Even I can get frustrated…

Today I am having a frustrating day. As you may have gathered from my previous entries, I am among the most positive people I know (my husband—who can be slightly Eeyore-ish—cannot understand how I can maintain such a sunny outlook without seriously depleting my energy supplies…) and it really is difficult to get me to abandon my typical cheerful approach to things. Well, today I have hit upon a serious frustration trigger: my whiz-bang ACN mobile phone. You will remember (fondly, I hope) my trip to Liverpool last week when I sang the praises of my ‘now it’s a laptop-now it’s a phone-now it’s my office’ mobile. When it works, it is a wondrous thing; when it refuses to accept new incoming emails and defies my gentle coercion for a whole hour, it becomes my worst enemy. Portia is out today because of the tube strike (once again: let down by technology!), so all I can do is sit tight and wait. Argh!

On a happier note (much happier, now that I think about it!), I spent part of my morning drafting a letter to a dean of a group of parishes in the NW (who shall remain anonymous just in case!) to ask to be allowed to give some appeals in his area. Fingers crossed! I am new at this, so I tried to approach gently, but enthusiastically—which sort of comes naturally to me anyway. No point in putting someone off with an initial hard sell. So, now I wait. I’d love to hear back within the next week or so, but, if not,  I am prepared to ring and see what’s up. I listened carefully at the Area Secretaries’ Conference back in March and it seemed as if most of them use 2 separate methods of approach—but in different orders depending on their personal preferences. I’ll try writing first this time and then phoning if necessary, but if this doesn’t work I’ll have learned my lesson!  One would think that getting into a parish to spread the word about the persecution of Christians, ACN and how we help would be a doddle—and in some ways it is because anyone who truly stops and listens cannot fail to realise that we all must pull together to stop what is going on—but these days parishes have so many demands made on them between special collections set by their dioceses, in-house fundraising for new church halls or heating systems, approaches from other charities, …the list goes on and on. Anyway, I have faith in the anonymous dean; he will read my impassioned letter and look carefully at the accompanying ACN literature and say to himself, “Finally—we have been waiting years to hear from Caroline about how we can support ACN and its work with persecuted Christians.” I just know it.

I feel better already…

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

My thoughts on Schools

Schools have increasingly occupied my thoughts as this week has progressed. On Wednesday I arranged to go up to Motherwell to visit Scottish Lorraine (I mean no disrespect—for almost 25 years I have been ‘American Caroline’). Lorraine and I play identical roles within ACN; she for Scotland and I for the North West, so it stands to reason that we should talk…a lot…often. We have decided that our first joint effort in aid of ACN is going to involve schools. “No problem,” I hear you say, most likely rolling your eyes at the same time. Well, think again, my friend—this will be a tough nut to crack.

Once one begins to think seriously about how to go about bringing the message of world-wide persecution of Christians to schoolchildren of varying ages AND encouraging them to act on what they have learned, one will (or at least one ought to) recognize that this venture is a minefield if not handled properly. First, there is the subject matter and content of much of what we deal with—this is serious, harrowing stuff. It frequently involves teenagers who are targeted, verbally abused or much worse, as well as institutionalized discrimination and persecution by other religious and religio-political groups who often claim to share the same belief systems of many teenagers here in the UK. So, giving a presentation in a Catholic secondary school means presenting scary, upsetting material to a teenage audience made up largely of Catholic children, but increasingly with children of other faiths—often Muslims —and none. I have three teenage children—two sons (19 and 14) and a daughter (18 in two weeks), so I know how hard it is for young people to come to terms with a world where horrible things happen that aren’t ‘fair’ (do you remember claiming to your parents about things not being fair? I certainly do!) and where one group of people asserts its authority brutally over another group often without provocation. And, having familiarized them with the situation, how does one ensure that these young people walk away with a commitment to greater tolerance for those whose beliefs may differ from their own rather than an attitude (which is almost understandable) that those who believe differently are the ‘Other’ and should be hated, or feared or shunned. Heavy stuff this….

