Brothers Communities in the UK
Minutes of the Steering Group
St Helens, 13th December 2008
Present: Brothers Benedict Foy, fsc; James Hayes, fic; Michael Newman, OH
Benedict shared about the Religious Life Institute and the first Study day led by Gregory Collins OSB. He recommended that we encourage as many Brothers as possible to attend the second session which will be in Manchester, March Contact Sr Maureen Connor at rli@heythrop.ac.uk
Since the last meeting with provincials – effectively little has happened other than Benedict’s involvement with the development of the Religious Life Institute. Benedict reported that there has been some request following the moves of Cath Lloyd and Paul Smith from Buckton Towers, for the RLI to be involved in initial formation. However RLI sees itself involved in developing on-going formation leading to an MA in Religious Life Studies but will encourage its personnel to respond to requests re initial formation. Unfortunately, there were no takers for the proposed vocations weekend in October.
We felt that waiting for agreement about establishing a Brothers website that it would be better to actually start by arranging for a draft website to be developed and then to invite Brothers from as wide an audience to meet to evaluate it before actually launching it. Benedict agreed to contact a former student who develops websites for a living to consider undertaking such a project and then look for contributions from different groups of Brothers towards the costs. The meeting is planned for Saturday May 9th 2009 at St Vincent’s Centre Carlisle Place London, 10.30 – 3.30. (Benedict to arrange.)
It was agreed to look at arranging a retreat for Brothers in summer 2010, various places and speakers were suggested. Benedict will make initial enquiries and keep people informed of possibilities.
It was also agreed that in the light of a certain reluctance for Brothers to take part in weekend sessions that we should press ahead with the idea of day meeting for Brothers, one in the north and one in the South in October 2009. We felt that this should take place on a Sunday and should include time for prayer, sharing, Mass and some social time. Various locations were discussed which Benedict will investigate. It was thought that a Sunday in September / October would be best.
We were grateful for the hospitality which the St Helen’s Community afforded us for our meeting.
