting new members and planning agenda for 2005-06

New members were given copies of the Archdiocesan Guidelines

It was noted that meetings have been held on the second Thursday of the month; this is subject to adjustment at the will of the members.

Rose Colosi has served as chair this past year. This is typically reviewed each year and a chair for this year will be elected and/or re-elected at the next meeting.

Tradition has had the pastor write a set of minutes after each meeting. This is subject to adjustment at the will of the members.

The remainder of the meeting centered on brainstorming the agenda of last meeting: how to re-gather ourselves after last year’s reconfiguration.

Suggestion was made to consider the minorities in the town; should we attempt to reach non-English speaking people. Consensus was that there is not a significant number who do not speak English. We will stay alert to this possibility but not action now.

GoF has gathered new members to the parish. On the other hand there has been a loss of some who favored the former grade level programming. Hard to tell at this point the bottom line but consensus seemed to acknowledge the value of going forward.

Question surfaced as to whether we might test a return to the grade level programming simultaneously with the GoF model. Logistics of this, however, were beyond our present ability. The change to GoF took eighteen months of preparation and any return to the old model would take at least that long to prepare.

We are still operating with a census of about six hundred plus families although we have only one or two hundred core active families. Census keeping has always been difficult; all-the-more difficult in this past year when there was so much crossing of the lines and so many ending up with “dual-citizenship”with some family members having joined St. Francis and others St. Elizabeth or some at St. Michael’s and others at St. Bridget’s.

Might we look to a new model of census taking? Can we spin off a round of small listening groups that expands into wider circles so that all in the parish might be reached with a one-on-one relational dialogue of their level of membership, their concerns and needs, their hopes and dreams?

Sociological study noted (Robert Putnam: Bowling Alone) in which the need and value of one-on-one relations seen as vital.

Question surfaced on the possibility of a visit by the (arch)bishop. It was noted that invitations have been extended and continue open. The archdiocese of late has been under great tensions, etc. and we are best to work on our own without anticipating greater help from the archdiocese at this hour.

Review of meeting

Round robin of comments: many good issues surfaced, need a facilitator. Suggestions indicate a number of good future topics. Discovery of how much I don’t know of our parish. Encouraged. Clearer now about the role of the p.p.c. A lot of energy after a year of anxiety; it will be good to settle on a priority. Good meeting. Let’s bring brain-storming to an end. Glad to back on track. Two years of anger now hopefully behind us. It will be good to discover in a relational way who actually constitutes the parish.

Thanks expressed to those completing terms.

Next meeting November 10^th