Thursday, 05 August 2010

On Friday 9th July, in preparation to undertake our roles of Communications Officers, Lorraine Leonard (Youth Co-ordinator), Laurie and Jessica Taylor and I attended the ‘Papal Visit Communications Officers Training Day’ 

This day took place at LACE (Liverpool Archdiocese Centre for Evangelisation).

The programme was built to strengthen and improve our knowledge of the social media and understand how it can be used to the greatest capacity. 

The day began with Mass celebrated by Archbishop Patrick Kelly. During Mass, the Archbishop highlighted the responsibilities and importance of being a Communications Officer.

After Mass, Archbishop Kelly briefly introduced the training day, before handing over to ITV anchorman and producer, Rob McLoughlin. Rob, a Catholic, who frequently works with Archbishop Kelly and other religious leaders, shared his expertise on the social media. As a television commentator for the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982, he was able to give an inside view of communications for a Papal visit.

After a short coffee break we continued with the next part of the day. Jonathan Bannister and Catherine Staite from ‘Make Happy’, a new marketing and advertising company led the session. The session was all about generating as much joyful noise as possible about the Papal visit. We explored the different social media tools which are available to us, and decided which ones would be the most effective. Taking certain factors into account, such as; user base, privacy, functionality and ease of use; we narrowed down our optimal resources. Websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Digg proved to be the best options for reaching a wider audience. Many of the social media tools available have a real time platform, which will therefore allow us to add new information as and when it happens. We were also instructed as to how we can give updates ‘on the go’ via our mobile phones.In the afternoon we worked on creating our pilgrim stories.

We split the visit into three stages:

Pre-visit

During the visit

Post-visit

Possibly the most important of these is the pre-visit stage. This is where we have to raise awareness and build a positive view of Pope Benedict XVI’s coming to the country. We discussed and developed a number of ideas, including; asking children from diocesan schools ‘If you had one question to ask the Pope, what would it be?’. We were given the contact details for various news outlets such as BBC, Sky News and ITN so that we can submit our stories directly through them. The final thing we were given was a list of preparatory tasks and useful resources to assist us as we begin to fulfil our role as Communications Officers.

Jordan Pitt