A-Z of dioceses and their youth work websites

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In an idea blatantly stolen from another site I have decided to go on a bit of a tour of Catholic Youth related websites in the British Isles. This includes not just DYS and youth centre/ mission team sites, but really any functioning website whose focus is to Catholic young people, young adults or youth workers.

There are 56 dioceses in the British Isles. These ones to be precise...

Aberdeen Achonry Ardagh & Clonmacnois Argyll and the Isles Armagh Arundel & Brighton Birmingham Brentwood Cardiff Cashel & Emly Clifton Clogher Clonfert Cloyne

Cork & Ross Derry Down & Connor Dromore Dublin Dunkeld East Anglia Elphin Ferns Galloway Galway, Kilmacduagh & Kilfenora Glasgow Hallam Hexham & Newcastle

Kerry Kildare & Leighlin Killala Killaloe Kilmore Lancaster Leeds Limerick Liverpool Meath Menevia Middlesbrough Motherwell Northampton

Nottingham Ossory Paisley Plymouth Portsmouth Raphoe St Andrews and Edinburgh Salford Shrewsbury Southwark Tuam Waterford & Lismore Westminster Wrexham

...every day (or as often as I can - Lourdes will get in the way!) I am going to have a look at one of these dioceses. People are more than welcome to send suggestions.

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ABERDEEN

The diocese of Aberdeen has quite a nice website with not one but two youth-related links above the fold on the front page. A very good start!

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The Youth Service site is pretty good. I don't think it's updated every week, or even every month, but I'll forgive them for that because there's a lot of good, accessible stuff on there, like a document library, a links page that isn't overdone, and also newsletters and diary dates. Okay, so those last two things need a bit of an update, but generally it's a good site.

The website also gives details of an event called Highland Youth Day, which sounds like fun. When I hear the words 'highland' and 'event' my mind goes in the direction of cabers (a word which I have not the slightest clue how to spell) and so on... Maybe I need to update my stereotypes there!

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St. Mary's Parish in Inverness also have a very good World Youth Day page.


So, there you go... that's Aberdeen. A good place to start since it begins with Ab. Next time... Achonry. (it's in Ireland)

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ACHONRY

Yes, that's right, despite having a pretty nice diocesan site, the Diocese of Achonry has almost no mention of youth ministry and young people whatsoever. There's nothing on the front page or the drop-down menus. Even a targeted Altavista search only produces a few brief - and out of date - mentions of the 'Y' Word.

Under 'Diocese' there are three links: Bishop, Administration and Safeguarding Children. It is perhaps a sad sign of our age that Safeguarding has such high prominence. Or, then again, maybe it's a good thing. I'll leave you all to ponder that one. Either way, safeguarding the young seems to be the only evidence that the diocese is actually working with them.

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In the hope of finding something - anything - to report, I looked through a few parish websites in the diocese to see if they had any interesting youth stuff. Long story short: they didn't!

The parish of Kilmovee, in County Mayo had a video (more a photo montage really) of their recent Corpus Christi Procession which shows an impressive amount of children and young people. Clearly, they do have some, and they are able to engage them. It would help them a great deal to say so somewhere on the internet!!

Ah well... it may be that the diocese of Achonry has a thriving youth ministry that simply has no websites. I hope so.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/_s7bYuNbXbs&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/_s7bYuNbXbs&rel=1</a>

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Since we're trying to kick this off with a bang, here is a second diocese of the day...

ARDAGH & CLONMACNOIS

We stay in Ireland now for a quick virtual trip to the Diocese of Ardagh & Clonmacnois. We don't have a clue how to pronounce this, but it looks like a nice area from the pictures. The diocese is actually one of three or four in Ireland that is split. This diocese covers three unconnected (yet still close) areas.

The Diocesan website is basic, but this diocese suffered the loss of its cathedral due to fire recently, so we'll let them off, since they probably have other things on their minds. In any case, the website does have a front page link to the Diocesan Youth Ministry. When you click on this link, you get to a pretty awesome site which is just full of documents, information, photos, links, events and all sorts. It also give information about the Dioceses two youth centres.

