How you can help with the marketing of Catholica...
Sunday,10th September 2006

Dear friends,

Anyone care for a six-pack of Benny Lite? Click on the image to read a news report on the Benny Beer.

I was tickled pink to read on the news overnight that someone in Bavaria has come up with the idea of marketing Benny Beer. Anyone care for a Six-Pack of Benny Lite — LOL?

The poster to promote the Jubilee Wine for the Perth Archdiocese. Click HERE or on the poster to read my original letter to Archbishop Hickey re my "dream" of merchandising a special beer.

Back at the time of the 2000 Jubilee I was on the Archbishop of Perth's Jubilee Committee and one night had a dream about getting one of the major breweries to package up a special brew to celebrate 2000 Year of Christianity. I kid you not. It actually was a dream and you can read my original letter I hand delivered to Barry Hickey the next morning with the proposal. Surprise, Surprise, he thought it was an idea worth exploring. We put a proposal up to the Australian Catholic Bishops where the beer idea got knocked back but they did back an alternative proposal for us to market Jubilee Wine. Our proposal was taken up by Sandalford Wineries in Perth and ended up raising a significant amount of money, although not as much as it should have, that helped offset the costs of the Jubilee celebrations in Western Australia. Self-evidently the powers that be didn't think the beer idea was too tacky in Bavaria this weekend. Click on the image at right to read the the coverage MSNBC gave to the beer story.

And on the subject of the merchandising and marketing of religion...

CAN YOU HELP US WITH THE MARKETING OF CATHOLICA AUSTRALIA? As you are probably aware we are presently seeking to raise a lot of money to make Catholica Australia a permanent feature of the internet. We believe it will take about four years until it can sustain itself through advertising alone. In the meantime we believe it will cost around $250,000 a year to produce Catholica at its present quality and volume and to fund the necessary advertising in the secular media that will draw our target audience to this initiative — those who have become disenchanted with what the institution presently offers. We want Catholica Australia to be "free" access to the users so that there are the least impediments to people making use of this facility. To fund the endeavour for the initial four years we are seeking philanthropic support from wealthy individuals and charitable foundations who might be able to spare a thousand dollars or more and who would be supportive of the general ethos and objectives of what Catholica Australia is seeking to achieve. We have already raised some money and are presently in the process of raising a heck of a lot more.

We are also not seeking funding from you — the members of our core on-line community. For those who contribute to the forum we see that already as an extremely valuable contribution in lieu of money that well help create the welcoming community for those whom we seek to serve. For those who have the skills to actually draw our audience to this website by their skills as communicators we intend to reimburse you for the time and skill that you put into making this initiative successful. This appeal then is not one where we are looking to you for funding. Where you may be able to help us though is pointing us to individuals whom we might contact who you believe may be sympathetic to the ethos and objectives of Catholica Australia and who might be blessed with the resources to make a contribution to our work. We need around 250 individuals to make a contribution of around $1000 each. As we already have a couple of contributors who've made larger contributions than that the overall target is a bit smaller than 250 at this stage. If you know of someone that might be able to assist I would appreciate you contracting me (Brian Coyne) by phone (02) 4753 1226 or email (editor@catholica.com.au). We do not necessarily need an introduction to the person. At this stage we just need names as we are expanding the list of individuals whom we are writing to seeking financial support for our work during this initial establishment phase. Come on, we have over 250 members in this community now so if we just come up with one name each we ought to be home and hose. Make it two names because some may not be able to support us and no doubt some will wonder how heretical this is and want us to provide a signed and sealed letter from Jesus himself to say that we're ridgy-didge and Orthodox. We're not providing those sort of guarantees to anyone. – LOL! We have though established a board of reputable people and are in the process of establishing a company which will provide a financial accountability structure back to all of our financial patrons. (At this stage we're only seeking names from within Australia. In time we hope to expand this endeavour internationally in terms of its support base.)

Brian Coyne
Editor & Publisher
Catholica

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