Parish Pastoral Council

Now that the building works in the parish are complete, from March – May 2024 the Parish Council will be considering its aims and membership. Look out for updates in the newsletter, or ask anyone named below.

The Parish Pastoral Council meets approximately 4-6 times a year. The members are all people who are involved in 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, Ruzette Borbe, Margie Davids, Caroline Dixon, Geraldine Ellis, Tony Hable, Siobhan Marshall, Joan Murphy, Liz Nicotra, Mark O’Donoghue, Julia Pitkin, Nicola Roberts, John Swallow, Anne Walsh, Fr Dominic.

Within the Parish Council, there are some people with distinct additional roles to help governance of the parish:

Tony Hable, Mark O’Donoghue, Julia Pitkin and Nicola Roberts all sit on the Parish Finance Committee

John Swallow and Mark O’Donoghue formerly sat on the Parish Premises Committee; as premises work is so all-encompassing in 2022-2024, the various aspects of the building project are discussed at the full Parish Council.

Two of the Parish Council meetings follow a “seasonal” agenda, with meetings before Advent and Lent to consider the parish programmes for those key seasons in the Church year.

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 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.

You will see in the section below how the Parish Pastoral Council evolved, as a response to the shocks that faced the parish in 2020. We have continued in a rather ad hoc way, and are likely to do so until the building works are complete. It is rare for the Parish Council meetings to discuss a confidential item. The fruits of the meetings show in the newsletter, in the Advent and Lent opportunities leaflets, and in the annual Finance Update to parishioners. If you ever want feedback on something you have raised, please ask.

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.

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: