NEW: ONE STOP 'FORMATION' SHOP FOR SALESIAN FAMILY
Julian Fox sdb
ROME: 4th August -- A resource of this kind has not previously been available to English speakers in the Salesian world - a one stop source for formation within the Salesian Family. The location? BOSCONET. After a number of years in an isolated location, both Salesian-wise and geogrpahically, I personally found the need to discover resources that I could put in front of young (and old) Salesians, be it for Salesian Studies courses, community monthly retreats, discussions with laity, semianrs for young people.....and living in a climate where books rather quickly disintegrate, the availability of this material on The Net seemed to be the way to go. Having received from the Net, by trawling through Salesian and other sites, then putting together various little courses, talks and the like, it also seemd good to give to the Net - or rather, to give to other Salesians what I have found and what I have done with what I have found.
You can see for yourself at www.bosconet.aust.com . Why not bookmark it immediately for further reference? You will see that the main headings are the five main headings of Salesian 'departments' these days (I have left out the Economer - there is room to add that if you have resources you can suggest!): Formation, Youth Ministry (the old 'Youth Pastoral' which does not sound well in English), Salesian Family, Missions, Communications - and a 'news' section is there, of course, to include 'austraLasia' but also Bosco Link (US) and Rua Link (UK) and a new venture we are getting off the ground called BNN. But there are also quick left-hand links to ready reference sites such as the Web Portal Rome, or Province pages all around the world - many of which contain references of their own to formation mateirals.
Should it all be in English? Well, the idea is to fill a niche - there's so much available in Italian and Spanish, but not so much in English. But if you read Italian and Spanish - and other languages besides, then they are all referenced through BOSCONET anyway! In this sense, BOSCONET operates effectively as a portal.
Finally - there is so much good material sitting on people's hard disks or on CD ROM backups, or better, on a server somewhere. Would you consider either (a) sending me a copy of what you have - I will include it directly on our server or (b) better, much better - provide me with a link to your server where material sits. Please? It would help others to help others.
Happy surfing!
