RAPORT ROCZNY / Annual Report
WALNE ZEBRANIE ROCZNE
Presented to the Annual General Meeting on June 10, 2018

OD NASZEGO PROBOSZCZA / PASTOR'S MESSAGE
Dear Parishioners and Friends of St. Mary’s Polish Church,
I take this opportunity for just the second and last time to write my report for the Annual Parish Meeting Report, which will be available this weekend even though the meeting will take place on Sunday, June 10.

At this writing, the Sala 1050 is almost complete as the kitchen ceiling lighting has been installed and with just the custom cabinets to be assembled and installed. This is being accomplished through the hard work and generosity of parishioners and their support of the Rebuilding Fund through fundraisers and memorial donations, as well as grant money that was given us in anticipation of our kitchen and hall serving as an outreach to the community.

I was happy to come back a second time to Sydney and St. Mary’s and reconnect with old parishioners and get acquainted with some newer ones that joined our parish family. In less than a month, I will be saying farewell to Nova Scotia for the third time, leaving back in 1991, again in 2002 and now in 2018. I am happy that I came back at an exciting time with the new church that was built and a more modern and comfortable Glebe house to reside in.  I am happy that I could adorn the new church with securing beautiful artwork from Poland (Divine Mercy and Our Lady of Czestochowa pictures, statues on the high altar of Saint Stanislaus and Saint Monica), vestments and altar server capes from Poland.

With my successor having also charge of another parish (St. Theresa in Ashby), the expenses of clergy salary and benefits will be reduced and improve the financial picture of the parish. I hope that the Glebe house rectory could be rented to a parishioner or perhaps university professor and bring additional income to the parish, until perhaps the day that hopefully a priest may again reside there.

As I take leave, I am happy that a good priest (Father Dennis) will become your pastor. Although not of Polish heritage, and indeed most of the priests that have served the parish in its 105 years of history also were not of Polish background, yet strong elements of heritage, culture and some language maintenance survived through the determination of generations of parishioners.

My hope is that St. Mary’s will open itself to all Catholics who feel drawn to our more traditional styled church, so that the parish will have a long future ahead.
As for myself, I am returning to Las Vegas to reside at Our Lady of Las Vegas Parish where I will live in semi-retirement with my community (three other Society of Christ priests) and assist at our two parishes and the Polish Apostolate where there are 15 scheduled Masses over the weekend and daily confession, hospital ministry, a large parish elementary school and religious education program for hundreds of students.

I congratulate all of you on the ongoing miracle of rebuilding St. Mary’s Church and will keep you all in my prayers as I ask for your prayers as well.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland and Polonia, continue to intercede and ask the Lord to bless and protect this parish family.                                                                      – Fr. Rich

"Trwali oni w nauce Apostołów i we wspólnocie, w łamaniu chleba i w modlitwach.” Dz. 2:42
“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Acts 2:42

Podziękowanie / A Note of Thanks
The Rada Duszpasterska would like to sincerely thank all fellow parishioners for your care, support, kindness, and dedication of the past year. Thank you for being part of the work to build a stronger community of faith, to support each other, to reach out to the broader community, and to bring holiness and kindness to others. Thank you to our committees, volunteers, donors, and friends. Thank you for your prayers. And to Fr. Rich – we will miss you! Bóg zapłać!

Transmitting Our Faith
Congratulations to our recently confirmed members, Kristofer Starzomski-Wilson, Caleigh Pellerine, James Campbell, and Matthew Pellerine. We pledge to always be there to support you as a parish. Thank you to the young people and families who have supported religious education work and to our catechists . As a parish, it will be important to discern how we continue to do effective religious education going forward. Ensuring roles for young leaders in our parish must also be a priority. As a parish, we are called to live our faith in all that we do … and that means opting for a spirit of generosity and openness, deep kindness and solidarity, and bringing love to our neighbourhood and our world. 

Hospitality and Welcome
Hospitality and welcome are integral to who we are as a parish. Sincerest thanks to all hospitality volunteers. Many thanks to our greeters as well. We want everyone to feel at home here – at Mass, at our community lunches, at our volunteer projects, at our events. We are also grateful that the culture of hospitality has been part of the way in which all parishioners reach out to others. We have also accepted various community invitations to open the church, provide tours and hospitality as part of community events – such as the “Amazing Race” fund-raiser for the Whitney Pier Youth Club and also the recent “Jane’s Walk.” This is of course in addition to the many events that the parish itself spearheads.