We currently have some excellent resources available for secondary schools, so we have the ‘cart’ if you will, we just need to find the right ‘horse.’ Let’s remember, though, how important it is to keep our offering topical—‘bang on trend’, if you speak ‘teenager’—so the resources will need frequent updating. Another job to stay on top of! We also need to be sure that the material we offer can connect into the various relevant curricula—RE, Citizenship, etc--

But there is more…we want to bring a message of truth, but also one of hope. We want to let pupils know what ACN does to support those in need and to help to make their lives safer and their beliefs accepted and tolerated. ACN is helping a lot already, but we need to do more…so much more…and to do this we ourselves need help and support. We need to galvanise the community within each school we visit—the pupils, the teachers and staff, the parents—and we need to find a way to bring them together to pray and to support our efforts through awareness, prayer and fundraising.

This is a tall order. I shall be pondering our options. Please note that I haven’t even mentioned the challenges posed by visiting primary schools…but, don’t worry. Lorraine and I are on the case, with plenty of back-up and support from ACN HQ.

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

Back in the Saddle!

The Easter weekend is past. My eldest son has headed back to Uni. My other two children are back at school. My husband is ensconced in his office at Lancaster University. I sit in my dining room (aka: ACN NW Command Central). It feels good…peaceful… and a bit exciting. Things are beginning to happen now!

Yesterday I spent the afternoon in Liverpool at a meeting. I sit on the Historic Churches Committee for the NW. We oversee the correct implementation of alterations to listed Roman Catholic churches throughout the region. Our meetings are quarterly and are always very interesting. The committee is made up of priests and relevant laypeople (architects, art historians, etc) from the four dioceses concerned (Liverpool, Lancaster, Salford and Shrewsbury.) I am the only woman on the committee (though I have been assured that I am not a token!) and the Chairman (Professor John Tarn) and the Secretary (Mr John Cowdall) have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome since I came on board two or three years ago. These meetings are important because they ensure that the architectural heritage of the Catholic North West is properly looked after (this is the art historian in me speaking!) and, what’s more, four times a year I renew my contact with my fellow committee members most of whom are active, committed Catholics from all over the North West. Word of my new job had already spread to most of them and, on my arrival yesterday, I was immediately hailed by Fr Peter Dutton, PP of St Mary’s, Middlewich in Cheshire and a representative of the Diocese of Shrewsbury. Fr Peter asked to shake my hand because ACN is one of his very favourite Catholic charities and he has so much respect for the work that we do. I suppose I should get used to this—the Catholic world is riddled with interconnections and likeminded people with overlapping interests. Connections are crucial! I felt honoured and proud to be congratulated for my role in ACN; I prayed over Easter not just for relief for suffering Christians, but also for help and inspiration so to enable me to help as much and as effectively as possible. What a responsibility!

On the train on the way home I quickly realized that my ACN mobile phone is now my most prized possession. This nifty gadget is almost like having my office in the side pocket of my handbag. I can take calls, receive texts and emails AND keep track of my diary (and probably do all sorts of other things that I don’t yet know about!) I sat on the train from Liverpool to Preston with bells ringing to announce texts, emails arriving and phone calls coming in—my teenagers would have been proud of the way I dealt with so much cyber-technology all at once! It was initially a bit stressful, but yielded great results—I now have a meeting with the Bishop of Wrexham in May (North Wales, here we come!), confirmation that my first couple of weeks’ work is on the right track (thank you, Portia!) and evidence that these diary entries might someday see the light of day—I want people know what we here in the NW can accomplish and also to generate a bit of a forum for opinions and ideas. I always welcome support and suggestions from all quarters!

 Two more dioceses’ worth of Special Interest groups databases to complete today…and I see a start on religious houses and retreats looming as well…it feels good to back at work!

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

ACN: Spread (sheet) the word!

Do the words ‘database’ and ‘spreadsheet’ baffle you or fill you with fear, or maybe just give you that sinking feeling that many of us get when we have to deal with mountains of information? Facts, figures, names, addresses, dates…I could go on, but I won’t (because I am one of those who goes a bit funny when exposed to too much data at once!). Today has been a spreadsheet day for me. Six hours of data entry so far and I am still smiling (maybe not actually grinning from ear-to-ear, but definitely not frowning).

