St Mary’s Towers Strategic Plan: An Update and Next Steps
Chris McPhee MSC (and Photo Credits, John Walker MSC)
I wanted to share with the MSC community the development of our strategic plan for St Mary’s Towers and to confirm with you the next steps in the process.
Draft Strategic Plan
Working with our independent consultant, Martin Stewart-Weeks we have developed a draft Strategic Plan which reflects the input and ideas from the many people across the MSC community that contributed to the initial research and consultation phase of the project.
The draft plan has been worked through in some detail, including a workshop session with the project steering group. Under the broad heading of ‘body, mind, spirit and heart”, the plan proposes the “multi-use” strategy for St Mary’s Towers that so many who contributed to the earlier discussions felt was the right way to go.
The plan takes a long term view of the future for St Mary’s Towers. Just as we can look back on over 100 years of the MSC at Douglas Park, so the plan seeks to lay the foundations for the next 100 years. Many people spoke with admiration of the vision that saw Central Park in New York set aside as a green and open space for the whole community and saw this as our “Central Park” moment to take a similarly bold view of the future.
The plan is built around six themes:
The MSC heart
Education, learning and research
Spirituality and contemplation
Ecology and sustainability
An Indigenous spirit
Serving the community
Within those themes, a number of specific initiatives have been identified as priorities for the next phase for St Mary’s Towers. They include:
-Preserving the heritage buildings, continuing to provide retirement accommodation for MSC and properly protecting and respecting the cemetery
-Establishing a new school
-Expanding the ecological and sustainability dimension of Douglas Park, including the possibility of installing a solar farm
-Recognising and integrating Indigenous spirituality and heritage
-Looking at options for a significant community services capability at Douglas Park, which could include aged care and retirement, early childhood education and community and family services
-Setting up a centre for the study of spirituality and contemplation in the modern world, including a modern retreat program and providing for faith formation for MSC teachers and students.
At the core of the plan is our heart spirituality which flows out to embrace, and provide the basis for, all of the other elements of the vision.
Next steps
The strategic plan will be taken to the MSC Chapter in April 2023 for a decision that will confirm the plan as the vision and strategy for St Mary’s Towers.
The plan is bold and ambitious. It will be implemented in stages to make sure what we do is financially and ecologically sustainable where that is appropriate and necessary. That is one of a number of foundation principles that will guide the process. They include these fundamental commitments:
-SMT is a vital and continuing part of the spirituality of the MSC and our story in Australia. As well, it is a gift from God to the world that will continue to be part of the mission to be on Earth the Heart of God.
-SMT will be an integral part of its immediate context in southwest Sydney, a welcoming place that offers services for and engagement with the social, economic, cultural and spiritual development of the communities of one of Sydney’s fastest growing areas.
St Mary’s Towers will remain “sacred ground” for the MSC in Australia. It will be a place of MSC residence, where that is appropriate and the place where MSC are buried in the cemetery whose significance and relevance will be respected and honoured.
It is a place of natural beauty and ecological significance for the region and for NSW and Australia as a whole which should be properly conserved and nurtured as an integral part of the region’s journey to net zero in a sustainable future.
St Mary’s Towers is and always will be Tharawal country. Its Aboriginal significance as a place of sorry business and reconciliation and celebration will be honoured.
We will draw on appropriate expertise in planning, finance and operations to make sure we have the right mix of skills and capability to get the work done consistent with the plan’s vision and the foundation principles.
We’ve reached an important point in the development of the plan and we are now preparing for the Chapter discussion.
I am confident the process, which has been open and inclusive, will give us a plan and a practical way forward to realise our original intent - to secure St Mary’s Towers’ best future for a very long time to come.
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