austraLasia #2440

SNAP! A dexterous touch.

GAWLER (Sth Aust.) 15th June 2009  -- Fr Will Matthews is a Salesian chaplain and teacher at Xavier College in Gawler, South Australia.  Xavier was founded by the Salesians and fondly nurtures the memory of its founding principal, Fr Dennis Handley SDB whom the Lord inexplicably (in human terms) called to himself while Dennis was still in his prime not so many years back.
    That little bit of history aside, Fr Will Matthews, besides his demanding daily tasks in Gawler, also looks to animation of communications in the Australia Pacific Province.  In recent times he has introduced SNAP, a light-weight email newsletter which regularly keeps the province informed of events.  In fact these light-weight template-based emails are now taking over, and rightly so, from the PDF or MS Word attachments that have characterised email newsletters for so long.  The SC Department in Rome does likewise with its SSCS Newsletter (June edition almost ready for sending, by the way).  But take a look at SNAP.  Its contents for the most part, obviously, mirror local events, but the link given here will take you to a comment expressed recently through ANS by Fr Filiberto Gonzalez, the SC Councillor.  
    Just this afternoon, the entire SC Team in Rome met with Archbishop Celli, head of the Pontifical Council of Social Communications. It was a meeting we have wanted for some time, especially in the light of the Papal letter which Fr Fili comments on, and apparently Archbishop Celli too was keen to meet the Salesian team - it is a little difficult, working at and around the Vatican these days NOT to be meeting Salesians (you will have noted the recent new appointments to the Congregation for Causes of Saints)!  The meeting was a friendly, chatty affair, but it was obvious that Archbishop Celli is looking to the Salesians for some ideas and input, given a certain dexterity we have shown in the communications field and our focus on the evangelisation of the young. He wants a follow-up and 'propositive' meeting!
    It is precisely this kind of dexterity that is displayed in simple little examples like SNAP.  May we see more of them!  There was another kind of dexterity shown today, thanks to good communication at every level.  Tomorrow, the Southern Africa Province is celebrating the Golden Jubilee of a confrere, Fr Michael Power, who wanted a certain hymn to St John Bosco for the occasion.  Words and music could not be found, so an email arrived here (Rome) asking if it was possible to track it down quickly. A word to Fr Bernard Grogan elicited the information that Fr John Dickson had written this hymn many years ago (the words, at least). An email to Fr Dickson produced the hymn within the short space of half an hour, and within an hour not only did Southern Africa have the hymn it was looking for, but the Provincial Secretary in the UK, somewhat dexterous himself in these matters, using a little FOSS program called LilyPond, had produced 3 additional hymns in English to St John Bosco.  All four are now sitting in the 'English' collection in SDL as image files. Look under 'Subjects' then 'D' and scroll to Don Bosco|hymn.

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 AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific.  It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.  For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com . Use Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2009 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there.  Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at http://sdl.sdb.org

Title: australasia 2440
Subject and key words: EAO Provinces: AUL, SNAP
Date (year): 2009
ID: 2000-2099|2440