Not bad at all 


 The site is built on Drupal - one of the many free php products which pretty much anyone can download, customise and start using to build an effective and attractive site.

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ARGYLL AND THE ISLES

Our next stop takes us to the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles, which covers a large part of Western Scotland and just about all of the [many] islands on that side of the country.

The Diocesan website has a link 'for young people' on the front page, which is a news category basically, and also a dedicated youth section accessible from a top menu. This youth page only has an advert for the Youth trip to Lourdes though. But, it's a start I suppose. At least they have youth links on the front page. Now they just need to stick some content on there!

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Craig Lodge is located in the Diocese.

It has a pretty good site detailing its work and upcoming programmes.

Craig Lodge has a strong link to Medjugorje and does a lot of work with young people.


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The diocese is also home to the Iona community.

Iona is an ecumenical Christian community based on the island of Iona which has a huge youth outreach.

There is a youth section on the Iona site.

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ARMAGH

Back across the Irish sea now for the first Archdiocese in our tour, Armagh. In recent times, the Archbishop of Armagh, rather than Dublin, has been the Chairman of the Bishops' Conference, and therefore Cardinal.

Unless I'm much mistaken (HUGE apologies if I am) this is also our first foray into Northern Ireland. Not that such distinctions matter to Catholics, of course!

The Archdiocese has an impressive website. Even more impressive is that the top three items on their front page are all youth-related.

Good start, Armagh. Very good start  

'Upcoming events' heads the main page, and the Youth Commission seem to be very good at getting their stuff on there.

A quick click on 'Pastoral Life' brings up a link to 'Youth Ministry' which brings up a fairly good site, with links, information and a link to their Strategic Plan for Youth Ministry.

The Strategic Plan looks like a thorough and well thought out document. I am going to sit down with it when I've got a moment.

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ARUNDEL & BRIGHTON

Blimey... we haven't even finished with 'A' yet!

Today we head to the South of England, where we find the diocese of Arundel & Brighton. The diocesan website is very good, and has a link to the youth service site above the fold on the front page. The Youth Service site is called YAAB, which stands for Youth of Arundel & Brighton.

By the way... before we go any further I should declare my interest. You see, I live in this diocese and I run YAAB! So forgive me if I'm a little biased!

We keep YAAB updated fairly regularly, and there are some good links on there to the various activities and projects that the youth service is running. There is also a link to the Youth Service Facebook page and Twitter feeds. We've got a little box on the front page which takes our tweets. This means that we can give a live (ish) feed during events and even upload photos quickly and easily.

In general, I think YAAB is pretty good. Writing this, however, has made me realise that parts of it need updating!

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There are also some good parish youth sites in the diocese too. Guildford Youth Movement has its own site, as do many others.

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A&B is also home to CatholicYouthWork.com, a simply awesome site for Catholic Youth Workers and those interested in the field. Seriously, you should check it out!!

Actually - electroincally at least - I think CYW.com is based in Westminster. The servers are somewhere in Herts. But all the work is done in A&B, at least.

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There are a few other things based in A&B too. The Lay Benedictines run a lot of their youth stuff at Worth Abbey, for instance.

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BIRMINGHAM

The Archdiocese of Birmingham is a large diocese which has an absolutely fantastic history of youth ministry. Some amazing projects and people have come out of the diocese, so naturally I was expecting great things from their websites.

The diocesan website doesn't seem to work seamlessly with all browsers, but when it does work the Youth Service links are easy to find.

Though it's in the process of being amalgamated into one service (I think?), the three youth agencies in the diocese currently have three different sites. The three links - via the 'Education and Formation' menu give you pages on the diocesan site describing the three agencies, which in the case of two of them link you to their own sites.

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The BCYS site is very impressive. Attractive and easy to use. There is news on the front page, embedded videos and simple menus.

Until fairly recently the website was pretty dire, but they have improved it very nicely indeed. Now it's one of the very best DYS sites you'll find.