With such a big area to look after—so many parishes, schools, universities, etc—I have to organize a lot of data and keep it formatted in an easily accessible way. And so, enter the SPREADSHEET. Formerly I have been more of a ‘write-it-on-a-tiny-piece-of-paper-or-a-napkin-and stuff-it-in my-overfilled-address-book ‘ kind of person; I ran the office at Lancaster Cathedral this way for much of the past decade. This is not a good way to run an office—I can remember days when the priests actually applauded when I managed to locate something in the filing system (which in all fairness I did not set up myself, but inherited…). However, I am now following the new job = new Caroline principle that I instituted after the time management seminar I attended earlier this week. Now I am organized and systematic. Surprises will no doubt occur, but they will be serendipitous and overwhelmingly good because they will arise out of my superbly organized systems of information collection and NOT (definitely NOT) because I completely forgot to order more Communion wafers or extra toner for the photocopier in the run-up to Holy Week (common problems in the Cathedral Office!). I expect to be held to this, so please feel free to call me out on this future if you notice that my organizational resolve is slipping…

Mike Cowie, Area Secretaries Co-ordinator and general wonderworker, keeps track of all of the Area Secretaries, so those lists are sent to me already assembled (hurray!), but everything else I have to do myself (a bit like a huge flatpack from Ikea!).  Last week I, with the help of my eldest son who is home from Uni and at a bit of a loose end, assembled a list of Orthodox communities in the North West (see my earlier post)—this was a challenge as the information is not in a single place so we had to be very cunning and dig around various websites to try and piece things together. Today’s work has been easier. I am mining each of the five relevant diocesan directories to try and isolate those special interest groups that might be interested in a talk/appeal/merchandise stall, etc. I am amazed at the number and breadth of Catholic organizations out there. So far my favourite is the Achille Ratti Climbing Club (go, climbing Catholics!), but the competition is still wide open as I am not nearly finished with this. I like a good country ramble—and I could certainly walk and talk, but I don’t think that my presentation skills (and fitness level) stretch to talking about ACN and the persecution of Christians while scaling a vertical rockface. Maybe this is something to work towards, or, maybe, if some committed Catholic climbers (I am fond of the letter ‘c’) hear about us, they might think about doing a sponsored climb. You never know—after all, we have enthusiastic supporters who are running in the 2014 British 10K London Run to raise sponsorship funds for ACN. There are still spaces left, so if you are a keen runner and are available on Sunday 13 July, why not get in touch? In fact, as soon as I finish my spreadsheet, I think I might don my new running shoes and see what I can manage…probably not quite 10K!

I wish you all a happy and healthy Eastertide. Please pray for those whose Easter celebrations are fraught with physical danger and potential threats; may they too come to worship as freely as we are able to here in the UK.

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

Managing my Time the ACN Way

I am just back from two days in Surrey at ACN HQ. Monday was spent at a very interesting Senior Management training seminar with Action Planning (thank you, David Saint!). Eleven of us spent the morning thinking about how we manage our time. I know that I am new at this, but even so I found the models presented and the ensuing discussion very helpful. I feel at this point as if I am having to interrupt people constantly in order to figure out how to carry out even the simplest tasks—but everyone is very patient and I’m sure that I will get there in the end. I am now beginning to realize that working completely on my own presents a whole different set of time management working environment issues. Too much chatting = time wasting, but no chatting at all… whatsoever… at any point in the day…means that there is no interchange of ideas and no help to refine strategies or debate decisions to be taken. This is where Scottish Lorraine and I can make use of each other. Maybe we should institute quick weekly phone meetings or even a bit of an email exchange every day. There is plenty to do always, so it isn’t a question of being bored, but interaction is key to keeping one’s focus and enthusiasm at good levels. On a more practical note:  I am determined to get rid of my paper to-do lists and my diary and switch over to electronic versions. These can be stored on the ACN system which means that I won’t accidentally lose them and others can access my diary to set up group meetings. Chris Kennedy, the Director’s PA, very kindly showed me how to do this yesterday, so today I got started. Once I get used to this, I’m sure that I shall never forget an appointment again!

