For more than 4 YEARS there has been talk and discussion about repairs and renovations to our church.
27 months ago, on 16th March 2003 we held a Parish Assembly to discuss OUR vision for Holy Family, and amongst the many items we took on board, was that the Parish should explore the possibilities of renovating our church.
It was on November 22nd 2003 that we formed our building committee. This team of people has been working since that time with people from the Archdiocese Liturgical Commission and our selected Architects on many aspects of the proposed renovations. This has included SEEKING YOUR VIEWS, inviting some of you into the consultation process, LISTENING to those of you who approached us and COMMUNICATING our progress as often as we could.
So you can see a lot of discussion, parishioner involvement and preparation has taken place.
The following is an extract from a presentation made by our Parish Pastoral Council Chairman on the weekend of 2nd & 3rd July 2005.
"I am going to hand over to Fr Barry in a moment, but before I do I just want to tell you what we are going to do this evening/morning.
Firstly, Fr Barry will present to you the BROAD DETAILS of the repairs & renovations. Now this won’t cover in EXACT detail placement of various specific items of church furniture, this comes later when work commences, however he will cover the main items. After his brief presentation Fr Barry will then hand back to me so that I can tell you how we are going to fund the renovations.
And lastly, because of time constraints we will unfortunately be unable to take questions during the presentation, however there will be members of the Parish Council, Building Committee & Finance Committee available in the church entrance after mass if you want to ask anything or discuss any aspect of the renovations.
I’ll now hand over to Fr Barry"…..
Extract from Fr Barry's presentation.....
Fr Barry presented a series of images depicting his vision for Holy Family, and what he thought God might want for the Holy Family church. This included a church which was welcoming, perhaps visually appealing and one which meets and fulfills all of the current liturgical standards and practices of today.
Fr Barry then took us on a visual tour of the various parts of the planned renovations, which included:
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A new entrance and gathering space
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A newly designed Sanctuary area
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A new baptismal area and font
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A Blessed Sacrament Chapel
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New seating and carpetting
Fr Barry concluded by saying that in these potentially uncertain times of reducing numbers of priests, potentially unsettling times of some parishes amalgamating, we had the opportunity to really ensure and secure the future of Holy Family by supporting our Parish renovation program. He then handed back to the Pastoral Council Chairperson.
Now as most of you have probably not met him, I am going to ask Colin Priddle, Chairman of our Finance Council, who has been a part of our building committee to join me as I talk you through our financial plan.
NEXT we will handout a brochure, which provides details of our planned church renovations. Can I now ask our helpers to handout sufficient brochures at the end of each row of seats so I can talk you through things.
The Chairperson then described in detail the contents of the brochure which gave a synopsis of our parishes finances, and estimate of the planned renovation and building costs. He then gave an overview of how we could all participate in a gifting programe which could see us raising money for the deposit required so we could obtain our loan from the Archdoicese.
Procedure for Baptism....
Baptism Preparation - 7pm 1st Thursday of the month