The events page gives a full list of what's going on, and there is also a very useful menu section which gives a rundown of what's going on in each area. Far more DYS sites should have this. There is also a gallery, a resources section and loads of other cool stuff

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Alton Castle is a popular residential retreat centre in the diocese. The site looks friendly and regularly updated, and the menus let you know how to find what you're looking for fairly quickly.

The fact that they have links like 'Retreat Information & Risk Assessment' shows that they have thought about who is hitting their site and why.

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Soli House is the oldest youth retreat centre in England & Wales. It is an amazing place with an amazing history. But yet, it has never - as far as I am aware - had a decent website. Only the briefest of entries on the diocesan page. Still, I am sure that will be taken care of when the new structure kicks in soon.

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Invocation is an event which took place in Birmingham a few weeks back. Though strictly a vocations event, it had a huge youth and young adult focus. Very, very good website too...


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The Archdiocese of Birmingham has proved extremely impressive in our little tour of British Isles youth work websites. Probably the best so far. Worth a few smilies at least...

     

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BRENTWOOD

The Diocese of Brentwood covers Essex and parts of East London. Or, as the website puts it The Rt Rev Thomas McMahon, Bishop of Brentwood, oversees a large and varied diocese stretching from East London to the North Sea.

The Diocesan website is smart, easy to use, and up to date. It manages to put an impressive amount of menus  above the fold without making it look too cluttered. Included among these are two links to great youth service sites within the diocese: BCYS (not to be confused with the BCYS in Birmingham) and Walsingham House.


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The BCYS site looks basic when you first load it up, but once you click around a bit you find it quite easy to get to the information you need.

There is actually loads on the site, and as far as I can tell, it's all kept up to date. I am sure that the events page, is incredibly useful to young people in the area, as is the Ask a Priest section. In this page, young people submit questions, and Fr. Dominic (Diocesan Youth Officer and current chair of CYMFed) answers them with sensitivity and clarity. There are also brilliant pages for contact, for photos, and others.

The Bright Stars resources page on the BCYS site deserves a special mention. It has links to external sites of interest, each with a brief description. A very good resource, even if you're outside Brentwood.


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The Walsingham House website follows a similar design to BCYS and is similarly accesible and useable.

The 'meet the team' page is a particular highlight.



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Away from the organisation of the Diocese, the Sion Community is based in Brentwood. Though it works all over the country, this is very much the HQ. As you can see from the hotlinked graphic, this year they are celebrating their 25th anniversary.

The Sion website tells you a lot about the organisation and its upcoming events. Very accessible and useful.

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CARDIFF

The next stop on our tour takes us into Wales for the first time, as we have a look at the Archdiocese of Cardiff; or the Archesgobaeth Caerdydd if you are a Welsh speaker.

To be honest, I have to say that the Archdiocese website is not that great. Not the worst Church website I have seen, but a bit basic for a large organisation in this day and age. The front page is dominated by an image which clearly caught somebody's eye, but which actually says nothing about the Archdiocese. The rest of it is very basic and empty. The parish directory section of the site is pretty efficient, but everything else leaves you a bit cold. Especially the Archbishop's page which fails to notice that +Peter has moved Southwark a few months back!

I scanned the menus in the hope of finding a brilliant external youth service site, but alas not. Under the Commissions & Committees menu (why?) there is a youth link, but clicking it only brings up the name of the youth officer and some contact details.

I had a brief look around the wider internet for some kind of youth site and sadly I got nowhere. I did find a Facebook group though, which looks popular and well-used. I have always said that a Facebook group is as good as a website if you can't put a website together. Problem is, when I say that I am normally talking to small parishes...

I had a look around some of the parish websites of the diocese and many of them are quite good. The Parish of Mary Immaculate, for instance, has a good site with a good youth section.

I know a few people in Cardiff and I know that there is some good youth stuff running and some good people involved. They just need to say so somewhere on the internet!