The highlight of Tuesday was a meeting with Patricia Hatton, Head of Fundraising & Marketing, to discuss my strategy for moving ahead in 2014 and my various targets. This was great as I have been worrying a bit as at the moment I am swimming in lists of things to do and nothing is quite ready to show much in terms of results—always the way at the beginning of this sort of venture! Patricia was extremely helpful and reassuring and we batted around a number of interesting ideas that I shall be playing around with now that I am back in my ‘office.’ The bottom line is that I need to generate as much prayerful support and funding for the projects that we are currently helping to realize and in general for those who might need our help but haven’t yet asked for it. What I am doing now is laying the groundwork for a comprehensive awareness-raising strategy across the North West which should result in lots more people helping those who most need our help. Watch this space to see how it all develops.

Time to call it day—my eyes are crossing having spent all day converting my diary to Outlook, writing to bishops and creating a spreadsheet to chart the progress of my monthly strategies. As Good Friday draws nearer, I am trying to view all of this complex, computer-generated infrastructure as the modern approach to trying to help those who suffer for their faith—how different  this is from the ways we might all have tried to help around 2000 years ago… if we would have been brave enough to try and help at all.

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

ACN and the Orthodox Church

I have spent part of this week assembling a database of various Orthodox congregations in the North West. In the end this turned generated rather more confusion than I’d anticipated (for me; not for them!), but I think I've got it sorted now. ACN has always firmly supported  Orthodox Christians, both in the spirit of movement towards greater union between this Church and Rome as espoused by the papacy and following the tradition set by Fr Werenfried van Straaten who devoted so much of his time and energy to those Christians struggling to worship behind the Iron Curtain.

I had no idea that I would find so many communities with such a wide variety of allegiances here in Northwest England and North Wales. So far I have found 19 different parishes, congregations and religious houses. Pretty impressive, I say! Most appear to be Greek Orthodox, but there are Russian, Coptic, Romanian and Serbian Orthodox churches as well. As next week is Holy Week, I won’t be too pushy, but I am thinking that I need to meet with Lancaster’s own Greek Orthodox priest, Fr Jonathan Hemmings. Fr Hemmings  taught my eldest son Religious Studies at Lancaster Royal Grammar School and he is definitely the man for this job! I shall email him straight-away. Watch this space—enlightenment is at hand!

I didn't spend my whole week trying to ferret out communities of orthodox worshippers;  I also managed to schedule individual meetings with all four of the Area Secretaries for the North West and to arrange to sit in on an appeal given by each of them. I've arranged two tickets to attend the installation of the new Archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm McMahon (currently Bishop of Nottingham) with William Pilkiewicz, one of the regional Area Secretaries, on 1 May. William just joined the team last October and is already well over his target for this year—Go, William! I've begun drafting letters to go out to the five bishops on my ACN ‘patch,’ so that I can say hello and introduce myself. I plan to try and meet with the five Diocesan Communications Officers and the Five Diocesan Heads of RE on the same day (which will make for 5 very tiring days, I imagine!). I've also spent time recruiting more Parish Reps (see my last post—I LOVE Parish Reps!). This is going to be a bit of an uphill struggle; I will need the support of the Area Secretaries and some new ideas as well…BUT I refuse to  give up my dream of 20% of the parishes in each Diocese proudly possessing a bright, shiny, new Parish Rep before Advent. I NEVER say ‘die!’ So, as this week draws to a close, despite time consuming technical issues (resolved now by ACN's ICT Manager and my personal hero!), a house full of teenagers home from school and university for Easter and the occasional moment of loneliness in my solitary home/office, I remain extremely positive about what you and I and everyone involved with ACN can do to make a difference.

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

Parish Reps: How YOU and YOUR Parish can help…

There are so many ideas and initiatives floating around in my head that I barely got any sleep last night. I’m not the best sleeper at any time, but waking up at 3:10am and not falling back to sleep is just wrong! Hence I was not exhibiting my typical positive, cheerful personality first thing this morning. I decided that, before I really got down to things, I would watch an ACN dvd sent to me in one of the numerous boxes of literature from Mike Cowie in the Sutton office (thanks, Mike!). The dvd presents an 8-minute portrait of the history of ACN, how it works and the many different projects we support. The images of so many people in the most humble of chapels or in the open air worshipping with such fervour and devotion reminded me all over again why we do this and why I, in particular, feel so strongly about needing to help. I know that we can’t ever eradicate the suffering and persecution of Christians, but I know that, working together we can all make a big, positive difference to those who live under threat every single day. Tired or not, I am back on track after watching that short film!

