Parish Meeting to Discuss Proposed Building Plans

Sunday 29 August, 2010
St Matthew’s Catholic Church

Commences: 15 minutes after end of mass for the day, approx 10:45 AM.
Venue: Left side of church to allow use of screen.

It is planned that the presentation would be complete within about 20 minutes, with questions and discussion to follow.

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Background:
You will recall that on 10 May 2009 we held a parish meeting to discuss the possibility of building a Parish Centre extension to the church. At the time a set of working plans were shown, and costs and possible source of funds briefly discussed. A postal vote followed that presentation. Voting forms were returned from 101 of 181 eligible voters in the parish, and of these, 95% were in favour of the proposal to build a parish centre. A few suggestions re the plans were also received.

Since that time there has been quite a bit of activity, much if it quite time-consuming. There have been discussions with Silverdale Normal School, with agents of the Ministry of Education, with the Diocese. There was a desire to link our plans with those of our local community neighbours (the school and village), and also to realise some funds from the sale of surplus land behind the church. There was also a need to investigate different options for the building design and scope. All these things take time, but we are now at a stage where it is appropriate to get more guidance from the
whole parish community.

Scope of meeting:
There have been substantial changes to the design and scope of the original plans. We have been assisted in this by Kathrine Avery, a qualified architect and former parishioner of St Matthew’s. Thepresentation will take you through the process to where we are now. It will also indicate options that need to be decided on before we proceed further. This will be the main purpose of the meeting.

There will be estimations given of costs for the various building options shown, and there will be an indication of where some of these funds could come from and an indication of how much of a shortfall we will need to raise to proceed further.

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Important:
This is an important information exchange event, and you are all encouraged to attend. Hard copies of the proposals will be set-up at the back of the church for several following weeks to allow parishioners to have a considered view and to encourage discussion and feedback. Please give feedback to the parish secretary or to committee members – written feedback is particularly valuable if there are more complex issues raised.