austraLasia #2544
 
Gleanings: a useful and creative piece of work in preparation for 18th December

MELBOURNE: 22nd November 2009 -- One never ceases to wonder at the creativity and good will of our confreres!  From Melbourne comes 'Gleanings', a simple, creative but very useful work of 'extraction' from the SDB Constitutions which anybody running a Salesian website around the English-speaking world may wish to make use of.
    Fr Marc Barry has obviously put a good number of hours into this - initially conceived as a set of cards, not unlike the sets Rectors of communities often use for the Grace before meals..... choose some Gospel verse, a line or two of reflection, Marc has produced a set of some three hundred phrases from the Constitutions.  Where necessary, these are slightly reformulated simply to allow them to stand alone.
    But then came the idea that surely technology could similarly offer these thoughts in random fashion - and indeed it can!  Just go to the www.sdb.org site on the 'contact us' page (if you are not familiar with www.sdb.org as it is at the moment, that page is in the last of the four groups you can choose from the top of the home page, the 'info' group) or simply click here!  Every time you open or refresh that page (try refreshing it a few times) a new item will appear, in red, at the top.
    Currently we have only put in 100 of the 300 items Marc has prepared.  it seemed that a file of 100 was adequate - and the remaining 200 items are in preparation in two other separate files.  we have 'parked' the item on this particular page because, as you know, sdb.org is almost ready for a major relaunch, a totally new and Web 2.0 site as the jargon goes, and we'll find a new and more prominent spot there on the English version, for this.
    It is available for anyone who wishes to put it on a website - makes sense only on websites that are principally intended for Salesian readership, but that's up to you.  Just ask for it by return mail and I'll send it to you.
    Anyone who wants it probably knows the technical side of this, but let me tell you it is a simple javascript file.  You just place it in the 'body' of the web page of your choice, at any point you want it to appear.  Nothing else needed.  99.9% of people have javascript enabled in their browsers anyway.  If they don't, they won't see it, but then nor will they see lots of any web pages available today, so that is clearly their choice!
    It goes without saying that for novitiates and other initial formation settings, this little strategy is a modern-day version of the older one of learning the Constitutions off by heart, phrase by phrase!  Of course, it won't take the digital native or the well-intentioned digital immigrant very long to realise that the same file could be used for additional purposes as well.
    The request for the file will result in it being sent probably as a zip file, since 'scripts' are not kindly looked upon for transport via email.  You will receive, upon request, the first of these scripts.  When the other two are ready, and that's mainly a time factor, I'll send them along as well.
Enjoy, and thank Marc!

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Title: australasia 2544
Subject and key words: Constituions
Date (year): 2009
ID: 2000-2099|2544