We were so sad to hear the news from Jenny that Mike Kelly passed away at 9am on Thursday morning. Mike was instrumental in the establishment of our Lay Dominican Family.  For a long time there had been a Dominican laity connection, largely the result of active encouragement by the sisters ever since they came to Aotearoa New Zealand.   A Dominican Third Order group was set up many years ago in Invercargill, and some of those people still carry the Dominican torch.  Colleen Hopwood went a step further and made a formal commitment to the Order, while continuing to live and work in the community.  From time to time other groups had started up: the Auckland and Wellington ex-pupils, the “three Marys” (Easton, Betz and Nash) who used to meet with the sisters  in Palmerston North (that group, now enlarged, continues to meet).  People from the deaf community, such as Danny Beech RIP kept in contact with sisters like Molly, Dominic and Maureen.  When Mary Anna and Peter were respectively Asia-Pacific Dominican Council reps they were very active in travelling to the various Dominican centres.   There was a busy focus group of lay people who met with them regularly and helped develop the peace and justice formation. The time came to form an independent lay function of the Dominican Order. On 16 March 2008 Mike Kelly sent out a letter to a group of people whose names he had collated on to a list of lay people who had indicated an
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