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CASHEL AND EMLY

This Archdiocese covers some beautiful parts of Southern Ireland in the Province of Munster, including Tipperary. I have never been to Tipperary myself. I hear it's quite a long... er, never mind!

The main website for the Archdiocese is interesting. You might be forgiven initially for thinking that you have mistakenly found the website of an ecclesiastical supplies company. Alas, however, the splendid object on the left hand side of the page is not for sale as far as we can ascertain.

As with most Irish diocesan sites, high prominence is given to safeguarding. Hence, a link to the Holy Father's recent letter to Ireland appears from and centre. Other than that, however, there is little mention of youth on the site. There is a list of Confirmation dates and some links to external events on the events page, but other than that not a lot.

In desperation I tried to find youth group stories on parish websites. I also tried to find mission teams, youth centres and other entities in the diocese with a youth presence. Other than a few websites with tentative mentions of the word 'youth' near that of the diocese, I am afraid to say that I failed miserably.

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CLIFTON

I have worked with people and organisations from the Diocese of Clifton for years, and I have always had two thoughts: Firstly, why on earth is it not called the Diocese of Bristol[1]? And secondly, I have always found it amazing that there is so much good youth work going on in the diocese without having too much in the way of a huge and well-funded diocesan youth setup. Even as much as ten years ago, there were amazing youth groups, school chaplaincies, HCPT groups and loads of other things. I travelled to Lourdes in 2001 as part of a school group from Swindon which, in turn, was attached to an HCPT service group from Gloucester. Both were really good, as were the parishes supporting them.

Just recently, they have appointed a Diocesan Youth Officer (who may or may not be one of the Moderators on this site) in what seems like a huge step forward for youth ministry and a chance to further consolidate the awesome things that are going on there.

Okay... so what about their websites?

As far as I - and Google - can tell, there doesn't seem to be a Diocesan Youth Service site as yet, but there is a lot of youth-friendly stuff on the diocesan site, like their awesome podcasts and their vocations section. There is also a lot for, and about, young people in the news section of the website, like this article about the joyful noise project and this one about youth spirituality.

They are also starting to use Facebook as a means of having a presence on the internet. I noticed today purely by chance that there are pages set up for the Papal visit youth events and for their WYD group. Facebook is always a good way of communicating. Everyone should have a Facebook group, even if they also have a website, and the two should be well linked.

There are also quite a few parishes in the diocese with good youth and young adult content, like the Cathedral for one...

1.	Apparently, for the same reason that Salford and Hallam aren't called Manchester and Sheffield.

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CLOGHER

The Diocese of Clogher is a large diocese which spans quite a few counties in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. They have a very good website which looks good and is clearly updated regularly. Youth Ministry is a clear link at the top of the page, so high marks so far...

Unfortunately, however, when you click on the youth ministry page (which is really a blog posts category) you discover that nothing has actually been added to it in almost two years. Oops...

Luckily though they redeem themselves pretty quickly - and in dramatic style - as one of the two year old postings links you to their rather awesome youth service website. You kinda have to wonder why they don't just link this site from the front of the diocesan site, but anyway...

The youth service site has accessible links giving you lots of good and relevant information and current news about what's going on. There is a page of comments about the recent youth pilgrimage to Lourdes, a page about school retreats, a run through of past events, a list of upcoming events, and a lot more besides. The galleries are worth a particular look.

All in all, very high marks indeed here for the Diocese of Clogher. A good start back after our short break!

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CLONFERT

The Diocese of Clonfert is in the West of Ireland. It's website is okay, but I did find it a little bit annoying that the banner at the top extends down so far. The top menu is actually in the middle of the page, which is a little bit clumsy and gives the impression of a site that doesn't have a lot of information on it. The eight links on the main diocesan site each give a page which is simple and clear. I'm sure this is useful for web surfers who aren't so used to it, like elderly parishioners for instance.

Sadly though, the diocesan site lacks a (rather essential) list of diocesan departments and, crucially for us, there is no trace anywhere on the internet of a diocesan youth service. Nothing at all.

