Archdiocese of Birmingham.

Parish of the Immaculate Conception, Bicester, Oxfordshire.

Parish Community Centre Project Page.

19^th July 2008.

Dear Friends,

Last weekend I spoke to you all about the need for us to some serious fund-raising now to ensure that our Parish Community Centre is built. Thank you to everyone who took a collection box home from Mass. Additional boxes have now arrived. Please make sure that you take one if you have not already done so.

Let me be clear right from the start. What you put into the box is entirely up to you. I used the exe example of £1.00 simply to indicate the sort of sums that could be raised. If that is too much, then do what you can. Just make sure that you do something! As Tesco is constantly reminding us, "Every little helps"!

It has been suggested to me that those who have taken boxes return what they have raised on a monthly basis. That way, we shall be able to record regularly how much we are raising. I would like to suggest that the boxes are brought to church on the first Sunday of every month so that they can be emptied and then taken home again. Please, please remember the importance of gift aiding if you are a tax payer. The £90,000 + raised by the people of the Emmanuel Church on their gift day became £122,000 + through gift aiding. This is an easy and painless way of raising more money. Gift aid forms are available from the Parish Office and Lucia and Maurina will be happy to explain what is involved.

Over the next few weeks a display board will be prepared and erected in church to advertise the Parish Community Centre Project. This will ensure that our many visitors are made aware of what we are trying to do. There will also be a facility in church for people to leave donations. We hope to prepare a thermometer which will clearly indicate to everyone for fund-raising is progressing. A member of the project steering group will give regular updates at Sunday Mass so that everyone knows how we are doing. Please speak to me about any fund-raising ideas you may have. Also, if you know of ways in which we can promote and publicise this project, then please let me know. We need lots of imaginative ideas!

I promised you all that I would do my bit to raise money, not least with a sponsored walk. I have decided to walk from Bicester to the Isle of Iona, beginning after the 11.00 a.m. Mass on Easter Sunday 2009. It will be a journey of nearly 500 miles and will take the best part of 4 weeks. I will need lots of sponsorship so please start recruiting your relatives, friends, neighbours and work colleagues. I have done something like this before, but I was a little bit younger and more energetic than I am now. It will be a challenge, but great fun I am sure. What is more, it will be an excellent way of publicising the need for this community centre.

Some of the children came out of Mass last Sunday and asked if they could have a cake sale this weekend. They will be selling cakes after the 9.00 a.m. Sunday Mass. If you are reading this at the 11.00 a.m. Sunday Mass you have missed the boat! I am sure that there will be other opportunities. I was very touched that the children were so enthusiastic about helping, and I believe that there is a lesson for all of us in their generous and spontaneous offer. A previous generation of Catholics gave us our beautiful church. What will be our spiritual legacy to our children and families in the years to come?

Thank you for what you are already doing. It is all so important. We shall never have this opportunity again. Let’s go for it now and see if we can build this centre before the 50^th anniversary of the blessing and opening of our church. That’s in just four years time! Time is short. Let’s use every minute.

Yours in Christ.