Affirming Catholicism

Affirming Catholicism is an organisation that engages with the Church and the world at a national and international level. But another of its tasks is to engender a sense of Catholic presence among local churches and congregations. One of the ways in which it seeks to do this is through diocesan groups, led by local convenors who are key figures in... supporting our work. Our Company Secretary is also a diocesan convenor in his other life, and shares these concerns and hopes: THE FRUSTRATION OF THE LONG DISTANCE CONVENOR Ask any Diocesan Convenor their biggest frustration (and I know because I am one) and they will quickly tell you that it's the inability to get their hands on a complete and up to date listing of their Diocese's supporters. Most of us as a result have our own local lists. And when it comes to emailing supporters it has been a matter of relying on our own computer's address book, in so far as we have managed to keep that up to date as well. Over time that means gaps have opened up between the lists we keep, the lists that are registered centrally, and that third list somewhere in the sky (heaven forbid) of those names that fall between the first two. There is a reason (explicable, if not very good) for this. When Aff Cath was set up over 15 years ago database software was rudimentary: the organisation bought into some shrink-wrapped, proprietary software that was used to maintain the lists of central supporters. Apart from the fact the system could produce address labels (on a good day), it was not good at providing listings; and since 2006, when we leapt into the new century with the new web site, that proprietary software has been unable to talk to the database housed in the new web-based software that has increasingly been where our newer supporters have registered their details. The end result was three lists: yours and mine; the one offline in the old database; and the new list domiciled within the web site. When the new Board took over a little over a year ago we knew this was one of the ...Read More