Completing the Rebuilding
This past year saw the completion of the washrooms, the first phase of the kitchen, significant progress on the library. We are almost finished the rebuilding! Major fund-raising efforts continued, as will be noted in the Finance report at the Annual General Meeting. Plus we were successful in obtaining a major grant because the kitchen will be in a position to help address social needs in the broader community. Our Library Committee is being very intentional about materials for the library – materials that are unique, spiritual, reflect our Polish (and other Slavic) identity. The sponsored children’s play area will be worked on over the next few months. We think that this will be especially useful in the future community kitchen, as some of the visitors to the previous community kitchen at Trinity were parents with young children. With the careful planning/stewardship of the Sacred Objects Committee, some beautiful work was done this year: Jeff Wilson painted the Last Supper on the high altar and Maura McKeough of Parks Canada did the gilding.

Blessing of “Sala 1050”
We have been using Sala 1050 since November 2016 (at which time neither the washrooms nor the kitchen were yet completed). The Sala was blessed by Bishop Dunn in conjunction with the Conformations on May 13, 2018. Readers will recall that the name “Sala 1050” derives from 2016 (the year we re-opened our church) being the 1050th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland.

Slavic Festival
In collaboration with Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Parish and the St. Michael’s Polish Benefit Society, we held a very successful three-day Slavic Festival, with multiple events, drawing hundreds of visitors. The St. Michael’s Polish Benefit Society received funding support from both the province and the municipality. We are looking at a somewhat smaller scale format where the Polish and Ukrainian communities could hopefully still have coinciding events. A primary option is an October Dozynki (Harvest Festival). Our day would be indoors at the Polish Village Hall. Feedback on this is welcomed before a final decision is taken.

Loaves and Fishes
The monthly donations to Loaves and Fishes have been most appreciated. In addition, last October we delivered produce from our food garden to Loaves and Fishes, which was much appreciated.

The Community Kitchen Project
Last fall’s Whitney Pier Community Development Walks ended with lunch in our Sala 1050. At these lunches, a workshop was held in which there was interest in restoring the Community Kitchen service that previously operated at Trinity United Church before Trinity closed in 2013. Some of the Trinity volunteers have pledged to be involved. A steering committee was formed and includes representatives of other faith communities.

The Whitney Pier Polish Kitchen Society
Last July, we incorporated the Whitney Pier Polish Kitchen Society as a non-profit society to assist with some of the programming of the kitchen and “Sala 1050.” The officers of the Community Kitchen Project Steering Committee, even though they come from various faith communities, are recognized as officers of the Whitney Pier Polish Kitchen Society. And it is the Society that is making grant applications and stewarding the finances of the Community Kitchen Project.

Donor Wall
A second draft of the list for the donor wall was recently made available for correction. Thanks for your help with the review, and sincere apologies for oversights and errors!

Other Ministries
To our Eucharistic ministers, our Polish- and English-language readers, our altar servers, our ushers, and our greeters, thanks for helping to make St. Mary’s Polish Parish a spiritual and vibrant community. Our choir has continued to be very dedicated and an excellent ambassador for the parish, sometimes maintaining an intensive schedule, as during the Easter season. The grounds and maintenance are an important form of ministry as well. In the coming months, we will have to do some additional recruitment to the Property Committee. In 2017, we partnered with Pathways, a charitable agency that provides training and employment opportunities for people living with mental illness, to assist us with setting up the food garden and grounds for the season.  For food garden weeding over the summer, we partnered with Brittany Fagan-Steele’s youth theatre group, which used the Sala 1050 for dinner theatre and Lumiere rehearsals.

Care Group
We would like to extend our appreciation to Vicky Aucoin and Catherine Tucker for leading the Care Group’s work, for reaching out to parishioners who are at home, have
had recent surgeries, or for other reasons with cards, messages and prayers. Please keep Vicky and Catherine informed about parishioners or other people in the community who might appreciate a word of encouragement or some support. In addition, the outreach at Easter following the Święcenie Pokarmów Wielkanconcyh – the preparation of blessed Easter baskets by a number of our parishioners, including youth parishioners – and their delivery was most appreciated.

