UCM AGM Secretary’s report 20th June 2024.
Our last AGM was held in June 2023 when new officers were confirmed in role. Unfortunately no one felt equipped to take over the role of president so our existing president (Moira) kindly agreed to continue for a further 6 months or until the next AGM.

The first event following the AGM, at which we assisted, was the SVP ‘Summer Social’. We provided baking, served food, staffed the cloakroom and tombola, and cleared up, not to mention socialising with parishioners invited by the SVP and helping with the Beetle Drive.

Our quiz going members performed very well at the September inter parish quiz organised by the Knights of St Columba. We enjoy a healthy competitive relationship with our SVP partners at the quiz and on this occasion our team was thrilled to achieve 3rd place. 

Some members attended the UCM Rosary Rally in October, organised and hosted by the Diocesan UCM, St Benedict’s,  held at St Anne’s Cathedral, Leeds. Always an enjoyable uplifting event, this year we noticed that the Diocesan UCM members wear a blue ribbon on which to pin the UCM broach, so with their permission we have adopted the same practice. Hopefully this will make us more visible and help to promote our foundation and encourage new members. 

One of our members attended peace rallies following the ongoing conflict in war torn countries.

Basking in success of our performance of the inter parish we attended another Knights of St Columba quiz in December and for a while, thanks to our star quizzer Diane, we were in second place. Alas, this position couldn’t be sustained and we came a respectable 9th. We were pleased to congratulate the SVP team on coming 8th, pipping us by one point. 
 
We were privileged to visit the exhibition entitled ‘The Man in the Shroud’ in November at St Anne’s Cathedral, Leeds and found the exhibition and talk explaining about the markings on the copy of the shroud to be both informative and moving. 

A few members attended an Advent Day of Reflection at the Briery in Ilkley at the start of December, which was enjoyable and interesting. 

We were again pleased to support the SVP Christmas Social Event by helping to welcome partygoers, serve food and refreshments, organise a cloakroom, work in the kitchen, sell raffle tickets and generally be on standby.

At the start of the year we invited the chair of the Bradford Baby Bank to come and talk to us about the work of the BBB and subsequently decided to adopt this as our charity for current year. We set about inviting parishioners to join us in knitting for the BBB, having sourced a donation of knitting yarn from a local supplier. 

During Lent, Margaret led us in hosting a Bread and Cheese Lunch at St Mary's and St Monica's to raise money for Christian Aid, alongside our church partners of Cottingley and Bingley. Our UCM baking on the fundraising stall was, as usual, a great hit.

The Eldwick Church, formerly St Lawrence’s, Eldwick hosted a World Day of Prayer in March, at which several of us attended. 

In May, we made a donation to the parish flower arrangers for flowers to be placed at statues of Our Lady during the month of May. May also saw us assisting the SVP in a fundraising event at which Rita’s and Christine’s baking was very welcome.

June ended with us helping at the annual SVP Summer Social at which our baking was once again much commented on and appreciated. We have a few regular excellent bakers who can be relied upon to provide home baking for parish events and we are very proud of and grateful to our first class baker, Rita, who would be eligible for a place on the TV Bake Off programme.

We support the work of the Diocesan UCM by trying to ensure that a representative from our foundation attends Diocesan meetings, subject to being able to travel by train which has not always been possible due to rail strikes or meeting location.

As well as the specific events described above, several UCM members are involved in cleaning the church and preparing it for daily mass in many ways ranging from visible acts of meeting and greeting, offertory collection, to less visible tasks of providing flowers, checking and cleaning vestments, preparing the altar, litter picking and weed clearing, being available to attend funerals where numbers are likely to be low for whatever reason, and attending mass on behalf of the UCM on dates allocated to our foundation.

During our meetings we continue to pray for UCM members, our families and friends, the sick of our parish, and people of war torn countries. Our UCM WhatsApp group is a vessel for keeping in touch between meetings and also for prayer requests of supplication and thanksgiving. 

At our AGM today, we are delighted to celebrate Alison’s decision to join our Foundation as a member after having attended several meetings already. We began the AGM by attending mass said for us, at which Alison was enrolled, followed by the meeting with lunch planned afterwards.

WD June 2024