Yesterday Lorraine McMahon in Scotland and I attended the first ever Regional Strategy and Marketing Meeting. Lorraine and I, as is fast becoming the norm(!), attended courtesy of our telephones while Portia Borrett, Office Manager & Head of HR at ACN, and Patricia Hatton, Head of Fundraising & Marketing, sat together in the meeting room at HQ in Sutton. I am thinking that Lorraine and I should have life-size cardboard cut-outs of ourselves made so that Portia and Patricia feel more like they are actually addressing people and not disembodied voices…We discussed my strategies for 2014, as well as Lorraine’s ideas for Scotland. She is rather further along than I am (who isn’t, at this point!) and I intend to mine her for loads of advice and top tips (thanks in advance, Lorraine!) There are some obvious and important differences between our two patches, but our relative geographical proximity means that as time goes on we ought to be able to team up for various initiatives and large-scale events. Just wait and see what we will be able to accomplish before too long!

Yesterday afternoon and most of this morning (once I’d self-caffeinated and renewed my ACN mojo with the dvd) were spent sorting out some new Parish Reps. I am fast learning to love the concept of the Parish Rep. Why? ACN is a huge international Catholic charity. It was founded in 1947 by a Dutch priest, Fr Werenfried van Straaten, who sought to relieve the suffering of German refugees in the aftermath of the Second World War. The work eventually spread to Christian communities behind the Iron Curtain and thence to Africa, Asia and the Americas. Aid to the Church in Need is a Pontifical Foundation, meaning that our standing within the Catholic Church comes directly from the Vatican. This is a great honour, and it binds us to all of the other international offices of our charity, but it also means that ACN UK was not begun under the auspices of either of the British Bishops’ Conferences. So, we have to work doubly hard to get our message heard and we need to rely heavily on the support of individual bishops and their help in spreading the word out ACN’s good works throughout their dioceses.

We work on a parish-by-parish basis and our parish-based appeals are given week-in-and-week-out by our hard-working team of Area Secretaries. These wonderful and enthusiastic people address congregations within their assigned geographical region and let them know about what is happening to so many struggling Christians throughout the world, what ACN does to alleviate their suffering and how we as Catholics can help. These appeals add countless names to our mailing list and bring in much needed donations—one-offs and, increasingly, regular donations—without them we would really struggle to get our message heard. I believe that there are about 25 Area Secretaries in all—a mere four cover the NW (at around 600 parishes the NW provides plenty of work for these good people!).  With this sort of coverage and without the institutional endorsement of one of the charities founded by the Bishops’ Conferences, ACN still manages to get into most parishes at least once every five years. This is amazing…tremendous even…but it is not enough, not nearly enough.

And, so, finally, we get to the Parish Rep. Parish Reps provide the crucial week-to-week link between ACN and their fellow parishioners. They keep the fire burning between appeals—which, since appeals may only happen once every five years,—is of immeasurable importance. I would like to thank all of those Parish Reps out there who help—from those who are only able to hand out our newsletters or post the occasional flyer(thank you!) to those who have a bit more time and host bake sales or sell our merchandise (thank you, too!) to those whose hard work and persistence have resulted in their parishes actively supporting ACN every year, all year round (THANK YOU!). So you see, without Parish Reps, we would begin every appeal from a virtual state of anonymity; we would have to start all over again every time. With a Parish Rep in place, an Area Secretary can walk into a parish that is already aware of—and often committed to—the goals and aims of ACN. Thank you Parish Reps everywhere!

With such a rewarding job description, who would not want to be a Parish Rep? My thoughts, exactly.  And so, here in the North West, from this week, we begin a mighty drive to locate all of those would-be Parish Reps out there and to get them on board. Area Secretaries will ask for help when they present appeals, I shall contact those parishes where we have been welcomed in the past and we will use all of the means at our disposal to spread the word that WE NEED MORE PARISH REPS here in the NW! I have set myself a target of increasing the Parish Reps for each of the five dioceses under my care to a minimum of 20% of parishes by September…can I do this? On my own: never. With much prayer, lots of enthusiasm and perseverance and the help of the Area Secretaries and the Catholic community in the NW: definitely!

