1) Opening prayers
2) Apologies for absence – Julian
3) Progress since last meeting – see summary sheet
The garden project
Creation Mass for Harvest – liturgy, children and CAFOD
Carbon reduction of energy supply
Leave the Car at Home Weekend
Tree planting scheme
Environment web pages
Traidcraft and Foodbank
4) Specific items for discussion:
Loaves and Fishes for Lent – Mary O’M
Craft Club household hints – Linda
Forest School – Linda
Hall refurbishment – Teresa
LiveSimply and Autumn Festival synergy – Julian/Mary I
Recycling and waste management – Roger/Mary I
Brownie contributions – Mary O’M
LiveSimply Masses on 23/24th November – help needed
Younger parishioners contribution to liturgy – Mary O’M
5) Any other business
More promotion to parish and groups
6) Date of next meeting (in late January?)
A prayer for the people of the Philippines
Heavenly Father, as we gather here this evening to work on our LiveSimply project, help us also to consider the plight of the people caught up in the disastrous effects of Typhoon Haiyan. We mourn for the thousands who have died and we ask that relief will come soon to those who are suffering dreadful hardship in the wake of the storm. And if we are in anyway responsible for the cause of their suffering, through ignorance or our wilful overuse of the earth’s resources, then Lord please forgive us and help us to make amends.
A prayer for the Climate negotiations
We pray for the United Nations climate negotiations happening in Warsaw this week.
Let short term business interests bow to science.
Let politics give way to justice.
Let economics step back and allow righteousness to prevail.
Speak to the hearts of every negotiator,
so they may feel your love for your earth,
and your desire for every child of God to do their part
in liberating creation from its bondage to decay.
AGENDA ITEM 3
The garden project
The hedging saplings have been delivered by the Woodland Trust and will be planted this Saturday.
It would be nice to have a mix of personnel helping from next spring now most of the heavy work has been done.
Joe needs a friendly builder/bricklayer who will volunteer to help with the paving and raised beds
Perhaps we should ask if the Brownies and Cubs would like to get involved with planting the raised beds. But it’s for Joe’s team to decide if they think it’s appropriate. It might even be a way of involving the school as they have a lot of experience with their gardening.
Suzanne is happy to run another bingo session to raise money for garden.
After the award we could consider growing vegetables in the parish garden for sale after Mass.
Creation Mass for Harvest – liturgy, children and CAFOD
This seemed to go quite well even if we had a couple of little mix-ups with the offertory procession! It was certainly a good contribution to the liturgical aspect of LiveSimply. Roger had met the parents of Yvonne Wanck, the author of the LiveSimply song, at a recent CAFOD Day.
Carbon reduction of energy supply
Austin Barradell is due to switch the Presbytery electricity supply to a renewable energy supplier on 8th December. The only one that will get us near our target of 10% reduction is Good Energy because they are the only supplier of 100% renewable electricity.
We have discussed doing a survey of parishioners to see if we can count any of their household energy savings. Roger would draft something out for this after Christmas.
CAFOD have formed a marketing partnership with Ecotricity (68% renewable electricity). CAFOD gets a £40 donation for an electricity switch and £60 for a dual fuel switch (but must use www.ecotricity.co.uk/cafod . A little more expensive than Good Energy (for our household anyway).
Leave the Car at Home Weekend
This was a great success in my opinion and the response very satisfying. It was agreed that this should be an annual event.
196 said they normally walk to Mass, 355 people walked on this occasion.
364 said they normally arrived by car but this weekend only 172 did.
140 cars would normally, but only 63 this time.
Tree planting scheme
We have just hung the 36th leaf on our tree but this seems to have gone very quiet despite forms being taken.
Linda suggested we should put out the leaflets at the Seniors’ Christmas lunch and at tea after the Bereavement Mass. She also suggested advertising in Briefly as a different kind of Christmas present.
Environment web pages
Has everyone had a look at these? – Helping Planet and Clean Green Home. Roger needed guidance as to scope, wording, number of hints, etc. The page on what you can recycle in Bromley has been vetted by the Waste Services Manager.
Some present at the meeting had been unable to access the website, but Roger handed out printed copies of the page entitled “Help to Save the Planet”. Mary I had several ideas for changes, preferring a punchy approach to the points. Linda quite liked having some points with a few more facts. Mary I would email Roger with her suggestions. Further comments needed as soon as possible because this action is late for no other reason than Roger is late!
Traidcraft and Foodbank
The Traidcraft stall is now very well established thanks to the enthusiasm and hard work of Diana Betts and Geraldine Thompson. We have to hope that the additional publicity for this weekend’s Foodbank collection encourages a good response as the quantity donated has been declining. Current totals are £2,800 Traidcraft sales since Oct 2012, and 1.7 tonnes of food since Jan 2012.
AGENDA ITEM 4
Loaves and Fishes for Lent
Can Mary O’M get this organised with the Guides and have an event which could be open to the whole parish and not just the group?
Mary will speak to Julia Crudgington about organising this as an event open to the whole parish. It was suggested that fish soup and bread would be a suitable menu for this with possibly bread and cheese as an alternative or an extra course.
