This auspicious event took place on the 22nd to 25th of February, 2024, at Watakatifu Wote Senta (WWS), in Ngong Town.
The event was open to all officials of each of the fourty one (41) Parishes in Ngong Diocese, where each participant was contributed for by their parish for accomodation. All seven(7) deaneries were represented
Chaplain's Opening Remarks
The opening remarks by the Chaplain, Rev Fr Boniface Mukwe, thanked those who had attended and touched on several areas:-
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Year of Catechesis
In this year of Catechesis, men need to be educated and be involved in recieving more christian teachings at the grass root level. This is with a view to empowering our christians so that when they understand the teachings can attract more men. Men are part of the mission of the church
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Men Involvement In Curch Activities.
He also asked men to be more involved in all activities in the church. A church without men will not stand. For example when there are men offering alms for the small christian community it is a time for jubilation. Let us take care of the priests as you are thae olyone that can do this.
Men must be there to encourage others, ensure our children are getting meaningful and quality education and seek to ensure more meaningful relationships with our spouses.
Missionary work involves the whole person therefore, just ensuing that the child is in school is not enough, but also to ensure that the quality of education is sufficient and relevnt. Missionary work involve the whole person, it is about wholistic formation. We must be involved in the community.
Men must also support their children in getting employment, rights of passage(CROP), and social activities such as sport, drama, music festivals, etc, to reassure them.
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The CMA Guidelines
The CMA guideline Book, containing the formation manual, rites and rituals of CMA, was now ready and had been written in english. It however requires to be translated into kiswahili then shall be made available.
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Finances
The Management of CMA Finances has been difficult starting from elliciting payment of registration and subscription fees to ensuring payment to the relevant place. subscription is a must.
There had been cases where money paid by members have not reached the intended accounts due temptation by those given the duty to do so. Therefore, we need to encourage and ensure that money paid by members are paid directly to an account and treasurer sent a message with a view to issuing a receipt.
In future all payments must be accompanied by a voucher and the Fr in charge to approve it.
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Committment
Committment: has been witnessed as a challenge at all spheres of CMA engagement, be it meetings , masses, etc.
This meeting must discuss the issues surrounding this issue and see how to overcome it. It is not useful to commission many men who do not appear in meetings.
This issue of being busy, therefore not able to attend is not viable as everything comes from God and men are the only people that can help other men improve
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Spiritual, Psychological ,Social Activities what are we doing about these? visting the sick, elderly, orphand, those in prisons?
Can we have activities such team building? How do you ensure that you have time with your spouses just to enjoy?
Sacramental Life: how are we assisting our members who have not already taken their marriage vows in church to get this sacreament?
The chaplain declared the meeting open.
Leadership Training
The opening item in the agenda was a leadership training conducted by Fr Fred from St Marys Parish, Ongata Rongai.
He spoke of the five Cs, which are leadership attributes, namely courage, creativity, committment, colloboration and communication.
Reports
Reports from the parishes, which required to be produced in a standard format, were tackled next where several issues and challenges were clearly occupying leaders, namely:-
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Lack of committment, therefore failure to attend CMA meetings, events, etc, at all levels i.e. Parish, Deanery, Diocese or National.
It was clear that generally men did not understand or appreciate the benefits of being a member.
Other reasons for failure to participate included pastrolism, which culminated in members moving to find pasture for their amimals, hence not available for long periods of time.
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Arising from above, payments of registration and subscription fees was an issue. In some cases these fees, while paid by members had failed to reach the deanery and diocese offices because they went into individuals mobile numbers.
It was noted that despite having almost three thousand commissioned members those that renewed their membership were just over half the number.
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Membership
The issue of who is a member was discussed. Those who have not paid subscription are not members.
Two Parishes, namely St Monica Noonkopir, and St Josephs Ngong, had working written By-Laws. These needed to be harmonized along with other inputs to ensure uniformity by a small committee of three which was chosen.
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Deanery Support
A message had reached that the Diocese Office appeared to be undermining the Deanery offices by dealing directly with the Parishes, especially on payments. This was a possible reason for low attendance for the meeting.
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Usefulness Of Reports
The essence of reports was to note the challenges and give suggested remedies to mitigating the problems, which men in other areas may learn from. Where a solution had been tried and tested it was most welcome.
Economic Empowerment
On the second day the Diocesan chairman, Mr John Muchai, reiterated that men's failure to take part in church activities, was largely due to low economic empowerment.
It was time that the church assisted catholic men to improvre their economic welfare so that in turn they are able to contribute comfortably to the church.
Men must stop living with a poverty mindset. Many have resources that are idle owing to the prevailing economic conditions and how there was Covid-19 and drought. The resources need to be functionalized.
He therefore introduced two speakers from Caritas Ngong and Caritas Microfinance Bank, to educate members present on what they do and how we can benefit from their partnering with CMA.
In particular the Caritas Ngong Chapter, already had in its strategic plan, the aim of empowering men witin Ngong Diocese. However, despite small pilot projects on Dairy it had got stuck with implementation on a larger scale.
Caritas Microfinance Bank representative, Mr Moses Nganga, assured members that there were funds available to lend to individual members to the tune of two billion Kenya Shillings, so long as CMAK can organise their registration and each case can pass the business proposal stage. He would be instrumental in guiding applicants in proposal writing to ensure that it passes.
Chairman's Report
The chairman's report highlighted several issues:-
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Registration
Members were asked to project the number of new registrants in each parish that they can target as new. This is with a view to obtainig a target for the Deanery and Diocese and further allow proof of growth up to National level. Once targetted, suitable strategies may be setup to achieve them.