Does your parish have an ACN Parish Rep? Can you help?

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

A few final thoughts before the excitement begins...

I am now coming up to the end of my first week in post. I've still got a few technical difficulties to sort out—my printer needs to be connected to my laptop (this should be sorted by the end of today), my mobile isn't receiving my emails, I still can’t access the main database for ACN—but we are working on all of these things and none of this has stopped me from getting on with the job at hand.

My primary achievement this week has been to map out my strategy for the rest of 2014. I am keen to get this right as it will provide a template for future years and it is crucial that good, solid links with the five dioceses in the North West be established as quickly as possible—raising awareness about the plight of persecuted Christians in so many parts of the world will be much easier with the support of the local bishops. The message of ACN is clear, compelling and virtually impossible to ignore, but publicising that message is a huge challenge and one that is made much, much easier with the proactive support of the bishops and, in turn, their profile-raising communications to the clergy. Shortly I shall approach Bishops Brain (Salford),  Campbell (Lancaster), Brignall (Wrexham) and Davies (Shrewsbury) and Archbishop-Elect McMahon (Liverpool)  to introduce myself and to begin to forge new links with ACN (and strengthen pre-existing links as well!).

This week I participated in my first marketing and planning meeting—via a conference call as most of the others involved are based in the ACN Head Office in Sutton. Lorraine McMahon, the Head of Operations in Scotland, also needs to attend as a voice on the end of a phone line from her office in Motherwell. There are a lot of important events coming up, not least of which if the publication in early November of the Religious Freedom Report, a huge project produced periodically by ACN to outline the state of religious freedom for all faiths in every single country in the world (that’s 196 countries by my reckoning!). This time our own John Pontifex, Head of Press and Information at ACN UK, is the editor and he and John Newton, Press Officer, are working flat out in conjunction with the head office in KÓ§nigsberg, Germany and other international branches of ACN to put together this truly comprehensive document. Obviously, our primary concern at ACN is with the plight of Christians, but this overall assessment will provide an accurate and fully authenticated resource for use by journalists, policy-makers, educators and others. As I become more conversant with all of the international work that ACN supports, my diary entries will feature lots of information from this new publication.

In my first entry I mentioned that I would provide a bit of information about myself and how I came to take up my work for ACN. I won’t bore you with details, but what follows are a few facts which might help to provide a picture of the person behind these entries. A life-long Roman Catholic, I was born in America and moved to England with my husband-to-be in 1991. I have a doctorate in the History of Art—with a specialism in medieval manuscript illumination. My husband is a professor of medieval history, so the Middle Ages provided a common field of interest upon our initial meeting in 1987! We have three teenagers and we live in Lancaster. I will be working from home (when I am not hurdling around the North West on ACN business!), —this is a HUGE step as, except for a small shop in Walsingham,  we are the only ‘branch office’ in England (oh, the pressure!). Until this week I served as the Office Manager and Events Co-ordinator for Lancaster Cathedral, a job which I loved and held for just over ten years. Many of my duties were rather similar to some of those of my new position with ACN—developing profile-raising initiatives, supporting grassroots fundraising, managing volunteers to name a few—but my work centred around a single parish, now I have about 600 parishes to look after!  With the help of four Area Secretaries—who handle parish-based appeals—and a growing team of Parish Reps and other volunteers—we will turn the North West into a hive of ACN activity in no time flat! (This is the remnants of my American pioneering spirit speaking—no mountain is too high to climb to get the message out about the suffering of Christians throughout the world!)

Next week, with the planning and strategizing out of the way, the real work will begin. This diary will chart the development of the profile of ACN throughout the North West and highlight lots of specific instances of persecution that I will learn about as I work to promote the many projects that ACN supports. I've no doubt that what I write to you will at time be harrowing and that I will encounter some disappointments along the way, but I am confident that the Catholic population of the North West will rise to the challenge and I look forward to my role—however small—in making known the ways in which we can all help to support our suffering fellow Christians throughout the world.

