The Cathedral Comms Team 2023

Dear friends,  

As many of you know I have been away for several weeks on personal leave. I’m so pleased to be back with you all again. Any time a team member is away it becomes necessary to make adaptations to the workflow and operations of the team. Those adaptations can lead to valuable insights. With my return, we are engaged in fine-tuning the Communications operations in light of those adaptations and insights. I’d like to share with you what the Comms team will look like and how we will best serve the community moving forward. 

The Comms Team consists of myself and Lauren Pinkney - who is also the Children, Youth & Families Minister. Sara Ciantar’s contract ended and she has moved on to new opportunities. I continue to do strategic planning, write copy for our various platforms, oversee the website and build relations with external groups. Lauren devotes some of her hours to being the social media manager, creating content for social media and web, based on our editorial calendar. Together we are responsible for promoting events happening at the Cathedral, as well as sharing announcements about the life of the Cathedral with the community. 

Concretely, this means the Comms Team plans and creates content for 

-Chronicle 
-Website 
-social media 
-diocesan website news & event listings
-duty trustee announcements 
-promotional space in the bulletins 
-print posters
-glass display cases 
-press releases
-registration pages as needed 

The Comms Team no longer creates the weekly worship booklets. We do provide the text for any announcements that might be included in the bulletin. Which, and how many announcements go into the bulletin is based on page count and available space at the Dean’s discretion. 

You all play a vital role in the work of the Comms Team: you provide the information that kickstarts our workflow.

How? 

Fill out this quick form to share the details of your event or offering with the Comms Team https://www.thecathedral.ca/collections/resources
This form ensures the details of your event do not get lost or trapped in any one person’s in-box. Due to the volume of events and announcements we handle, we do not accept Comms Requests via email. 

When to send info to Comms? 

-5 weeks ahead of the event / offering you want to promote 

-no less than 2 weeks before the event / offering. Please note: with 2 weeks notice, we can only do very basic promotion

Special Notes: 

Getting into “Topic” - the diocesan newspaper: 

Randy Murray decides what events and news pieces get into the diocesan newspaper. Randy only accepts pieces submitted by Cathedral Comms staff via the Diocesan website. The Comms team can submit either news pieces, or event listings via the website. If you would like your event shared on the diocesan news media, please let the Comms team know so we can share information with the diocese. 

Death Announcements - In Memoriam 

When permission has been received from the deceased’s family to do so, Cathedral Clergy will provide the Comms Team with the deceased’s name and relevant dates. This will be included in an “In-Memorial” section of the Chronicle. 

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I thank you all for your prayers during my time away and the care you extended to Lauren, Carlos and Sara in my absence. It was a visible reminder of wise words from a beloved professor of mine: "our faith is not a message. It is an expereince that became a message and our role as communicators in the church is to give people the chance to have the experience" and you have been part of giving me the space to have that experience again when it was most needed.