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Wednesday, 12 May 2010 An update on where we're at and where we hope to go... Dear Friends, There's much happening here at the moment in developments for Catholica — the constant challenge I'm finding is scrounging enough hours in the day to realise them all. I've decided to hold Tom McMahon's commentary for today until tomorrow but will send out an email with the text of this update. Volunteers needed... There are a couple of volunteer positions coming up for people who might like to support Catholica with time rather than by financial donations. I'll write more about that in coming days. I hope we might be able to offer some assistance towards reimbursing people for their internet connections or something similar like that as a way for the community to say thanks. The foregoing are more in the nature of administrative roles such as looking after our databases of subscribers and members. At present there are also a couple of vacancies for people who might like to write a regular commentary or blog — weekly, fortnightly or monthly. My "editorial policy" is basically attending to whatever the Spirit sends down the cyber channels each day. I endeavour through graphics, layout and the introductory comments to make your work appealing to as large a readership as possible. I engage in virtually no "editing" of the work of our writers (except to clean up typos). At times I might endeavour to present it in ways that are "provocative" to generate more discussion and reader interest. The general thrust is that we're looking for material that will be of interest to that now large population "out there" who are disenchanted with the institutional agenda and are seeking alternative ways in which to understand their lives and beliefs within a broadly "Catholic" framework. We're not seeking to appeal to the sector who continue to believe the institution is catering to the needs of this sector of the population and who are basically interested in demonstrating how "faithful to the magisterium" they are. There are plenty of websites "out there" to cater for the needs of that sector of the Church — some of them with very generous benefactors operating on budgets of many millions of dollars a year. If you would like to act as a public relations' agency for the present and recent institutional agenda you might be better off directing your energies to communicating to people through those websites and internet endeavours rather than sending material to Catholica. Developments in the Catholica Marketplace... My main focus at the moment is a number of significant improvements to the Catholica Marketplace. You'll see these developments gradually emerge in coming weeks. I do thank the growing number of people making purchases through the marketplace. We're still a long way from the sales being a significant contributor to the work of Catholica financially — our commission varies from around 4% up to around 20% with the average around 10% and we endeavour to pass on to our buyers the various incentives and discounts offered by the distributors and agencies we represent through Catholica. Our sales though are now becoming very steady and consistent and growing in line with the overall growth in the readership of Catholica. A structure to "own" Catholica and provide accountability back to the community we seek to serve... One of my objectives this year is to finally establish a foundation, or not-for-profit structure, that will "own" Catholica and which will provide some structure of accountability back to the community that supports our endeavour. Through philanthropic donations and bequests this foundation will invest the money that comes to it and only use the income generated by those investments to further the work of Catholica. My modest hope is that by the end of this year we might have established the structure and raised about $50,000 as starting capital for the foundation. If anyone can assist us in this side of our work either with financial or legal skills or in fund raising for corporate, not-for-profit or charitable endeavours I would like to hear from you. In the next month or so, and separate to our ongoing need for donations, I will issue a call for pledges from people who would like to contribute to that foundation. My proposal is that the "foundation" itself will be "owned" in the legal sense by those who contribute to it financially and by those who to date have contributed to the establishment and growth of Catholica by way of commentaries and other significant volunteer commitments. In turn, the foundation will "own" Catholica and be the mechanism for providing an accountability structure back to the wider community we are seeking to serve in the world.
Wishing you a great day wherever you happen to be ... in life and in our world. Catholica |
