Irish Regional Committee Meeting Report, July 31st 2013
The Irish Regional Committee met on July 31st, 2013 in the House of Retreat,Tyrconnell Road, Inchicore, Dublin.
Present: Fr. Peter Clucas OMI, Lisa McKee, Eoghan O'Flaherty, Andrew Brady, Ruth Bennett, David O'Donnell, Paul Feeney, Dee O’Flaherty
Following the opening prayer, we discussed the progress of nominations for new members to come onto the Irish Regional Committee. We extended the deadline to August 16th to give members more time to put their nominations in.
The Lourdes Pilgrimage plans are coming along nicely. We have 78 confirmed and hopefully a few more confirmed before going. 22 are coming for the first time. On a side note, the number of guests travelling may be looking a little down from previous.
The Social & Fundraising Committee is delighted to announce that the Bake Sale held on June 30th was a great success. €600 was raised on the day. Many thanks to Caoimhe Carroll for coordinating the event and to all those who baked for the event or helped on the day. The group is now focusing on our Christmas Cards campaign and it hopes to have them all ready before going to Lourdes.
Speaking of the Christmas cards and other fundraising efforts, we are delighted to announce that over €6,000 was raised last year. This money will be fed directly back into the projects both at home and abroad which we support. The benchmark has been set already with this year’s Bake Sale setting such a high standard. Let’s endeavor to make 2013 even more successful. Well done and our sincere thanks to one and all who supported and continue to support our fundraising efforts.
Deirdre O’Flaherty and Lisa McKee had much to discuss about local projects. They have produced a draft manual for the Faith Friends Project, which we hope, once finalised, can be given to those interested in participating in future Faith Friend classes. They also are establishing links with other volunteer groups in the area and looking at how the OYS can get involved more in the community. Lisa McKee and Amy Kiernan attended a Mass on July 13th for volunteers in the area. This was a great opportunity to meet other groups and individuals who volunteer in the area. Lisa McKee and Micheal Lane assisted with the distribution of surveys outside the Youth Centre, for the Bluebell area on June 7th. Local projects also plan to arrange a house painting project in the community in October, following the success of last year. It was a very busy but productive month for the Local Projects Committee and all the hard work by Lisa and Dee was noted and is greatly appreciated.
Next, we moved on to discuss Faith Development. The regional committee felt that with all that has been going on and the focus on various projects, our focus on Faith Development has lagged somewhat. We agreed that we need to look at ways to refocus some of our time, passion and energy in this area. We hope to use Advent and Easter time as a chance to reach out to our members on a more Faith based level. To build on the success of the Lourdes Reflection Day in 2011, we hope to reignite the project following the 2013 pilgrimage.
The Irish Regional Meeting will meet again on Saturday, October 5th, 2013 where we expect to welcome the newly elected IRC members to their first IRC meeting.
The Author: Ruth Bennett
OYS, Irish Regional Committee Secretary