Keeping the Polish Language and Customs Alive
We have worked very hard to keep our beautiful Polish customs and language alive. This includes maintaining the special feast days, inviting friends from the community to share in our customs and unique gatherings – whether it’s our regular devotions, our Oplatek potluck, the Swiecenie Pokarmow Wielkanocnych/Blessing of the Easter Baskets, or other occasions. In collaboration with the St. Michael’s Polish Benefit Society, we have continued to regularly hold “Polski Piatek” gatherings at the Polish Village Hall. A beautiful custom that was restored this year was a celebration of Candlemas Day / Matki Bozej Gromnicznej on February 2. At all our events, we do Polish pop-up tutorials and in many bulletins as well. Polish-language classes are offered periodically, and we are looking at future language workshops around gardening and cooking.
We are also trying to nurture learning the Polish singing and responses, through special guides and explanations.

Participating in Events Outside the Parish
We are grateful for the outreach over the past year. A lot of this outreach has involved food preparation: To the people who volunteer with pierogi, in the kitchen, with other food preparation, we love you! We also have a continuing presence in so many ways in the broader community. Some examples include:

• Mass for Shut-ins: Thanks to all who participated in our recording, a great community effort
• Choir -- Singing at United Heritage Church fund-raiser
• Pogoria Polish Folk Ensemble – singing at the 70th birthday celebration of Rev. Phyllis Marsh, St. Philip’s African Orthodox Church
• Pierscape
• Hosting the lunches in Sala 1050 for the Pier Community Development walks

Public Communication and Social Media
The parish has taken advantage of many opportunities to communicate with the public and invite the public to be part of our events and activities, using free-of-charge opportunities wherever possible. This is in keeping with Pope Francis’s call on parishes to open their doors, be even more welcoming, and establish new friendships with the communities in which they reside. During the past year, as in recent years, the parish has received media coverage of various unique activities, generating public interest.
Our “Friends of St. Mary’s Polish Parish” e-mail list now has more than 700 names. We keep this list informed of major events. This year the parish started maintaining an active Facebook page, and some of our posts have reached more than 2,000 people. In our public communication, we also try to express a lot of gratitude. The support and solidarity of members of the broader community – people of all faiths and backgrounds – has helped us in many ways, including of course in the rebuilding of the church!

Pastoral Arrangements
With Fr. Rich’s term unfortunately coming to an end, the future pastoral arrangement was a major area of concern for the Rada. We explored a number of options, including another priest from the Society of Christ. Unfortunately, for the time being this is not possible given a decline in vocations and many Polish communities around the world without priests. We also explored the possibility of Fr. Joe Mroz becoming our pastor. This was not possible at this time, but we have made clear that we would like this door to stay open. Another positive option was an interim joint ministry (dual faculties) with Holy Ghost Ukrainian Catholic Church. We have also established a connection with qualified Polish priests in New Jersey who are not currently serving Polish communities. We have asked the bishop to support us in keeping these dialogues open. The advantages to the larger diocese are obvious in that the priest of St. Mary’s Polish Parish would be available for other ministry as well. We are looking forward to soon welcoming Fr. Dennis Lamey as our pastor and are very much anticipating working with him and making him part of the life of faith and service of the St. Mary’s Polish Parish community. We value his ministry!

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE PARISH FINANCIAL STATEMENT
St. Mary’s Polish Church has three accounts with the Royal Bank of Canada. The first account is the “General Parish Account,” which is used for the operation of the church, the O’Connell Parish Centre (glebe house) and to maintain the grounds. The second account is the “Building Fund #1”, which is used for general structural repairs of the church and glebe. The third account is “Building Fund #2” which comprises all funds donated and raised specifically for the rebuilding of St. Mary’s Polish Church to cover rebuilding costs that are above (tight) insured coverage limits. Rebuilding payments to contractors (which were tendered) are made by the Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Antigonish (diocese), which held the insurance funds in trust for the rebuilding, following verification of completion by the Rada, construction manager, and architect. No debt has been incurred in the rebuilding. When the rebuilding process began, we made an arrangement with the diocese whereby the diocese would pay contractors (subject to our approval) and then recoup funds initially from insurance and then (after the cap was reached) by invoicing the parish. This has allowed a high level of transparency and major rebuilding expenditures to be tracked on a common spreadsheet. A copy of that rebuilding spreadsheet, showing invoice amounts, is available upon request. The major expenditures under Rebuilding Fund #2 (please see attached report) in 2017 were payment of construction invoices to Dora Construction ($14.154.79 and $6,188.73), Walsh Sheet Metals ($5.074.02), EZ Flow Plumbing and Heating ($7,876.72 and $3,680.00), and Dominion Drywall ($7,151.85).

[Attached to this document, presented and discussed at the Annual General Meeting, were more detailed spreadsheets of revenue and expenditures.]