Invitation to Participate
St Vincent De Paul Society
The Pymble Conference of the St Vincent De Paul Society is inviting parishioners to join the Conference.
The Conference has been in existence for many years, too many to place a commencement date. As with all organisations, the active membership of the Conference has in recent times, succumbed to the inevitable of both the ageing and health of our members.
To continue to service the needs of our clients with personal visitation along with the Annual Winter and Christmas Appeal, the old adage rings true with "many hands make light work".
Current Activity
The services our members presently provide include:
- Home visitations to clients seeking help in a number of areas such as provision of food vouchers and generally assessing needs and how they can be best serviced. Home visitations are always conducted in pairs. This is a rule of the Society. All Members new to the home visitation program would always be accompanied by a Member well versed in the procedure.
- Nursing home visitations for an hour or so, each month or more regularly, to residents of Lourdes Nursing Home and Southern Cross Nursing Home to sit with residents and have a chat with them whom might otherwise have no visitors with whom to converse.
- Glebe/Pyrmont area outreach on Saturday mornings to provide service in much the same manner as local Pymble residents requesting assistance. The Glebe outreach, which is conducted in conjunction with the Glebe St Vincent de Paul Conference, has been active for many years and in the past, upwards of 16 Society Members from Pymble have provided assistance on a rostered basis.
- Compeer Program. Compeer volunteers are adults who aim to improve the quality of life and self-esteem of people with mental illness through the power of friendship. Matching of a Conference Member and the friend they meet weekly or monthly for a chat and a cup of coffee with a view to getting to know each other and building in time a friendship which makes a difference. Volunteers and friends are matched by the program and the benefits flowing from the program are self-evident to those participating.
- Support for India and Fiji. The regular donation of modest sums to St Vincent de Paul Conferences in India and Fiji. It is amazing how small quarterly amounts are put to good use by our overseas Conferences with which we are twinned. There is regular correspondence between our Conference and the Twin and in fact we have a Twinning Officer.
Pymble Conference
All members of the Society, actively involved in meeting with and assisting clients, are required to hold a "Working With Children Check" which is processed on line with Service NSW. It is a simple process and help is always at hand from a Conference Member.
Our activities are reliant upon the generosity of our parishioners to provide an hour or so of their time to service one or other of the functions of the Conference providing comfort as well as material assistance to those less deprived or living in situations which are less than ideal.
Our current Members along with those who have served as Conference members over the years, can vouch for the personal satisfaction experienced by each and every one of them in being able to devote a little of their time towards those less fortunate.
Our Conference Members meet at 7:30pm on the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of each month in the Pymble Family Centre which is at the rear of the Presbytery in a separate demountable facility. Meetings which extend for an hour or less commence with a New Testament reading, generally from the readings of the Mass the following Sunday, the presentation of Minutes from the previous meeting and generally, reviewing the activities of the Conference in the previous two weeks and planning for the immediate future. Prayers are said at the beginning and close of each meeting on a card emphasising the mission of the Society.
Please contact the parish office with any questions you may have and on your opportunity to become involved in this important work on behalf of the Society and our community.
Thank you for your generosity in the past and we look forward to your continued support of the Society of St Vincent de Paul.
Contact the parish office online