St Ignatius Parish

Weaving the Web

It is a pity in a way that our church was not built on the Parade because then we could have called it ‘St Ignatius on Parade’. Being an old soldier, I think that St Ignatius would have liked that as he probably did a few circuits of the parade ground in his day. However, while we cannot claim to be on parade, we can boast that we are well and truly on ‘the web’.

Since June last year (2002), our parish has maintained its own web site. It is a wonderful source of information about what is going on in the parish – indeed, we boast that it is probably the most complete collection of information about the parish held in any one place. Or, at least, the most accessible complete collection. In the pages of the web can be found items such as the times of services; how to contact the office; Special Ministers’ roster; diary dates for coming religious and social events; and the minutes of the Parish Pastoral Council meetings. There is a list of all the groups in the parish along with descriptions of their activities and contact details if you want more information. Fr Celso publishes outlines of each of his Sunday homilies every week. Fr Andrew has contributed many of his stories and is slowly adding to them. You will find the current edition of Christian Traveller there as well as human interest stories selected from past editions of our parish magazine. There are links to other sites on the web that may be of interest to parishioners and there is even the opportunity for surfers to have their own favourite sites added.

In its first six months, there were over 4500 ‘hits’ which averages about one hit each hour, seven days a week. Who they are or where they are, we do not know of course. While there has been little feedback on the efficacy or usefulness of the site, we have had an inquiry from as far away as California. Apparently, someone is reading us ‘out there’. How about you? Have you put a bookmark on your own parish’s web site yet? If not, then you can get us at. http://norwood.catholicsa.org. Our site works well with both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator although, of the two of them, Explorer seems to give the better result.

If you have access to the Internet, why not become a regular visitor to our page, keep up to date on what is going on, and even squirt an email occasionally to your webmaster. Maybe we could start a ‘Letters to the Editor’ page. If you are involved in a group or a parish activity, you can publicise your activity on the web. The beauty of this is that it is free! If you are new to the parish or a visitor, here is a one-stop shop for everything that you would want to know about your parish. Remember – our pages are only as far away as: