Stella Maris is both a Parish and Diocesan Centre with one large and two smaller meeting rooms.  It has many functions. It is used by the parish for such things as the U.C.M. and S.V.P. meetings, Catechumenate classes and First Holy Communion and Confirmation lessons and celebrations. It is also used by the Diocese for many of its meetings and activities. For example, Head Teachers’ meetings, Liturgy Commission meetings and Marriage Care courses.  Outside organisations and societies also use the facilities and generate an additional income for the parish which helps us to remain self-funding. For example, the Soroptomists and Conwy Council groups meet there. This is only a snapshot of what goes on at Stella Maris.  Most of these events could not be held there without the help of parish volunteers.

Firstly, you can join a rota for Sunday morning teas and coffees – approximately once every 2 months. 

Secondly, you can open the centre and act as a host by greeting visitors to meetings, providing teas and coffees and locking up afterwards. Some of these meetings can be for as few as 3 to 5 people, so there’s not always a lot to do, more a necessary and welcoming presence.  More volunteers for this work would enable Stella Maris to accept more outside bookings, which do of course generate income for Church funds.

Thirdly, you can help at specific parish events. For example, First Holy Communion or Easter Vigil Celebrations.

Volunteers, both individuals and couples, would be welcome to help in any of these things. The time you give as a volunteer can be as little or as much as you wish. For example, from as little as 2 hours a year helping with the First Holy Communion celebrations, to more regular help with the Sunday teas and coffees. We can use and accommodate any level of support.

What we can do at Stella Maris is totally dependent on the number of volunteers we have. The more volunteers we have, the more we can do, the more the work can be shared, the more fun we can have and the more friends we can make.

As you know, John and Sarah Dennison are the Managers of Stella Maris.  They it is who take all the bookings and make all the arrangements, as well as running the finances of the place.  The Parish is extremely grateful to both of them for undertaking this complex and time-consuming responsibility.  And they too are volunteers! 

The Llandudno Conference of the St Vincent de Paul Society is seeking more volunteers to join and strengthen our Parish group.  Volunteering with the SVP is an opportunity to become part of a network of dedicated people making a difference to people’s lives.  We help families or individuals who may be in need of practical help and support, and try to serve them through person to person contact, irrespective of age, colour, creed, gender or ideology. 

The Llandudno SVP Conference is involved in helping people in many different ways – we make visits to lonely, housebound or sick people and support them in every way we can.   One of the most heart rendering problems today is loneliness.  Some elderly people live entirely alone.  They may have no close relative or their children may be far away.  SVP members spend a lot of time visiting these housebound elderly people, preventing them from feeling isolated.  They appreciate a friendly face and enjoy a chat; they are happy to know that someone cares, that someone is keeping an eye on them. 

Full details of the Union of Catholic Mothers is given on the national UCM website.

The UCM has been actively involved in this Parish since 1950 and has done much sterling work.  Although the title they have inherited gives the impression that only mothers are eligible to join, this is not in fact the case.  Any lady, providing she is a practising Catholic, is utterly welcome, be she single or married, with children or without.

In 1990, the Union of Catholic Mothers Wales came into being (UCMW).  Our Bishops felt that the UCM should take on special responsibilities for Catholic life in the three Welsh dioceses.  Since then there have been many more opportunities for members to become more actively involved in the wider fields of diocesan and national life – if they so wish, of course. 

UCMW is a women’s organisation which is fun – supportive of its members and worth belonging to.  They meet fortnightly.  They work for the benefit of the Parish, for families in need or in difficulty.  They have a wider focus too.  They thoroughly enjoy themselves, sharing in an untold number of social activities.  On the more serious side they hold retreat days, pilgrimages and study days.  They have a platform from which to make their collective voice heard, as they fight for the Faith, for Families and for the Future.   

While abortion is the greatest evil in our modern society, there is only one member in our parish of this group, which seeks to bring the iniquity of abortion before the minds of us all. Please take a look at the national Pro-Life website.

Mrs Jackie Horton-Jones has been a member of this group for some years now.  It meets in Colwyn Bay.  Attempts have been made, unsuccessfully, to establish an independent group here in this parish, but it was not supported.  Jackie reports that the Pro-Life group in Colwyn Bay is also declining for the same reasons: lack of support and shortage of numbers.

The Catholic Church is virtually the only body that stands up publicly and unconditionally for the value and the sacredness of human life.  The Popes have spoken out on this subject with increasing frequency and urgency.  Pope John Paul II coined the phrase culture of death to describe the attitude of our present society. As all life comes from God, and as Man was made in the image and likeness of God and given the assurance of a life that will reach beyond death, human life is seen to be utterly sacred and outside our authority to destroy. Abortion is a crime against God, the author and giver of life, and a crime against humanity, as we seek to destroy, for our own presumed benefit, our own species when it is at its most vulnerable.

The Pro-Life Movement seeks also to support pregnant women and offer real alternatives to abortion.  Jackie writes: In Germany, mothers of unwanted babies may place their baby in a temporary home with no questions asked.  If the mother has doubts about giving up her baby permanently, she is given time to make up her mind.  If the baby is left in the home, the home routinely sees to its upbringing. 

The Pro-Life Movement tries to care for mothers after abortion, mothers who often find themselves filled with remorse.  Pro-Life seeks to assure them of God’s mercy; to remind them of the pressures they were under when the decision was taken, and therefore of their diminished responsibility; to gladden them by reminding them that while we can kill the body we cannot kill the soul, as Our Lord tells us, and that one day Mother and Baby will be reunited in the joy of their Father’s Home.

At the present time, this Committee is virtually non-existent.  Brian Sweeney has been the sole member for a couple of years now, representing it too on the Pastoral Council.

Matters of Justice and Peace are becoming more pressing than ever.  Recently the parish received and handed over to Brian a document from David Alton calling on communities to rally to oppose the spate of bills about to go before Parliament in the autumn dealing with controversial aspects of human fertilisation.  David Alton MP is concerned that we make our immediate feelings known to Betty Williams our own MP.  Watch the parish newsletter; hopefully it will be possible for something to be done in the parish.

This is the kind of thing members of the Justice and Peace Committee should be involved in, reaching out on behalf of the rest of us to issues which concern both ourselves and the wider community. 

Contact:  Fr Antony Jones - 860546.

THE CHOIR

It has always been a genuine Christian tradition, since the very earliest times of the Faith, to beautify the churches to the very best of the ability and finances of the congregation.  It was the very poor Irish who financed the building of our church for us; it was the poorest of the poor who contributed their farthings to the building of the great cathedrals in the Middle Ages.  All done for the glory of God.  We keep a balance between caring for the poor (and this we do most wonderfully generously) and running our parish plant, which includes making our church as beautiful and we can.  Something beautiful for God.

Of great importance is the work of volunteers who undertake the regular cleaning of the church brasses and who undertake the flower arranging week by week and especially at the great festivals of the church.  Volunteers for either tasks are always welcome.

Brass Cleaning is organised by:  Pauline McGlory  -  873835.

Flower Arranging is organised by:   Desiree Blease -  876461.