Success of CMA is in the numbers as 'the more the merrier'. Payments for organising various events become lower with larger numbers.
It was proposed that the treasurer in conjunction with the webmaster formulate a method of enablig members to check for themselves if they are registered/ subscribed and if necessary fees have been paid.
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Men Spirituality
Everything comes from God. Therefore men need to increase their faith. As the word through the bible has promised, if we follow God's tennets, then we shall all be more successful, socially, spiritually, physically, psychologically and economically.
Men, by their association must help each other to improve their spirituality, bible study, exchange of experiences, etc, though retreats, recollections, pilgrimages, team building etc.
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Activity Calendar & Budgets
All Parishes and deaneries must prepare their activity calendars. The Diocesan CMAK Calendar must be taken into account and copies forwarded to the Diocesan Coordinator.
To each activity a cost should be attached with the aim of working out an annual contribution per member. Once ratified and approved by members, each member may plan and contribute at their own pace. This will allow the members to be comforable in participating in all activities.
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Accounts
It was proposed that all parishes and Deaneries must open thier own bank accounts where the Dean/ Fr Incharge as a signatory, so that members may pay directly there. The treasurers must then be informed to help update his records.
Any payments out of the account shall be accompanied by a voucher, indicating the reason for payment, that shall be signed and kept for future reference
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Participation in Events
All parishes must strive to take part in Deanery, Diocese and National events as a way of solidifying their unity with the fraternity and also to have time to pray and commune and share experiences together with men in other areas of the country, thereby learn new ways of handling challenges.
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Commissioning
There were approximately two thousand (2000) commissioned men in Ngong Diocese. However this was not reflected in the renewal subscription as thos who renewed wer less than those commissioned.
More trainers were necessary with larger numbers being trained. It was proposed that ToT training be zoned at the deanery level. Four Zones were proposed namely
- Zone 1: Kilgoris Deanery
- Zone 2: Narok, and Oloolulunga Deaneries
- Zone 3: Ngong, Kiserian & Kajiado Deaneries
- Zone 4: Loitokitok Deanery
Online training was ruled out as this training was personal and should be face to face, even though participants are trained in a group. Note that, at commissioning, the trainer confirms an oath that they know each and every commssionee has understood the implication of this step.
Where training was scheduled to be carried out, the Diocesan Coordinator must be informed from the beggining.
Further seminars and workshops were required after commissioning to enhance spirituality therefore justifying more trainers.
Integrity at all levels was called for by remaining true to the oath that we took at the time of commissioning and to God. In the oath we promised to take care of our families, the church and participate in all activities of the association, besides helping other men to get closer to God.
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National Office
Our diocese Officials were attending meetings National meetings. However, they were forced to spend from their own pockets as the kitty did not have enough funds
Participation of men in the diocese shall enable leaders to attend and participate at National and International events and also give opportunity for our own to obtain elected seats in these fora.
There were issues of registration even at the National CMAK Office. it was not clear how many men are registered CMAK members. There was no system to register members and check the members roll.
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Clergy Support
Men were reminded that the priests were men like them and that they should visit them and find out what issues they face. We should not expect others to support them they way we can because we understand their view point as men.
Towards this end, a visit to the Chaplains home, among others, is emminent.
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Insurance
It was clear that last expense for members and their families was a challenge. However with our numbers, it was possible to get much lower premium rates.
Issues to be considered when sourcing a cover was the maximum age of those covered at entry, how much is paid on award, and the number of members in a family to be covered in the family.
The Executive committee was recommending a suitable package that the deaneries and parishes could join in to on a voluntary basis. Where they already had taken up a package, parishes and deaneries could opt to join when the current year expires.
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Projects
The various offices e.g. diocese, deanery, parish, need to, in the long run, support themselves financially and further support the church financially. Therefore some income generating activities(IGAs) are necessary, if this objective is to be achieved.
Examples of projects in other dioceses were cited e.g. In Embu, the CMA owns a Waumini Plaza, in Meru, the CMA own petrol stations, in Nyeri they have recently set up a bulding for lease, etc, Proceeds from these projects goes into ensuring supporting mens activities.
With this in mind, a Project Team, led by former Diocese Chairman had been constituted to implement all projects at diocese level. Details of this are in the Project Manager's Report below
In our case, we had one project, the Bishops fence which was outstanding, still needed to be started, inspite of some funds being collected. The funds collected were not enough to complete. Those parishes that had not yet contributed or finished thier quota, i.e. Ks100,000/= per parish, were asked to do so as soon as possible (ASAP).
Project Manager's Report
Plans were underway to acquire a partially built plot in Ngong town, whose current value of acqisition was currently sixty million kenya Shillings (Ks 60M/=).It had been proposed that parishes and individual men pay to acquire shares so that payments may be made to a bank where a loan will be taken to complete the partially built structure.
It is expected that once project is complete dividends shall be used to support various men activities.
Diocesan Coordinator's Remarks
Commissioning training must be done in liaison with the coordinator's office, to ensure uniformity and for reasons of monitoring quality of training offered.
The Bishop;s fence was an thorn in the flesh, as we had promised the Bishop that we would do it, and it must be completed before we embark on any other project.
Closing Remarks
The chairman in his closing remarks brought to the attention of the meeting that, there was alot of value that each member had gained from the meeting in exchanging and deliberatiing on issues that they could take back to their parishes and that, for those who had not attended, they were doing a diservice to all the members of their parish/deanery. They were also letting down the association at large.
Disclaimer:
This article only allows readers to get a flavor of the meetings discussions but does not form part of the minutes and any accidental misrepresentations should not to be misconstrued as correct but must be guided by the minutes of the meeting as given by the Diocesan Secretary
