506-738-2320 / 506-653-6850 holyspiritparish@nb.aibn.com

Revitalization

Established in the spring of 2017, this committee was enacted to help in a wave of great change
coming for our diocese. This group consisted of 4 parishioners from each former parish:
Mark Palmer, Susan Nichol, Sue Ogden, Barb Tracey-Laroque, Paul Riley, Stephen Parker,
Eleanor Austin, Kenneth Fury, Sarah Butler, Kim McCormick, Alex Butler, Patti Blake, Angela
Butler, Fr. David Martin.

Meetings were held monthly, lasting 3 hours long, caring parishioners who did various
‘brainstorming exercises’ using Diocesan Pastoral Plan and Documentation from CLI. Time was
spent, getting to know each other and ensuring that everyone was on the same playing field. In
the summer of 2018, the Communications committee coordinated a full day workshop with a
professional Project Manager, Margaret Carten, to launch the Revitalization Committee. Our
small group spent the day dissecting the 5 mission elements to living our Baptismal call. Once
again, we brainstormed immediate tactical items involved in the closure of St Augustine’s but
also larger strategic initiatives to revitalize our Parish.

To ensure that we had maximum attendance at the final St Augustine’s mass and celebration
dinner at the golf course, we produced numerous communications from an all welcome notice
in the New Freeman, a phone blitz through to, and including, bulletin communications. A
keepsake bulletin was created which included the medal of St Augustine’s. A photographer was
commissioned to capture memories of the event.  A church picnic was coordinated and
launched with overwhelming success. This will become an annual fall event.

From our brainstorming sessions, 3 possible new names for our new Parish came to the
forefront. Parishioners in each parish were invited to vote on the name that they liked. This
information was taken, counted and put forth to the Bishop. After several attempts to gain
approval, the bishop gave his blessing to the name that gained the most votes: “Holy Spirit
Parish”. During this time, several other projects were ongoing:

      • Our new website www.holyspiritrcparish.ca
      • Launch the final photo directory as a means of building community. A starting point was
        to know each other by name. Note: ministries or other group photos can still be sent to
        pattiblake07@outlook.com to be included in the book.
      • The launch of a prayer shelf, which will serve like a library on books about praying.
      • A survey will be administered to determine how we are performing on each of our 5
        mission elements and it will look to you for suggestions on where to prioritize. This will
        serve as a baseline so that we can continually improve.
      • The creation of a logo for our Parish. It was decided that a beautiful stain glass window
        in the balcony of St. Rose Worship Site portraying the Holy Spirit would become our
        parish logo.
      • We wish to build a more accurate directory (names, phone, and email) which will be
        essential for communication and in particular our goal of creating community through
        social media.
      • We will be building a 5 part series featuring stories from our community to showcase
        how we are living each of our 5 mission statement elements (e.g. a community of
        growing disciples). These stories will be in the bulletin and we will try to get them in the
        New Freeman to showcase how Holy Spirit Parish is progressing on our revitalization
        journey.
      • We wish to have an open house showcasing each of our ministries. This will be a way to
        learn about what is happening, how to get involved etc. as each group will have a table
        or display. We would also like to have an inspirational speaker(s) during this showcase.
      • Ordered St. Augustine Medals for closing mass and dinner – glued medals to program.
      • Prepared script for phone Blitz to invite parishioners to closing mass and dinner.
      • Arranged for volunteers to complete phone blitz.
      • Photographer for Mass & dinner
      • Arranged photographer to take photos of inside and outside of St. Augustine’s, St
        Matthew’s and St Rose for Welcome letter/Brochure.
      • Bishop celebrated final Mass and de-consecration of St. Augustine’s.
      • Following diocesan protocol for closed parish, locks were changed and signage removed
        immediately.
      • New signage designed and in place.
      • Organized a Fall picnic (donations, volunteers, food, prizes, decorations, set up, clean
        up, entertainment, games, bingo thank you cards…). This picnic was held with great
        success bring many people together, rekindling old friendships and making new ones.
      • Recruited new greeters
      • Created a “Greeters Brochure” to ensure consistency in both worship sites.
      • Ordered name tags for greeters. This has proven to be very beneficial for both worship
        sites.
      • Scheduled Greeter’s training session.
      • Coordinated ministry volunteers from all three worship sites into a yearly schedule. We
        are still looking for people to join anyone of our ministries.
      • Continue to recruit new greeters and volunteers for other ministries.
      • Continue to work with Religious Education directors to have youth involved in
        participating in ministries.
      • Workshop for Readers.
      • A need for someone to assist the priest with baptisms at St. Rose Worship Site (We still
        need someone or a couple. NOTE: If no one comes forward to help, baptisms may have
        to be celebrated at another time.
      • Going back to the purpose of our group: To Revitalize our Parish, using the 5 mission
        Elements (this was given to all parishioners) to bring our baptismal call to the forefront.
        For the next year or so, this group will be acting in the name of a Parish Council.
      • Establishing a Maintenance Committee, to examine and prioritize ongoing maintenance
        of all buildings.

 

Respectfully Submitted,
Revitalization Committee