Parish Pastoral Council

The Parish Pastoral Council meets approximately 4 times a year.

To see how it is formed, you can read the Parish Leadership document here:

Parish-Leadership-May-2025

The Terms of Reference for the Parish Council are here: ToR – Parish Council

The members represent different parts of parish life, and we aim to ensure every parishioner has an easy point of contact if you ever want to raise something. Hopefully there is someone you recognise in the list of those serving on the Parish Pastoral Council, and if not you can always contact the parish by phone or email, to get something discussed. The Parish Pastoral Council members are:

Annette Bacon, Onose Egualeonan, Jo Lyons, Emelie Matutina, Theresa McEwan, Joan Murphy, Mark O’Donoghue, Julia Pitkin, Gill Trainor, Anne Walsh (minutes), Fr Dominic (Chair).

At any meeting, any member can raise anything that has been brought to them, as an idea or a concern. It is through conversations at the Parish Council, and the Sub Committees, that many improvements – small and large – are made to parish life. Please do feel welcome to contact the Parish Council member best known to you, at any time, with any suggestions, comments, or ideas for change.

The Parish Pastoral Council – how it formed and developed.

From summer 2020, in a time of great transition and sadness for the parish, and with the many challenges of Covid, Fr Dominic has had regular conversations with a group of parishioners, initially formed from those who were leading parish activities and Sacramental programmes. They became both an emergency response group to help guide the response to Covid, and a consultative group as the first stages of the building works were developed. Together this group have a range of professional and personal wisdom, decades of experience of the parish, and are connected to many different parishioners through the range of parish activities that they lead.

In January 2021 this group kindly agreed to form an interim Parish Pastoral Council. It is a place where ideas are shared, as well as considering very practical matters of parish life. They did an amazing job steering us through the building project.

In June 2024 we were able to look at new structures, and these came into place during 2024; it is these which now enable and enliven every aspect of parish life.

Diocesan Planning

In recent years there have also been Diocesan and local initiatives, and these shape where we are today. From 2018 the Diocese has developed the “Stewards of the Gospel” programme; this is particularly focused on partnership working with local parishes. In our case this is Corpus Christi, Collier Row; Holy Redeemer and St Dominic’s, Harold Hill and Harold Wood; Christ the Eternal High Priest, Gidea Park. As a group of parishes, working in partnership, there will be things we can do more effectively than we could alone, and in the years ahead the sense of partnership working will deepen and grow. For more about the Stewards of the Gospel programme visit: https://www.dioceseofbrentwood.net/departments/development/

Within the parish, set up alongside the Stewards Programme, there was a Parish Pastoral Forum from 2018-2019. Details of their meetings are at the end of this page.

The parish also has a long standing Finance Committee, and you can read more about them here: