Minutes meeting re Youth Ministry - Sunday 10th November

Present: Tosin, Bill, Alan. Hannah, Tony , Trish, Paddy and Angela

What does Youth Ministry need?

Part-time paid co-ordinator to do preparation and planning.
Needs direction – re-energisation
Feed through from school – Anna to recommend that children go to the youth groups.
More ways to attract youth to the clubs
Since Hannah left – we miss having a dedicated person leading us. It needs passion, time and energy.
Numbers of volunteers are starting to drop – they can’t invest the time (have other commitments)


How do you prove the worth of youth ministry?

3/6 children who go to FLEA are not Catholics. FLEA children are much more responsive
Practice – explore their relationship with God
Time and investment in personal faith


Problems

A youth sub-committee no longer exists
From the original ASH group there are only 3 – 4 youth at best
Youth ministry in September was around £2000 in deficit.
What is the church offering the youth?


Ideas for Youth Ministry

Sisters at Corpus Christi Tuesday 3pm – 4pm - ‘Youth for Christ’ with KS2 children primary children. The children have pop, crisps and snacks while learning. The children are very enthusiastic in their learning.
There is a strong link with lay chaplaincy in school. How can we tap into that?
At Corpus Christi C.C. they have ‘jammin’ once a month – led by staff. Started from the ‘fruit of Zion mission’ it is really well attended.
In the past parents were visited by someone from FLEA - let them know someone cares – link
Would be great to take the youth out


Where do we go from here?

We can raise awareness of youth ministry again as originally when Hannah was appointed only the parishioners of St Theresa’s were asked for donations/standing orders/direct debits etc.
Now we have all 3 churches we might be able to raise more money for a part-time co-ordinator working 2/3 days. We could advertise for someone – what is viable? Hannah’s full-time salary was £17,500 p.a. Perhaps a student who has some knowledge about ‘youth ministry’ could be sought? The role needs to be redefined – possible 2 days for groups or 3 days with ‘school links’. Youth ministry volunteers would support that role. It needs a sub-committee to support youth ministry and the person would need to liaise with the full-time lay chaplain. When this process started last time Monsignor Holroyd was the face of ‘youth ministry’ and was fully behind it and able to answer any of the parishioners questions or concerns. Father Paul will need to look at the items outlined to see what his views are, about how we go on from here. It needs to be from the parish – use the school to support what is happening in the parish.

Hannah has a new document that talks through the process of appointing a new person – it hasn’t been officially sanctioned but Monsignor John Wilson is happy for it to be used.