National Steering Group Convened For Family Groups in England and Wales

Following a period of consultation and two regional meetings with Family Group leaders,  a National Steering Group for Family Groups in England and Wales was convened in October 2014. 

The Steering Group is made up of representatives from 9 of the 11 Family Group parishes in England and Wales, regional diocesan family ministry coordinators, the PFGM's UK development team and a chaplain.  Administration and support of the group is currently carried out by staff at the Bishops' Conference's Marriage and Family Life Project Office.  The Steering Group has agreed three principal objectives for its work:-

• To provide a means of communication between Family Group parishes
• To support and affirm Family Group parishes and their leaders
• To offer a central contact point and a reservoir of energy, experience and support for the development of new Family Group parishes                                                                     

The Steering Group will be meeting in Leeds in January 2015 to discuss the support, resourcing, development and promotion of Family Groups in England and Wales and will assist in the launch of a new Family Group parish pilot in the diocese of Southwark in February 2015. The following parishes are represented on the Steering Group: 

Holy Rosary Parish, Aintree
Our Lady and the Apostles Parish, Stockport
Our Lady of Victories Parish, Kensington
St Bernadette's Parish, Scunthorpe
St Helen's Parish, Caerphilly
St John Vianney Parish, Northwich
St Mary's Parish, Ipswich
St Michael and St Bernadette's Parish, Whitefield
St Philip Evans Parish, Cardiff

For more information about Family Groups in England and Wales and all enquiries to the Steering Group please email Hannah Moruzzi at the MFL Project Office

St Bernadette's Family Groups put on a Truly (Frightful) Delightful Evening for the Parish

Many thanks to Chris, Denise and Lee from St Bernadette's Parish, Scunthorpe, for the following report and pictures of their Family Groups' 'delightful, frightful' parish party in October.

'St. Bernadette's family groups in Scunthorpe have celebrated their most successful event to date - a 'delightful, frightful evening'. Willing hands themed the parish centre with spooky figures, creepy cobwebs and dangling spiders in preparation for an evening of 'frights and delights'.  Chris, our Family Group coordinator, compered a fun evening of games and activities, which were thoroughly enjoyed by our parish family and friends.

Pre-carved pumpkins were lit with tea lights and background 'horror' music was played to create the ambience for the evening, which included apple bobbing,  pin a wart on a monster,  face painting, find the 'critters in jelly', creating pasta skeletons and spooky word searches, whilst enjoying 'mummies' fingers' in rolls, cups of 'poison' and delicious 'monster' buns. 

The highlights of the evening were team games which included 'glow in the dark' skeleton building relays, 'dress a mummy' and 'build a scarecrow' competitions, which were hilarious and enjoyed by both the participants and the audience.  

The evening was brought to a close after the children paraded in their fancy dress outfits and prizes were awarded to the best entrants in the fancy dress and pumpkin lantern competitions.'

If your parish has any Family Group news, details of upcoming events, reports or pictures that you would like to share with other Family Groups on this Blog please contact the MFL Project Office.

St Philip Evans' Family Group Braves Gale Force Gower Winds

We thought you might enjoy the pictures and highlights of a report sent to us by Bernie and Paul Nolan of Cardiff's Gold Family Group's infamous camping trip to the Gower in 2012.  It may be two years ago but the memories are still fresh in their minds!  We hope their recent weekend in York was less blustery.

'We are lucky to have many talented people in the Gold Family Group, including doctors, teachers, a dentist and even a Deacon. What we don’t have is a weather forecaster! The two outdoor events that we have staged so far have coincided with the wildest, wettest, windiest weekends so far this year. The barbecue in April was a washout (although we had a contingency plan and enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon in the Hall instead). Our next adventure was camping at the Hillend Campsite, Llangennith, Gower. Surely the weather would be much nicer come mid June. Wrong! People camping at Hillend last weekend could be put into one of three categories. 1: the very sensible (who had camper vans); 2: the pretty sensible (who used low tents pitched in the lee of their cars) and 3: us! Bernie and I borrowed a tent from our daughter who assured us that it was spacious and waterproof - it was. However, she forgot to tell us that it was so tall it needed a light on the top to warn low flying aircraft - not the best idea when the wind is gusting 60-70 mph.  After a brief fight with the conditions all the tents were erected successfully. Gareth, Val and Steve and Jan were staying in a nearby cottage and the plan was that they would join us for a barbecue. If you’ve never tried lighting a barbecue in a force 10 gale then take a tip from me - don’t bother.  Fortunately we were invited back to the cottage to eat there and thanks to the ladies we all enjoyed a lovely meal then spent a most wonderful evening together. 

At about 1 am we decided to return to our tents, assuming that they were still there. They were - I’m glad that I tied ours to the car! By now I had been out of bed for 20 hours, done a day’s work and then some, had a couple of glasses of wine and about 3 months ration of fresh air. Theoretically my head should have touched the pillow and that would have been that. Wrong! The noise inside the tent had to be heard to be believed, the wind noise was greatly amplified and the sounds coming from the tent itself were very alarming.  At about 5am Bernie and I were still wide awake.  She retired to the car and I tried to soldier on, but at 6.30 realised that the only real solution was a cup of tea.  I went to the car to get the tea making stuff and discovered that Neil had had the same idea.  As the other campers rose it became apparent that the only one to sleep successfully was baby Izzy - 4 months old and totally unfazed by the whole experience! 

Nobody fancied staying another night, so we packed up and returned to the cottage where we all enjoyed a Gower breakfast (a a full English with cockles and laverbread.) We listened to the rugby then decided to head for Rhossili where the winning entries in this year’s photographic competition were taken. Afterwards we descended on a local tea room where we all enjoyed various Lattes, Cappuccino’s and hot chocolates. Yana and Neil, Roy, Jess and Izzy and Bernie and myself agreed that we had had enough fun for one weekend and left for home (and the others, I believe, returned to the cottage).  And so the $64,000 question. Would we do it again?  Personally I can’t wait!'

If your parish has any Family Groups news, details of upcoming events, reports or pictures that you would like to share with other Family Groups on this Blog please contact the MFL Project Office.