Putting our Words into Action
2016 has been a busy year for us; much more than in previous years. With new members joining and willing to involve themselves in our work we have been able to answer the call for help much more than before and therefore become more relevant as a result. That is not to say that to be relevant means to be actively working for our Council because we have a significant portion of membership who due to ill health and age can no longer physically support our work but have the means to support us through prayer which is a stable part of what we do.Below is a summary of our activities from month to month as a collective but this does not take in account the continued week in and week out parochial support across our parishes that many of our members as individuals provide. Those who are Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist, ushers, choir members, Master of Ceremonies for Mass, altar servers, school governors, CAFOD representatives, SVP members, friends of Nazareth House, parish council members, and the work carried out as individuals for many other charities and support groups during the year such as volunteering each week for the Southchurch Foodbank.
As individuals we also celebrated the Year of Mercy and we also took parishioners from Sacred Heart Southchurch to Brentwood Cathedral in April to go through the Year of Mercy door opened there and many of us readily support our parish priests with whatever urgent support we are required to give. Our main work and support of the Church and clergy starts with the seven Catholic parishes in our area but this does extend beyond our boundaries when we are asked to do so, and we do also support parishes from the Anglican Communion when mutual support is welcomed.
Our year started as it always does with our Anniversary on January 1st and this year we gathered for Mass at Nazareth House with Father William and a fantastic way to begin a New Year on the right foot.
Also in January...
- We supported Christian Unity week
- Delivered the White Flower Appeal for SPUC at the parish of Saint Peter in Eastwood
- Collected 300 unwanted spectacles for VisionAid Overseas collected from Anglican and Catholic parishes all around Southend,
- and ran a coffee morning at Sacred Heart
Plans were already afoot to launch our application for the CAFOD Live Simply award which was applied for in February, and we also brought a new member into our fold, supported the Real Easter Egg campaign, ran a parish social evening for the BCCS Quizzylympics, and were present for all our local Ecumenical Stations of the Cross in Leigh-on-Sea and Eastwood.
March saw us delivering the Brentwood News to all parishes around the deanery (13 churches), brought in another new member, supported another one-off Ecumenical Stations of the Cross in Southchurch, and prepared for our Bollywood evening to be held in April for the charities and causes we were supporting for the year.
After installing our officers for the year, April was the month we focussed on our Bollywood evening with a whole range of prizes to be won in our huge raffle. It was a very busy evening with 108 people being fed and entertained whilst raising much needed funds for Missio, Nazareth House and our Diocesan fund for the training of new priests.
May saw us helping out at the Mass for the Ordination of Father Michael, along with supporting local events and joining the Essex Savers Credit Union for local ethical banking. We also began to hand out the SPUC Pro Life Times around our parishes, and were involved in the 50th Anniversary events at Holy Family.
June was just as busy! We ran a full coach to the KSC 50th annual Aylesford pilgrimage where four of our number became full members, we held a parish to parish sponsored seafront walk for the BCCS starting with Mass at the parish Our Lady Help of Christians and Saint Helen in Westcliff and finishing with refreshments at Saint George and the English Martyrs parish in Shoeburyness and we distributed the new Brentwood News issue around the parishes as requested. 86 additional pairs of unwanted spectacles were also collected from the parish of Saint Luke in Prittlewell for VisionAid Overseas and passed to Williams Opticians for their sorting and passing to the charity.
July began with our presence being requested at a joint community event in Westcliff with a stand to promote what we do locally, and we had members present to help with a foodbank collection from Tesco. We were busy organising our October Community Fayre and along with holding a social for ourselves to catch up, we also gave Father Lee a farewell lunch to say thanks for all his support and held a quiz for CAFOD as part of the Sacred Heart parish CAFOD campaign.
Happily due to school being out we kept August as free as we could... however, we were requested to hold a nine day Novena for peace, reconciliation and harmony which we did in the churches of Sacred Heart and Saint John Fisher, and we also held our own annual BBQ for members to take stock in the sunshine which shone brightly in sunny Southend! Mid August saw us take a coach full on a day trip to London starting with sung Mass at the beautiful parish church at Saint James Spanish Place in London and preparations were made for our CAFOD World Day of Prayer service on September 1st.
Following our CAFOD World Day of Prayer service, we were then busy handing out both the new issues of SPUC Pro Life Times and the Brentwood News around all the parishes again, and on September the 21st we celebrated our 1000th meeting with Mass and a social which was another event that took some organising but was very rewarding to be a part of.
October saw the final distribution of the SPUC Pro Life Times, and we began to sell the BCCS annual draw tickets around the parishes like we did the previous year. The build up to our first Community Fayre took centre stage but the week before we still found time to organise and hold our second parochial pilgrimage for the sick from Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Joseph to the parish of Saint Peter in Eastwood. Our Community Fayre was six months of planning and with 19 exhibitors being showcased to the local community we felt we promoted a lot of good causes and ideas and will be looking to organise another Fayre for 2017. We hadn't finished for October as the following weekend we held an awareness drive for our Polish community for them to talk to us and gain an understanding of what we do following a request by their parish priest to do so.
November saw Father Michael becoming a Member of Honour, we were present at our annual Memorial Mass for deceased members at Brentwood Cathedral, and as well as distributing the latest Brentwood News and Diocesan Directories, we continued to travel around the parishes to sell more BCCS Annual Draw tickets in support of their work. Father Gerry became a Member of Honour, and we ran a Christmas quiz for the Sacred Heart CAFOD project too.
We ran the bottle stall at the Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Joseph parish Christmas Fayre on the 3rd December, and continued to sell more BCCS Annual Draw tickets in the parishes and then held a Christmas social for our members and widows the following Saturday. The next day we ran the coffee morning on behalf of the parish of Saint George and the English Martyrs for their funds and individual members began collecting extra food supplies to be passed to The Storehouse (who were at our October Community Fayre) in support of the homeless and needy of Southend for the Christmas season. We ran our Keep Christ in Christmas sticker and poster campaign again for the start of Advent and if we missed any parishes of any denomination that needed supplies of these then we apologise in advance and will look to supply any parish next year if you would like to get in touch. We were also able to support another of our Community Fayre exhibitors by passing Hopeworx an oil heater, toaster, microwave and unwanted crockery to support their work in the community.
All this is on top of the regular monthly meetings we hold, the quarterly countywide meeting we attend, the regular committee meetings and evenings spent discussing and planning the future.
2016 did provide us with many challenges. We are currently putting plans together for 2017 and hopefully we can focus on more quality than quantity of activities but it is difficult to plan for the unknown as we found this year however we will do our best moving ever forward.
Thank you for your continued support.
