The Oblate Youth Service

Provincial Steering Committee Meeting, February 2013

by David O' Donnell on 2012-09-24 12:00:00

The Provincial Steering Committee met for the 3rd time on Saturday, February 2nd, 2013 in the House of Retreat,Tyrconnell Road, Inchicore, Dublin.

PRESENT:	Fr. Lorcan O’ Reilly, Fr. Peter Clucas, Fr. Ray Warren, Theo Emmanuel, Cathal Lee, Eoghan O’ Flaherty, David O’ Donnell, Ronan Lavery and Suzanne Phelan
APOLOGIES:	Andrew Brady, Andrew Cassidy

Eoghan O’ Flaherty announced that an OYS Safeguarding committee has been formed. On this committee is Eoghan O’ Flaherty, Cathal Lee, Paddy Cagney, Ronan Lavery and Peter Clucas. Suzanne Phealan sat in on the first part of the meeting to discuss the issues that the OYS face regaurding safeguarding and how we should address them. A list of action points were drawn up and are to be addressed be the safeguarding committee, who will then come back to the PSC with a proposal via email to the PSC members. The proposal can will be signed off on online by the PSC members and will be ratified at the next PSC meeting.

There is now a €10.00 fee to be a defined member of the Oblate Youth Service, which will allow for two years membership. This will be incorporated into the Lourdes fee as to cover the main percentage of potential OYS members. If members don’t like the concept of the OYS after their initial encounter they can rescind their membership and the €10.00 fee will be reimbursed. The €10.00 fee will be used for administration costs which mainly consist of Vetting, Bank Charges and communications. OYS Members will need to engage in safeguarding training as part of membership.

The issue of older members of the Oblate Youth Service moving on to other groups within the Oblate Communittee was discuss. The OYS older members have an opportunity to meet and discuss where they want to go with this. Eoghan O’ Flaherty and Peter Clucas are to follow up on the action points listed regarding this mater by chatting with Gerry Bennett about the options and also chatting with the 30+ bubble about it and gauge a feeling on it by seeing what it is they wish to engage with in terms of the Oblate Family.

The following up coming OYS events were discussed:

Guest Reunion – End of May
South Africa – End of June
European Oblate Youth Overseas Experience – In Discussion
Summer Camp 5th – 9th August, 2013
World Youth Day Experience in Lourdes - July 23rd – 30th
Lourdes Pilgrimage – September 15th – 23rd

The website is now live. The next step is to develop a communications stratagy incorporating social media, website, text, and mail. A proposal on this will be drawn up between David O’ Donnell and Cathal Lee and will be put forward at the next PSC meeting as well as a proposal to launch the website officially. Realex Online Payment system will be incorporated into the website which will allow for online payments for membership fees, Lourdes etc. Eoghan O’ Flaherty and Andrew Brady are working on putting this in place before bringing it to the communications team.

There was a review of both the Irish and the UK OYS accounts as submitted by Andrew Brady. Both set of accounts were taken as approved by the PSC.

The PSC spent the second half of the meeting putting together a 3-5 year plan for the direction of the Oblate Youth Service. As part of this plan we established what are the PSC Aspirations for the 3/5 year plan? It was also widely accecpted by the PSC that there were a number of obsitcles standing in the way or holding back the development/implecation of a 3-5 year plan. The PSC put forward questions that they felt need to be asked/answered, to establish what is the problem and what is the solution? A list of modifcations to make was agreed on by the PSC in order ensure the 3-5 year plan can be acted upon. Full details of the 3-5 Year Plan are listed in the PSC meeting Minutes.

The constitution has been acceptedand ratified by Provincial Council. If members of the PSC or Regional Committees want to table amendments to the constitution, bring it to the next PSC meeting. The constitution will be sent out as part of the new membership sign-up process so as the new member has a full understanding of what they are signing up to. Then the consitution will be ratified at the next Provincial Committee Meeting. The PSC accepts that the OYS constitution needs to be 100% before rolling out a 5 year plan.

The next PSC Meeting will take place on Saturday, October 12th, 2013 in London.