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
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