austraLasia 1435
Frog in the milk-pail: there's hope yet! YM delegates thrashing the question around.
No acrimony but plenty of acrynomy
CHEUNG CHAU: 7th February 2006 -- Whatever else is happening inside Cheung Chau island, one of HK's outlier islands, the 'frog and the boiling water' story has caught readers' imagination; one who, for example, writes that he has always liked frog stories, and offers an excellent YM resource (though the author of the resource might not know anything about YM, SEPP, EPC, OPP and the rest) in Andrew Matthews. Google it up and you'll see. Use 'Happiness in a nutshell', or even 'Being a happy teen' as your google-point, sorry, search term.
Instead, a perusal of the Cheung Chau meeting Day Two's minutes suggests the frog in the milk-pail. He had to thrash around a bit, but the thrashing did the trick, and he climbed onto solid butter in the end, his survival ensured.
As suggested in the last write-up, the meeting took a serious turn, grappling with acronyms like SEPP (but in reality with the way the acronym distills Salesian planning and presence), EPC and planning. All this was skilfully guided by Fr Dominic Sequeira from the RMG Team; a steady hand in the churned up pail. They launched into SEPP for starters: too complicated, too difficult to grasp for lay people, too taxing, way-out! Dominic: 'yes, indeed, planning can easily hide lack of pastoral charity and zeal. EPCs have to own the plan - they are the person, the community behind the plan'.
A reminder that the RM had made something of planning - or better, the Team Visit as a whole had made something of planning - in Hua Hin, as one of the keys to our future. This evoked some steady thinking: planning is a 'deeply felt need', it offers possibilities for consistency and continuity. Put aside the thoughts of complication and look at something practical. As China put it - we need practical models.
The inevitable unanswered questions: 'our environment is parish (Catholics), school (non-Catholics even non-Christians), so how to reach a unified model in that mix?', 'in our complex settings with say parish, technical school and aspirantate all together, what's the integrating factor?' Dominic: SEPP. A SEPP for each work, a community SEPP, indeed a Provincial SEPP. Still more questions: 'Our EPC has never heard about planning sessions!', 'our OPP got sent back - didn't fit Rome's thinking!' Dominic: No, no, nothing to do with Rome, maybe it wasn't helpful to you.
In the end - and the 'butter' is beginning to form, one sees - the SEPP becomes an ideal way of planning if it is seen as an ongoing process, involving a Provincial vision with guidelines for sectors and a local vision holding complex works together.
The FIS delegate, Fr Brodie Segovia, has six or seven years experience in the role, something of an anomaly in the group as presently constituted, so he was able to show the process gradually coming together, first no SEPP focus, then, in 2002 SEPP, followed by a Provincial plan in 2004. He was able to demonstrate the difference from before, without a planning mentality to after, with one. 'There's no perfect model', Brodie says, 'but we stuck to it'. 'And once it starts to work, it give you focus and helps integrate all the other stuff coming in from Church or Congregation'.
Ah, butter at last! In the afternoon, some rich exchange on the values of various SEPP approaches - top-down or bottom-up? Bringing in the Strenna, and what's a good model for the YM delegate? Interesting. Dominic points out that in India, all YM delegates are not only on the Council - they are Vice Provincials!
Tomorrow, the region's provincials enter the fray. Look forward to the next report.
VOCABULARY
YM: youth ministry, what Italian calls pastorale giovanile
SEPP: Salesian educative and pastoral plan, Italian progetto educativo-pastorale salesiano or PEPS
EPC: Educative and pastoral community, Italian Comunità educativa pastorale CEP
OPP: Overall pastoral plan, what in Italian gets called a progetto organico pastorale or POP
________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
Frog in the milk-pail: there's hope yet! YM delegates thrashing the question around.
No acrimony but plenty of acrynomy
CHEUNG CHAU: 7th February 2006 -- Whatever else is happening inside Cheung Chau island, one of HK's outlier islands, the 'frog and the boiling water' story has caught readers' imagination; one who, for example, writes that he has always liked frog stories, and offers an excellent YM resource (though the author of the resource might not know anything about YM, SEPP, EPC, OPP and the rest) in Andrew Matthews. Google it up and you'll see. Use 'Happiness in a nutshell', or even 'Being a happy teen' as your google-point, sorry, search term.
Instead, a perusal of the Cheung Chau meeting Day Two's minutes suggests the frog in the milk-pail. He had to thrash around a bit, but the thrashing did the trick, and he climbed onto solid butter in the end, his survival ensured.
As suggested in the last write-up, the meeting took a serious turn, grappling with acronyms like SEPP (but in reality with the way the acronym distills Salesian planning and presence), EPC and planning. All this was skilfully guided by Fr Dominic Sequeira from the RMG Team; a steady hand in the churned up pail. They launched into SEPP for starters: too complicated, too difficult to grasp for lay people, too taxing, way-out! Dominic: 'yes, indeed, planning can easily hide lack of pastoral charity and zeal. EPCs have to own the plan - they are the person, the community behind the plan'.
A reminder that the RM had made something of planning - or better, the Team Visit as a whole had made something of planning - in Hua Hin, as one of the keys to our future. This evoked some steady thinking: planning is a 'deeply felt need', it offers possibilities for consistency and continuity. Put aside the thoughts of complication and look at something practical. As China put it - we need practical models.
The inevitable unanswered questions: 'our environment is parish (Catholics), school (non-Catholics even non-Christians), so how to reach a unified model in that mix?', 'in our complex settings with say parish, technical school and aspirantate all together, what's the integrating factor?' Dominic: SEPP. A SEPP for each work, a community SEPP, indeed a Provincial SEPP. Still more questions: 'Our EPC has never heard about planning sessions!', 'our OPP got sent back - didn't fit Rome's thinking!' Dominic: No, no, nothing to do with Rome, maybe it wasn't helpful to you.
In the end - and the 'butter' is beginning to form, one sees - the SEPP becomes an ideal way of planning if it is seen as an ongoing process, involving a Provincial vision with guidelines for sectors and a local vision holding complex works together.
The FIS delegate, Fr Brodie Segovia, has six or seven years experience in the role, something of an anomaly in the group as presently constituted, so he was able to show the process gradually coming together, first no SEPP focus, then, in 2002 SEPP, followed by a Provincial plan in 2004. He was able to demonstrate the difference from before, without a planning mentality to after, with one. 'There's no perfect model', Brodie says, 'but we stuck to it'. 'And once it starts to work, it give you focus and helps integrate all the other stuff coming in from Church or Congregation'.
Ah, butter at last! In the afternoon, some rich exchange on the values of various SEPP approaches - top-down or bottom-up? Bringing in the Strenna, and what's a good model for the YM delegate? Interesting. Dominic points out that in India, all YM delegates are not only on the Council - they are Vice Provincials!
Tomorrow, the region's provincials enter the fray. Look forward to the next report.
VOCABULARY
YM: youth ministry, what Italian calls pastorale giovanile
SEPP: Salesian educative and pastoral plan, Italian progetto educativo-pastorale salesiano or PEPS
EPC: Educative and pastoral community, Italian Comunità educativa pastorale CEP
OPP: Overall pastoral plan, what in Italian gets called a progetto organico pastorale or POP
________________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml
