Administration

Ongoing Training and Education

Sacred Heart staff members have been blessed with Pastors who valued and supported the need for ongoing training and education. Office Staff have attended training in computer programs, etc., and have been encouraged to take part in Secretary groups and gatherings.

Clergy and Lay Pastoral Team members have been encouraged to further their education by attending the Seminary, Assumption University and Lambton College.  Pastoral Team members have been encouraged to participate in the wider Sarnia area as team members with the Cursillo Movement for adults, COR (Christ in Others Retreat) for young people ages sixteen to twenty-one.  Attending and being part of the organizing team for Pastoral Study Days, the Women’s Commission, Evangelization Commission, Pastoral Ministers Co-ordinating Team, World Youth Days, Marriage Preparation, Beginning Experience retreat weekend for the Widowed, Separated and Divorced (Interdenominational), Sarnia Council of Clergy (Interdenominational), Visioning Processes in the Diocese, Priests Pastoral Council, Episcopal Vicar, and so many more areas within the Diocese of London and the Community of Sarnia and area.

Parishioners were also encouraged and supported to take part in further education and formation.


Parish Administration

Parish Secretary-Mary Ann Barcroft

I was employed at Sacred Heart from February 1986 until August 2012, working with the following pastors; Father Paul Crunican, Father Joe Hardy, Father Tom Lever, Father Len Desjardins and Father Peter Keller. 

When Stella asked me to write about the history of Secretarial work in our parish, my thoughts went back to my teen-age years when I was a student at St. Patrick's High School.  I was taking Special Commercial and Father Laverty was pastor at my parish at that time, which was St. Joseph's here in Sarnia.  He knew I was in Special Commercial so he would ask me to help him at various times in the office.  I am not sure if he actually had a secretary at all at that time.  I only include this because it made me very aware of just how much this position has changed over time in pretty well all the parishes in our Diocese.

I started working at Sacred Heart as a Secretary/Bookkeeper in 1986 and at that time I replaced Jean McEachen, who was retiring from the position.   Before Jean worked there Ellen Moran was the Secretary.  The set-up was quite different for Ellen.  Sacred Heart at that time was made up of the office area, and separate from that was the rectory.  On the main floor of the rectory there were 2 suites; each had a bedroom, and a living room separated by a washroom.  Upstairs there were 2 suites and a bedroom, each with a washroom.  Ellen lived at the rectory in a suite on the main floor.  During the time I worked there a lot of changes were made in the rectory.  One of the suites on the second floor became two offices.  The two suites on the main floor also became offices.

The Secretary/Bookkeeper position was a full-time job, and when Father Paul Crunican contacted me about possibly hiring me, he knew my youngest daughter was in Senior Kindergarten half days and I would need to arrange to have someone take care of her while I was working.  Father was very accommodating and allowed me to work part time until I had someone to care for her.  Other than during that time it was a very full-time position.  When I first started working at Sacred Heart, they had already purchased a computer for the office, however it wasn't functional because it was not set up with programs at that time.  Lynn, my husband who was working at Fiberglas, had a co-worker, Terry Byrne, who did computer programming, so Sacred Heart hired him to set up a financial program, as well as a parish program for them.  Until those programs were available, the bookkeeping was done manually with entries being made in very large ledgers the parish used and balancing took more time.  I was very thankful and appreciative to Stella for having introduced me to Mary Brunton who was Secretary/Bookkeeper at St. Joseph's (my old parish).  Mary was a huge help to me anytime I needed it.  She was always ready to do what she could to help me and she was very kind and patient. She made my transition to working again more comfortable and encouraged me in such a positive way.
I am not certain how long we used these programs.  However, I do feel that probably into the early to mid-1990's changes started to happen at the Chancery office.  Joseph Edward was hired as the Information Systems Manager, who specialized in programming and technology.  He was instrumental in setting up new programs for both our finance and parish information. 

So, all parishes in the Diocese had programs made available to them that simplified the accounting and kept the parish family records up to date.  Over the period of using these programs, Joseph found other programs that would be more in line with the Catholic church's needs and so eventually all parishes used these same programs, which made it much easier.  We all had the same reports to send in and the great thing about it was we now had a strong support system in London.  Joseph and all the staff in his department were very knowledgeable and always so helpful and patient with me. It was very reassuring to know we had such great help available, just by making a call.

When I retired, we were using the Our Parish Family program to keep a record of members of our parish, such as information on the family, i.e., each member, address, donations, sacramental information and more.  Our financial program we were using was New Views, which was an excellent means of keeping our financial records and printing out reports.  I understand that the Diocese Data Management System is the current program they are using to enter the parish information, along with Business Vision for the financial information.

The Secretary position also involves keeping the Daily Mass book up to date with the date and time masses are being scheduled, who they are being celebrated for and who requested them. The secretary also books events being held in the parish hall, the McMahon room and in the church.  A very important part of the secretary's work is preparing sacramental certificates and any paper work required.  Following the sacramental celebrations, the information for each person who received any of the sacraments is entered in the sacramental registers and notifications are sent to parishes where they were baptized /confirmed. 

Preparation, printing and folding the Sunday bulletin was always part of my role and about 2001/2002 when I felt work was getting extremely busy, I approached Father Len about the possibility of hiring someone to take over this very important work to help lighten the load.  Laurie McCormack, who previously had a lot of experience working for the Renewal Center was hired.  Not only did she do a terrific job preparing the bulletin for our parish, she was very knowledgeable using various computer programs and would also help in so many other ways with other staff members and she was able to fill in for me when I took vacation time and eventually for 3 months while I was off for surgery. 

In July 2010 Father Peter Keller was assigned to Sacred Heart as pastor. At that time Pam Robinson, Secretary at St. Michael's, was responsible for doing the bookkeeping and office work for their parish and I was responsible for the bookkeeping and office work at Sacred Heart. 

From the time Father Peter became pastor, and throughout the next 2 years, the positions of the secretaries changed.  Father Peter wanted the bookkeeping for both parishes to be done by one secretary and also wanted it to be done at St. Michael's parish.  Having worked for almost 27 years at my parish I did not want to make this change to working at St. Michael's, so Father Peter made the decision that Pam would be responsible for doing the bookkeeping at St. Michael's and her title became Financial Secretary and I remained at Sacred Heart and my title became Sacramental Secretary.  I was not wanting to give up this part of my work because I had been doing the bookkeeping right from the beginning of my employment until this point and I enjoyed doing it very much.

I cannot cover everything my job entailed because this would get too lengthy.  I would like to say, however that I worked with the best team with whom anyone would ever want to work, we all got along very well and worked very well together.  We helped each other whenever we could, in whatever way possible.  I must say that working at Sacred Heart was a very special blessing for me and I thank God that he called me to do his work in this way.           

The Role of Financial Secretary

With the clustering of Sacred Heart with St. Michael Parish in Bright’s Grove, the role of Financial Secretary was created.  The individual would be responsible for all things financial for both parishes.  The weekly inputting of offertory collections on the parish database, making sure all the employees were paid, and paying all incoming bills were the main duties.  Due to the clustering, many expenses were considered “shared” expenses, and therefore the proper allocation to each parish was also part of the role. 

he Financial Secretary also supported the Joint Finance Committee by providing monthly recaps of each parish’s financial position and took on the role of Recording Secretary at their quarterly meetings.  The Pastor would involve the Financial Secretary in any capital projects that were undertaken.  And of course, things would get busy at year-end with the issuing of tax receipts, annual offertory envelope distribution, T4 administration, and the completion of the Annual Charity Return for Revenue Canada.