Parish going live with Facebook and webcam initiatives

SHANNON parish has just launched a Facebook page this week and a webcam will be installed in Ss John and Paul Church in the coming weeks, possibly before Christmas.

The Facebook page will help keep people up-to-date with local events, while the webcam will probably be of particular interest to those who are abroad, particularly when things such as first communions, weddings and funerals are taking place.

Although based in Derry, Teresa Campbell runs the parish website and she is now also behind the Facebook page.

“Given the success of the website, we wanted to make sure that we were reaching out to young people. Often, they’re not using a computer, quite often they use their phones and we thought if we got onto Facebook we’d get a few more. Facebook brings everything to you rather than you going to it and a lot of younger people are on it constantly through their phones. It is a trial and hopefully it’ll work.

“We only started it on Sunday, so it’s brand new. We’ll keep it constantly updated and if anyone wants us to put something up that’s not on the website they can contact us. Some things that mightn’t make it onto the website we might put up on Facebook and highlight them.”

She has worked on the parish website since it was started a few years ago and she said the number of hits on it are been constantly increasing.

Teresa also said she really enjoys her involvement with the site. “I love it. I get a great buzz from the fact that you can see people are looking at it and the galleries are so popular and a lot of people go on to see the death notices too.”

She feels the creation of the Facebook page and the installation of the webcam will help to bind the parish community together. “That’ll [the webcam] be the next thing and the idea of that and the Facebook page is to help people feel a part of it. It’s hoped that it’ll be there in the next few weeks, I wouldn’t like to say it’ll be there for Christmas but we hope it will be.”

Father Tom Ryan said, at present, the parish is working with Ennis company Acton VP on providing the webcam and it is hoped progress will be made in the next few weeks.