Thanks for reading!  Caroline

Who’s scared? Not me…

I am nearing the end of my very first day as the North West Manager for Aid to the Church in Need. This diary is a project to chart the projection (mostly upwards, I hope!) and the development of this new post. Wish me luck!

 Aid to the Church in Need is a fantastic international Catholic charity, working tirelessly on behalf of those Christians throughout the world who risk their lives and futures every day to maintain and to spread the Faith. Thousands of ACN volunteers and devoted staff work so hard to raise awareness of the plight of suffering and persecuted Christians, as well as to raise funds for them to train seminarians for the priesthood, to support communities of religious sisters, to provide essentials such as cars and bicycles to enable priests to look after their parishioners, to distribute bibles in hundreds of languages and to build and restore churches all over the world. It’s as simple as that—a whole charity devoted to helping Catholics and Orthodox Christians maintain the Faith under even the most dire circumstances. Some limited humanitarian aid is offered when needed (ACN has so far sent over £2.5 million to Syria to support the many homeless and bereft Christians there), but essentially we are about keeping the Church alive in those parts of the world where external forces daily threaten to wipe it out. How could I not want to help with this?

The new post of NW Manager is a challenging one in that I have responsibility for a very large geographic area which stretches from Telford to the Scottish border and from the Pennines to Anglesey. It includes four dioceses (Lancaster, Salford, Shrewsbury and Wrexham) and one archdiocese (Liverpool). This can be further broken down—get ready for this!—into 550+ parishes; 450+ primary schools, around 80 secondary schools and about fifteen universities. I haven’t even begun to count the number of religious houses or Catholic special interest groups or Orthodox parishes and I am far too nervous to think about the overall population of Catholics in this part of the world. Many, many troops to marshal; much, much help for the persecuted will be forthcoming—I just know it!

My duties include offering support to the four truly dedicated Area Secretaries who offer appeals in parishes throughout the region and often serve as our very first point of contact between the charity and our support base. I will also co-ordinate a growing force (soon to be an army!) of Parish Reps who volunteer to keep our profile high in their parishes and local communities. I plan on befriending many of those involved in Catholic education throughout the North West: primary and secondary school heads, RE co-ordinators and chaplains. I am keen to offer my thanks and support to our major benefactors from this region as well as to those who give regularly—in amounts large and small—to help us support the many (over 5000 per year!) projects we undertake each year. I shall also initiate various awareness- and profile-raising strategies involving social media and events. Phew! It is exhausting just thinking about it all at this point.

I am working from my house in Lancaster, from my dining room table in fact (at least until I have set up a proper workspace somewhere in my house)—so now, for the first time, ACN has a proper, actual base in the North West. The least we deserve, I think, given the support and commitment to ACN demonstrated by so many Catholics in this part of England! The head office of the charity is located in Sutton in Surrey and is staffed by some wonderful people to whom I intend to introduce you in future entries. Suffice it for now to say that my line manager is the charming, and extremely capable, Portia Borrett, Head of Human Resources, and the big boss is Neville Kyrke-Smith, the National Director of ACN UK. Everyone has been very kind and welcoming to me (which is much appreciated in the face of this rather daunting brief!)

I’ll fill you in on a bit more about me and how I got here in my next entry, but for now a quick summary of today’s activities. Following a much appreciated welcome call from Portia just after 9 this morning (I mentioned that she is charming AND efficient!), I got stuck in with planning my strategy for the rest of 2014. I have completed the overall view for the year and will spend part of tomorrow breaking it down into manageable (just about!) monthly chunks. I also contacted each of the four Area Secretaries for the North West to touch base and to ask them to think about when we might meet up for a chat. I spent a bit of time organizing my ‘workspace’ (aka my dining room) and began thinking about what form I’d like my own parish appeals to take. It’s coming up to 4pm, so I’m going to spend another hour on my 2014 annual strategy before I close up shop to check on my teenagers and walk my dog. All in all, a good first day. Watch this space for future instalments about how we can all work together to help persecuted Christians all over the world.

Thanks for reading!  Caroline