Terry Symula
symula@charter.net

The Pastoral Planning Committee (PPC) and the Liturgy, Religious Education, Peace and Justice, and Community Life Committees have been quite busy over the summer engaged in our planning process for the merger of our two parishes and eventual building of a new facility. These are complex tasks and require many helping hands, and a tremendous amount of energy, communication and collaboration. Our Pastor is stretching himself trying to get to all the meetings and support us all and we are grateful for all his attention to the many issues and details.

The search for an ideal piece of land for our new facility continues. We are now considering several lots that are on the market but we are also interested in hearing about other sites with 10 or more suitable acres. Please contact Fr. Dennis or any member of the PPC if you are aware of any land that might be available and would meet our needs. We continue to seek the best site that will have easy access from both Bolton and Harvard centers.

The PPC sent out a Request for Proposal in June and received eight proposals. We have interviewed four architectural firms, all with impressive credentials and we are in our final phase of selecting a firm and negotiating a contract. After the site is selected our architect will be working with the parish on possible designs that will meet our needs and budget. We expect this to occur in the fall.

Several names for our new parish have been suggested and the Community Life Committee is publishing background on all of these for parishioners to ponder. Also, we will need to develop a Mission Statement for our new parish and need to establish what our Vision is for our future. To that end the PPC will be holding a Vision Day for discussion and planning for all parishioners in late September or early October.

There is much to consider in merging our two parishes besides name, mission and vision. Much thought needs to go into details such as staffing, organizational structure, programming and finances. The Pastor will be consulting the PPC and others over the next few months as he decides how to move forward in both the short and long term on these and other merger issues.