Are there official church structures that exist under a Parish in the Catholic Church?

Our diocese recently had a big re-org and went down from over 100 parishes down to 30. But now our cozy little ex-congregation can't do anything fun unless the big mega-church ladies say so or we beg our pastor. Given the principle of subsidiarity, are there any lay-structures that exist, or have existed in the past, to allow some level of self-governance in parish life? We'd like to be able to organize our own men's and women's slightly-larger-than small groups, youth activities, dances, novenas, non-Eucharistic processions (like the seven-churches visitation) I think there would still be a point person who would go to the priest for approval, where necessary, but we could avoid the hassle of being vetoed by church ladies and the stress of being lone wolves trying to organize things in vacuums.