Craft Club household hints
Linda will be preparing further hints following up the tips we have been publishing in Briefly since late September. It was suggested that church and hall cleaning should be made more eco-friendly. There doesn’t seem to be any one person responsible for buying cleaning products and hence a mixture of things is being purchased as when needed. We need to talk to people like Frank Simon to set up a properly managed purchasing policy. This is the only way we can ensure that only eco-products are used.
Forest School
Linda had been in touch with the school about helping to tidy up the Forest School area. It had been suggested that a small group of LiveSimply supporters should meet on 30th November (the day of the school fair). Linda would get a list of ideas for tidying from Mrs Esaias. She thought an hour’s work would be quite enough.
Hall refurbishment
Roger asked for aspects of the hall refurbishment that could be considered by the LiveSimply assessors as environmental improvements.
It was agreed that the roof must offer better insulation than before. Unfortunately, no gas consumption comparisons with previous winters will be possible because one meter serves the whole church complex. In the new toilets we now have Dyson air blade hand driers as well as urinals which no longer flush unnecessarily. There are also movement sensing light switches to conserve electricity. There will be a need for rainwater harvesting from next spring for use in the LiveSimply Garden.
LiveSimply and Autumn Festival synergy
Mary I did a great job with her recycling bins under the oak tree, there were crafts and other home made goods, jams and marmalades, as well as home grown vegetables for sale. The entrance programme referred to LiveSimply and Mary had sourced compostable plates.
Recycling and waste management (properly monitored system)
By a happy coincidence Roger had spoken to John Bosley, the Bromley Waste Services manager, about having recyclable materials collected from the church premises. Following further email discussions, the manager had arranged for two 240 litre wheelie bins to be supplied (these are now in position at the Lakeswood Road car park entrance). These bins have been supplied and will be emptied free of charge. They are clearly labelled with their purpose. The collection of food waste had not yet been agreed.
This will enable us to deal with the back end of the process properly and without involving Teresa. Mary I and Roger need to meet at the hall to discuss with stakeholders what internal bins and signage are required. Roger would email everyone he could think of to start this process.
Teresa mentioned that Breda Ford has been melting down candle wax to create re-useable candles.
Roger showed a CAFOD envelope which could be used to post used printer cartridges and old mobile phones. It was agreed that we should hand these out after Mass one weekend.
Brownie contributions
Suzanne Horner continues to be very supportive and had told Mary O’M and Roger that:
Tree and bulb planting is almost organised for Jubilee Park
World Issues is a major Brownie badge and she hopes it will be presented by Fr Bryan at Mass in January and the children will ‘perform’ in the sanctuary at a Parade Mass in early 2014.
Mary O’M would follow up with Suzanne on the above and enquire about the intention to sponsor a child overseas.
LiveSimply Masses on 23/24th November – help needed
CAFOD’s main campaign for 2013-Lent 2014 is called “Hungry for Change”. Apart from it being mentioned at the Harvest Fast Day talk, we haven’t done anything to support this because of other things happening. It was mentioned to Roger at the CAFOD Day he attended a couple of Saturdays ago and he agreed to promote it at St James’.
As we didn’t have a theme for the next LiveSimply weekend, this would be an appropriate way to bolster our Live in Solidarity principle now that Connect2 Bangladesh has been terminated. Roger showed a poster of CAFOD saying goodbye to Kainmari. We need to tell the parish and also school.
It won’t cost anyone a penny and involves 3 of us giving a short talk then the congregation signing postcards to Mr Cameron. We could use this also as the opportunity to pass on CAFOD’s message about Kainmari. The signing could be done similarly to the way we did the Leave the Car at Home Weekend slips. People don’t have to give their address as we’ve been told we can stamp with the St James’ address if left blank.
Roger collected 600 cards from CAFOD last week but these needed to be operated on! He demonstrated how one sixth of each card was to be retrieved. Teresa immediately had the idea of saving two of the other sections to use as resources for the loaves and fishes event. Everyone took 100 each which should be returned to Roger before 23rd November.
Roger would write the talk. It will cover three themes: Connect2, Philippines and “Hungry for Change”. Mary agreed to speak at 6pm Mass, Roger at 11am. (Julian subsequently agreed to do so at 9.15am.)
Help is also needed to put out cards and pens, collecting cards and tidying up between Masses. Roger would ask J&P members to get involved.
Younger parishioners contribution to liturgy
Mary O’M hadn’t found a way of getting through to the various potential young people. However, there was general agreement that readings by uniformed group members were usually of a low standard mainly due to lack of preparation.
It was suggested that the confirmation group might be asked to contribute something to LiveSimply liturgy although there is the problem of them having their own Mass after classes. Mary O’M thought it would be useful to talk to Angela Bunnage, one of the confirmation class assistants, because they know one another.
It was even suggested that we should have one LiveSimply weekend dedicated to the young people and have them devise and plan the specific parts of liturgy (theme, short talk/presentation, bidding prayers, be the readers).
It would be wonderful if all three Masses could be covered with contributions from each age group.
More promotion
The "Get Involved" week idea?
Can we make a further appeal to groups that haven't been directly involved so far?
Further school engagement
Maria Elena Arana of CAFOD would be happy to speak at Mass to encourage and promote (ideas for her to encourage: tree planting, CAFOD climate change agenda)
No conclusions were reached on the above because of the late hour.