Our Lady of Hope Beacons of Light Town Hall Meeting #2
Monday, August 11 7pm – 8pm (St Francis de Sales Gym)
Meeting Notes
The meeting was called to order at 7 p.m. by Fr. Craig Best who opened with a prayer. There were approximately 70 parishioners in attendance.
Topics for Discussion and notes from each topic are:
Q: What is the history of our parishes and what aspects of parish history do we want to take into the future?
Responses:
- There is a welcoming feeling at St. Philip that we should continue.
- Consider creating an archive/yearbook to capture the history of each church. Find a way to display this/make it available for current and future parishioners.
- Post a detailed history of each church on the website
- It was mentioned that Theresa Dearie (St. Francis’ parish secretary) has a folder with some St. Francis history that a parishioner dropped off. It was also noted that Warren County archives have some history of each church in its records.
- Create and hang portraits of previous pastors and priests from the churches
- A comment was made that music is an important draw to the churches
Q: What can our two parishes do together better than what we are doing separately or currently?
Responses:
- The young adult ministry is better now that it is combined
- Combined OCIA classes are better
- The Valentine’s Day party was a “win” as a combined event
- A question was asked about re-launching a combined festival. The parishioner was invited to consider taking on the leadership role and recruit a team to evaluate the feasibility of this idea.
- Research what other parishes are doing especially as newly formed parish families.
- Look for more community beneficial events (e.g. Turkey Day) that the entire family can participate in.
- The Mini-Vini (St. Vincent de Paul for youth) is a good idea but we need more than the current 4 participants
- The prayer chain emails are useful but some would like to see follow-up to see how the person asking for prayers is doing.
- Are we doing too many things and therefore not doing them well?
Q: How can we best build community?
Responses:
- Use the Facebook page and other social media to our advantage. Put a QR code and link to the page in the bulletin and add to announcements.
- Improve the ease of finding events on the website.
- Should we use text messages (e.g. Flock Notes)?
- Father’s periodic emails are useful
- Have an “ask the pastor” or “ask the vicar” column and add it to the FB page
- Make sure we use all communication vehicles.
- Highlight a parishioner at each location with photo and their “story.”
- Consider creating an index on the cover of the bulletin to show “what is inside.”
- Instagram is used much more than FB for younger parishioners. This would mean using more photos/images to then drive traffic to the website.
The meeting was closed at 8 p.m. with prayer by Fr. Brice Berger
Notes taken and submitted by Carl Whittenburg, Executive Director Our Lady of Hope Family of Parishes.