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Reports- Kingston Diocese
|Convention
Report Jul 09| Annual Report 08|
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Report to Provincial
Convention July 2009
Diocesan President: Carol Richer
“Women of Peace and Hope, Rooted in Faith, Growing through
Service” is an excellent description of the Catholic Women’s League
members in
the Archdiocese of Kingston.
Striving to bring “Peace and Hope” to less fortunate people,
both at home and abroad, continues to be
a major concern for our Parish Councils, who work
tirelessly to support
a long list of charitable projects.
The “Hope Fund”, unique to our Archdiocese, offers a hand up
to people in crisis. The generosity of our Parish Councils this year
enabled us
to send cheques of $650. each to four of the Hope Fund Applicants.
A “Pennies for Pesos” project was spearheaded by one of our
Councils, and strongly supported by others, to assist a Mission
in the Dominion Republic
in providing care, shelter and education
to the many underprivileged children of the area.
Speakers at our 87th Annual Convention focussed on
Palliative Care and Catholic Education. Senator Sharon Carstairs spoke
of her
ongoing efforts to ensure that quality Palliative Care
be made available to all who need it, and
Sharon Preston spoke on the Pain and Symptom Management aspect of
Palliative
Care.
Members from our two Catholic School Boards addressed the
importance of Catholic Education and encouraged delegates to continue
to fight
to protect our Catholic Schools.
Our Resolution “Understanding Palliative Care” will be
brought forward at this Convention. A second Resolution has been
returned for
further study, and will hopefully be resubmitted in 2010.
A Development Day held in April, with Shari Guinta as
facilitator left participants begging for more, and so we are planning
another,
early in 2010.
Responding to Parish Council Presidents requests for more
time to share ideas and concerns, we have scheduled “Sharing Sessions”
to be
facilitated by our Life Members, and held in conjunction with our Fall
and
Winter Executive meetings.
In an effort to address recurring problems and frustrations,
a “Checklist for Annual Reports” was developed and distributed to all
Parish
Council Presidents, to be used in completing their reports for 2009. Hopefully, this will make the whole process
less stressful for everyone, and result in more complete reports.
All three Regions of our Archdiocese were
pleased to take part in the Provincial
Outreach initiative, presenting interesting and informative programs,
open to
the public.
Spiritual Development continues to be high on our priority
list. Our members generously donated funds to sponsor a Mass on Vision
TV in
April, in honour of the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel. Moving and
meaningful Spiritual Reflections open and close all our meetings,
reminders
that all of our actions must be “Rooted in Faith”.
An Executive Retreat is planned for September
and our Annual Diocesan Retreat will be
held in October.
We are thrilled to
welcome St. John Bosco Parish Council, in Brockville,
and to celebrate the awarding of a Life
Membership to Dorothy Meehan.
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Annual Report 2008
President Anne
Madden
Spiritual Advisor
Father Shawn Hughes
Members 3683
Life Members 13
Councils 46
Regions 3
(reduced from 4 in 2008)
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy
Spirit” Romans
15:13
Love One Another was the theme of our annual diocesan
convention. Our opening mass for life
members celebrated the life of Norma Donovan, who went to her eternal
reward in
February. Norma’s daughter, Bernadette
Burgess was honored to receive her life membership at that mass. National resolutions chairperson, Betty Anne
Brown, gave a presentation on resolutions.
Kingston Hospitals University Foundation along with
Sister Rosemarie
Kugel gave a presentation on how we can assist Hotel Dieu hospital with
their
fundraising campaign. Debra Lefebvre
gave a riveting presentation on malaria nets and how $ 6.00 could net a
family
of four and save their lives from this very preventable disease. The highlight of the convention was Maria
Hawkins, “The Blues Lady” who sang and engaged the entire convention in
Loving
One Another. Eleanor Glen gave her
rendition of the “Preparation in the Upper Room” in preparation for the
Eucharistic Congress in Montreal. A pharmacist spoke about the loosening of
regulation in the abortion pill, Plan B.
We “Celebrated What is Right with the World” with Shirley
George, the Past President of the provincial council. The convention concluded with a poem by me
titled: Cathedrals. There wasn’t a dry
eye in the room. We truly celebrated
Love One Another all weekend.
The executive met again this summer at the Immaculata Prayer
Centtre for our annual summer retreat.
Father Shawn Hughes, our spiritual advisor took us
on a journey through
the life of St. Paul. Our diocesan annual retreat was held in
September at Our Lady of Lourdes parish.
Friar Danial Quackenbush was our retreat master for
the day. The theme was “The Consecration
of Mary”.
We combined our regional meetings into two this fall.
They were held on Sunday afternoons and were
very well attended. Father Shawn gave
presentations on the Year of St. Paul.
We voted at our fall meeting to reduce the number of
regions to three to
make better use of our resources.
We celebrated two anniversaries this year. 80
years for St. Mark
the Evangelist, Prescott
and 75
years for St. Patrick, Railton. Both
were on the same day, so the executive split the duties.
I represented the Catholic Women’s League at the Archbishops
dinner for Catholic Education this fall held at the Days Inn in Kingston.
In September the executive joined Father Tim Harrison and
the ladies of St. John Bosco parish in Brockville
for an information day on forming a new CWL council of their own.
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