The 2024 Assembly took place in Leicester on Saturday 28th September. As always, it was a great gathering of Lay Dominicans from across the Province, with nearly all our groups represented. The theme of the day was ‘Community’ and the day also included our Annual General Meeting.

Community

Fr. Nick Crowe OP, the Prior Provincial, was our main speaker. He spoke about Communication, Communion and Community, all variants on our common unity. He asked us about our common union as Lay Dominicans, and reminded us that it is possible to live in deep communion with people with whom we disagree when we acknowledge that we have a common mission to preach. The most powerful thing is to have a common mission.

Mission

Fr. Thomas Mannion OP, the Provincial Promoter of the Laity, said that it is Mission that stops us being a book group or a prayer group. There are times when you are the only one speaking to someone about God, about love – but no-one is doing this on their own. Our Fraternities support us in going out to preach. Fr. Thomas suggested that we should consider ideas of common projects where people from different Fraternities can use their skills to respond to the signs of the times.

During our discussion session we shared ideas on the missions that various fraternities are involved in, and talked about how we keep in touch between meetings, and with those no longer able to attend, to ensure we build the community of each group.

Annual General Meeting

We discussed

• the Annual Report,
• the Formation report, including proposals for building a library of formation material which can be used across the province
• the Treasurer’s report, including issues with collecting the levy, and whether it needed to be increased, as well as major expenditure for the province, e.g. on organising Regional Days, and for individual fraternities e.g. paying travel expenses for the Religious Assistant when a group is not located near a house of friars or sisters
• a proposal from one of our groups asking us to consider the use of the word ‘Fraternity’ which is not always seen as helpful or welcoming when talking to new enquirers.

The Annual Report is available here: