Minutes of the Pastoral Council, October 23, 2007

The Pastoral Council of St. Sebastian’s Church met October 23, 2007, at 7 p.m. Present were John Maciel (co-chair), Anne Diffily (recorder), Beatrice Parker, Sarah Garcia-Mata, Marie Brito (religious education), and Father Hayman.

Community Outreach Amy Marks (agm_003@yahoo.com)
No report this month.

Religious Education Sarah Garcia-Mata (sgarciamata@cox.net)
Marie Brito, religious ed. coordinator (msmarie06.stseb@gmail.com)
Marie Brito reported that registrations for students already attending CCD classes continue to come in. We have close to 90 children enrolled now.
Class masses begin at 9 a.m. on October 28 with the third grade leading the mass, ascending through the grades and ending before Christmas. Grades 9 and 10 will have their own evening mass on Dec. 16, followed by a holiday celebration.
Marie was very pleased with the pancake breakfast turnout on October 14. The students’ cooking was “phenomenal.”
On Nov. 17 there will be a pizza party and ice cream social organized and staffed by the religious education students and open to the entire parish.

Liturgy Anne Diffily (anne_diffily@brown.edu)
Stewardship Weekend was held Oct. 13-14 at all three Masses. A number of new volunteers signed up for various ministries. Anne Diffily noted that no one stopped to chat or read the backboards after the 5:00 mass, and only two people came downstairs after the 11:00 Mass. Next year we will insert copies of the all-ministry information and signup sheet into the parish bulletin in order to expand our outreach.

New Business
Anne will look into the possibility of a St. Sebastian’s parish “blog” as a way to present up to date information and link to a PDF version of the parish weekly bulletin online.
Bea Parker noted that the monthly Book Club is back up and running with a full table of attendees at the first discussion meeting. Retired professor Donald Rohr leads the sessions.
Fr. Hayman reported that the first maintenance collection yielded about $2,000, which was used to trim all the trees on the property.

The next meeting of the Pastoral Council will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2007, at 7 p.m. in the Father Randall Room.