The International Communications Commission of the Order met by zoom on October 18, 2023 for 90 minutes to review progress in the program and to begin planning some future events. All the members except one were able to be online.
The report from William J. Harry, the director, updated members on the new webstore for Edizioni Carmelitane. Edizioni now fulfills all orders made through the webstore rather than sending them to a third part for fulfillment. This allows Edizioni to know who our customers are and what books they are buying. The webstore also allows better tracking of the inventory, sales received, and money paid. It also allows immediate payment with credit cards or through Paypal. The updated reported on progress in ongoing projects as well.
Our social media outreach continues to be stymied by lack of time. CITOC-online continues to hold pace with last year, although the updates now consolidate 3-4 news stories in one email. The weekly Celebrating at Home continues to be quite popular as does the Lectio divina. Generally positive feedback is received for these. Plans are in the works to develop a Lectio divina for the celebration of the Carmelite saints.
The Communications Office is arranging for additional support to facilitate the sending out of backlog books in a more timely basis than has been possible previously.
The office is experimenting with various forms of advertising of products. Efforts are continuing to reach markets beyond the provinces and lay Carmelites. Because of the expense involved, this will be done slowly and carefully to ensure the results are worth the time and expense.
A new catalogue has been printed and will be distributed to customers as well as to universities, archives, and libraries around the world. Some changes in the format were made to make the catalogue more accessible to the user. A different form of catalogue is being developed for the more popular books, as well as those from other publishing houses, which would be of more interest to the general reader of Carmelite spirituality.
Edizioni Carmelitane’s providing of its more popular books in the eBook format has proven quite encouraging. Over the coming months, more of the non-scientific books will become available in that format as well as the printed version.
An online meeting of the communications personnel from the various parts of the Order will be held in May 2024. Efforts will be continuing in the coming months to gather the names and addresses of people who work in this field. Although the communications office does have the names of some members already involved in communications in the Order, prior provincials, commissaries, and delegates for those areas we do not have anyone named will be contacted. The meeting will focus on what types of communications and resources are available in the Order currently and how we might effectively share those efforts. A second part of the meeting will be a discussion of what areas need to be developed. The goal will be to develop a way of sharing resources towards building a more effective communications program for the Order around the world.
The next meeting of the commission will be in March over Zoom. An in person meeting will be held in at the Curia in Rome May 27-29, 2024.
