ANNUAL REPORT
Presented to the Annual General Meeting
of St Mary’s Polish Parish on June 9, 2019

 

MODLITWA / A PRAYER FOR OUR PARISH
Heavenly Father, We thank you for gathering us together as the people of St. Mary’s Polish Parish.
Thank you for calling us to serve as your disciples.
Thank you for allowing us to rebuild our church and to stay together in faith and service.
You have asked us to be witnesses to your love to the world.
Send your Holy Spirit to guide us.
Help us to care for others and do good in the world.
Give us strength, courage, and clear vision as we use our gifts to serve You.
Keep us connected to our culture, our customs, and language.
Help us to be people of kindness and generosity.
We ask this in Jesus’s name.
Matko Boża Częstochowska, módl się za nami!
Amen.

REMEMBERING OUR DECEASED FELLOW PARISHIONERS
We would like to gratefully remember the members of our parish who passed away in the past year and all of our deceased parishioners. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their gifts of faith, kindness, mentoring, wisdom, and service. We pray for them and their families, and we know that they are with us from their place of eternal rest. You will see their names continue to be mentioned in the bulletin as we offer Masses and prayers for their intention.

OUR LIFE OF FAITH / DEVOTIONS
We wish to thank everyone who is with us at Mass and is part of the faith and devotional life of the parish. We value how important it is to pray together, to share in the Eucharist, and to be a community of reflection, meditation, as well as generosity, hospitality and service. Thank you as well to everyone who participates in our Wednesday Masses, Novena to Our Lady of Czestochowa, and first Saturday Masses.
We are grateful to Fr. Dennis Lamey for serving as our Pastor.

OUR VARIOUS MINISTRIES AND COMMITTEES
Heartfelt thanks to everyone who staffs our various ministries and how it makes our parish a true community – a community of faith, service, and Christian hospitality. To our Eucharistic Ministers, our lectors, our ushers, our Altar Society, our greeters, our Property Committee, our Care Group, our hospitality volunteers, our event-specific working groups – we value you. A lot of hard work takes place behind the scenes, requiring many hours of commitment.

THE COMMUNITY KITCHEN
A major achievement of the past year was the completion of the kitchen – modern and fully up to code, functional and versatile.
We convened other faith communities and groups in the area to form the Whitney Pier Community Kitchen Project.
As of September 25, meals are served every Wednesday from 11:30am to 1:00pm Everyone is welcome. The meals are free or donate what you can.
The newly formed society oversees the funds for the community kitchen and also the food garden. This year, both Pathways and the kitchen society have received funding support that will allow us to maintain the food garden in a sustainable manner.

FIRST HOLY COMMUNIONS
We were delighted, as a parish, to celebrate the first holy communions of Lyra Melski and Lucy Campbell. We wish them many blessings and pledge to always be there to support them as a parish.

SERVICE WORK AND CARE GROUP
Our Parish Care Group has continued to reach out to people who are ill or homebound with cards and wishes. Please let the Care Group representatives know of people who might be happy to receive a card or visit (telephone numbers are in the bulletin each week). The delivery of blessed Easter baskets is a particularly appreciated service and a special time to make visits.

THE CHOIR
The choir continues to provide wonderful service and to receive much well-deserved praise from visitors. We would like to thank everyone who joins in the singing. We try to include the words to the hymns on a bulletin insert every week.
There are members of the parish always happy to offer tutorials and tips on pronunciations and meanings to encourage participation in congregational singing, and we may wish to consider doing some occasional workshops on Polish hymns and songs.

SPECIAL VISITS AND PARTNERSHIPS
We welcomed a number of special guests this year, and our parish Sunday lunches have been an excellent occasion for meet and greet.
Polish Consul General Dariusz Wisniewski joined us on November 27 and Consul for Cultural Affairs Michał Faleńczyk joined us on March 30. Various meetings took place about new programming and activities.
On September 30, we welcomed representatives of the Polish community in Halifax and held a workshop to establish the Atlantic Canada District of the Canadian Polish Congress. The new district helped to set up the Polonia Archiving Project, which will see Prof. Joanna Pylat spend time working with us in the second half of June 2019, to preserve and identify records and materials from our community and our Polonia families. The new district has also recommended that the province designate each September as Polish Heritage Month in Nova Scotia.
These partnerships and others (eg. CBU Tompkins Institute) are allowing language and cultural workshops to be offered, such as the Polish custom of decorating palms.

THE ST. MICHAEL’S POLISH BENEFIT SOCIETY
The Society is marking its 110th anniversary. It has been expanding its membership and has created a new and more accessible membership structure.
At the Society-hosted May 3rd celebration, the Polish Cape Bretoners Colouring Book was released (published by the CBU Tompkins Institute).
The Society is hosting some workshops in the church, including the workshop on the Polish custom of decorating palms for Palm Sunday.
Lunch language workshops (collaboration between the society and the CBU Tompkins Institute) are now underway. The title is “Polish Hospitality for Beginners.”

LINKING SPECIAL POLISH CUSTOMS TO OUR CALL TO SERVE OTHERS
Our Polish customs and devotions are often linked to service to others, as with supporting Loaves and Fishes during Swiecenie Pokarmow and the Oplatek gathering, as well as donations of fresh produce coinciding with the blessing of produce – a Polish custom for the Feast of Our Lady of the Assumption. On Candlemas Day (Matki Bozej Gromnicznej) we blessed and sold candles, with proceeds to the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace.

PARTNER CITY ARRANGEMENT WITH WAŁBRZYCH, POLAND
Our parish is a key partner in this initiative and has been working alongside the CBRM, and is represented on the Steering Committee. A delegation will be visiting us June 15 to 19. We are hoping that this partnership may be able to open a door to at least begin to explore future priest recruitment.

LIBRARY
We blessed the new library this year and have tried to curate it with unique content that would be of interest – and indeed there has been interest. We are grateful for recent contributions of Polish cookbooks and would be grateful for any others.

BULLETIN
The bulletin endeavours to help everyone be informed and included, and to profile recent developments and achievements, to provide translations and information about Polish customs, and to keep everyone connected. Submissions and suggestions are always welcome and warmly received!

SOCIAL MEDIA
Our Facebook posts include events, interesting facts, and photos related to parish life. Some weeks, our St. Mary’s Polish Parish Facebook posts are well in excess of 2,000 views. We also regularly keep in touch with a “Friends of St. Mary’s Polish Parish” e-mail list, which includes more than 700 people, including a number of former parishioners who are living away.

ALSO PRESENTED AT THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING WERE DETAILED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS AND BUDGET INFORMATION FOR DISCUSSION AND REVIEW.