Communications Conference in Drongen

In mid June, thirty collaborators from across the British, Irish and European Lowlands Jesuit provinces met in Drongen, Belgium to discuss new ways of communicating.

The Old Abbey (Oude Abdij) in Drongen, just outside Ghent, Belgium has belonged to the Jesuits since 1837 when they bought it to house the novitiates of the Belgian province, and it is now used as an Ignatian spiritual retreat centre.

The conference was split into four workshops, with participants being able to choose out of a possible eight, which allowed us to cover a variety of practical training looking at different ways of effective communication in the 21st century. Each was run by someone from within the provinces including Jesuit scholastic Stephen Noon SJ who had flown over from Toronto to give a workshop on the importance of the language we choose for our audiences.

“We ran the conference for the first time last year,” explained Jane Hellings, Director of Development & Communications for the British Province, “and having considered the feedback decided to expand the offer, with a wider range of workshops and capacity for more trainees. It was our particular hope that more Jesuits would participate this year and we were very pleased with the response.”

The workshops were conducted in small groups allowing them to be interactive and they offered a chance to put into practise what we were learning with immediate feedback on our work.

In addition to a few talks, there was a broad choice of  hands-on workshops. Pat Coyle, Director of Communications for the Irish Province, gave a tour ‘inside the mind of a journalist’, with good advice on how to respond to interviewers. Rick Timmermans, Chief Editor of the Dutch language online magazine Ignis, talked about recording small video’s for Facebooks, and Nikolaas Sintobin SJ spoke about engaging people in meditation and reflection by means of youtube videos. Ruth Morris, Digital Communications Manager for the British Province introduced us to finding and editing images that capture the imagination. Jos Moons SJ (ELC province) gave a workshop on ‘having and holding the attention’ when you write a blog, opinion piece or reflection.

The conference was a great opportunity to meet other people from within the Jesuit networks across the three provinces who are working in social justice, youth and spirituality ministries.

Photo credit: Paula Nolan (Art Director, Messengers Publications, Dublin)