The Conference of Antilles Diocesan Fiscal Officers (CADFO) held its third biennial meeting at Emmaus Centre, Arima from Tuesday, May 16 to Thursday 18. The two previous meetings had been held in Nassau, the Bahamas (2002) and Castries, St Lucia (2004).

Participants came from Bermuda (Joanne and David Judd,Antigua, Barbados (Trevor Gonsalves), Guyana (Dolly Singh), the Bahamas (Renee Knowles, Anthony Hanna), Jamaica (Deacon Clive Chambers, Lauradeanne Brown, Dawn Phillips), St Lucia (Alnita Simmons, Anna Auguste), Suriname (Fr Karel Choennie).

The Archdiocese of Port of Spain was represented by Cherry Araujo, Frs Martin Sirju, Kenneth Assing and Garfield Rochard, chairman of theconference.                                          

Among the topics for the conference were:
• Diocesan Buildings - Restoration after hurricanes, building for the future, property maintenance.
• Establishing and Managing a Diocesan Investment Portfolio
• Today’s Church in a new financial and business environment.
• Working towards Guidelines for Conference Finance Policy for Diocesan Finance Councils, and Parish Finance Committees 

The Antilles Finance Officers who make up CADFO come from the following arch (dioceses): Archdiocese of Port of Spain, Kingston, Castries, Nassau, Mandeville, Hamilton-in-Bermuda, St George’s-in-Grenada, Roseau, Georgetown in Guyana, St John’s-Basseterre.

Archbishop Edward Gilbert opened the conference on Tuesday morning and the keynote address was delivered by Gordon Deane, Chairman of the Integrity Commission.

The first session on Wednesday morning was the presentation of Ben Salmon of Rensburg/Sheppards, London, UK on the topic Creating an Investment Portfolio.     

This presentation was followed by Management Procedures for our Diocesan Finance Office, Departments, Parishespresented by Angela Lee Loy of Aegis Business Solutions.    

The residence of the Apostolic Nunciature in Port of Spain was the venue for the closing session of the conference on Thursday, May 18. His Excellency Archbishop Thomas Gullickson was carded to deliver the final address of the conference, entitled “Towards Financial Self-Management and Reliance in the Antilles”. The nuncio’s address was to be followed by a cocktail reception.