In an attempt to find anything to chuck into this report, I tried to do what I normally do - a painstaking search of parish websites in the diocese. Sadly though, the diocesan website only has a page about each parish, and no links to website. Some of these pages have links to youth 2000 and to youth events in other diocees, but apart from that... zip!

Seriously, Clonfert... this is 2010! Young people like the internet, and if you want to reach them then websites simply has to be a part of your strategy. Some diocees in your Conference (click click) seem to be able to put together pretty awesome youth sites, and they clearly get hits too. Its not that hard!

I hope that doesn't sound rude. It's not meant to. It's meant to be a friendly challenge. I am sure that the will to work well with young people does exist and I have no evidence to suggest that awesome youth ministry isn't going on in Clonfert, but you really need to get it on the web.

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CLOYNE

The Diocese of Cloyne is in the Southwest or Ireland in what is apparently an extremely beautiful part of the country. I am not one for over-dramitisation, but the Diocesan website is perhaps the most poorly designed website I have seen in a very long time. It is reminiscent of the type of site that people designed back in the 1990s when they were just learning HTML and wanted to test drive their new skills. I sincerely hope that when a new Bishop is appointed to the (currently vacant) see, he gets on top of this quickly.

From our point of view, however, it is impressive that 'Youth' appears in the side menu above the fold on the main page. When you click on this link, you get something fairly impressive. So after a shaky start, things are looking up.

The Cloyne Diocesan Youth Service (CDYS) website is very good indeed. One of the best we have seen. It gives you tonnes of menu options without seeming too overcrowded and also lets you know in a nutshell what the youth service is about and how it is active. It also has catchy links to the video page, the photo page and the volunteer sign-up page. The latter is an extremely good idea and a strong part of the site.

The Youth Projects menu on the left of the page lists an impressive array of things that they youth service are doing. There is some really high-impact stuff there. It would be pointless to list all of the amazing features of this site, but go and have a look. Especially if you are looking for ideas as to what to do with your own youth service site.

I don't know who runs the CDYS website, but they deserve a giant size pat on the back. They also should be given an envelope with a few thousand Euros in it and told to get to work on the main diocesan site

I will leave you with this awesome flashmob video from the video page. I'm not entirely sure that it was a youth service event, but it's really cool...

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/LqUf13Y0hKw&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/LqUf13Y0hKw&rel=1</a>

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CORK AND ROSS

The Diocese of Cork and Ross is at the very Southern tip of Ireland, toward the west. The Diocesan website is nice looking and cutting-edge. It has accessible, full menus and regularly updated news. Under the 'Social Services' menu (no, we're not sure why either) is a link to 'youth.'

This youth link doesn't give you the diocesan youth service site, and for the life of me I can't find such a site at all. Rather, this youth page gives a lot of links to organisations working with young people in the area. Well, okay, that's something I suppose, but a DYS site would be good. They clearly have the capability to put such sites together.

One of the more interesting links on the youth page is to Scala, a Redemptorist youth project doing all kinds of work in the area. Their site could be a bit sharper, but it has loads of information and it does its job.

Other than that, we couldn't find a great deal.

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DERRY

It seems like this tour has been in Ireland for quite a while now. In fact, this is the fifth of a run of eight Irish diocees that appear in a row when you put them all in alphabetical order.

The Diocese of Derry, according to the website is the fourth largest diocese in Ireland and the most northerly. The Diocesan website is quite nice to look at and fairly simple. Though there is no obvious youth service link but there is a whopping great advert for the Clonmacnois Youth Festival on the front page. The festival isn't in their diocese as such, but it shows that youth ministry is something at least on their radar and it also shows that they are willing to share with the other diocees rather than being possessive about their ideas and events. Something which is sadly often lacking in many parts of the world.

Other than that however, I have found it hard to find traces of youth ministry within the diocese on the web. The diocesan site mentions a youth co-ordinator and a Diocesan Youth Council, but neither have an obvious website.

As one of our members has pointed out, the Pope John Paul II award is also based in Derry. The description on the front of the (rather good) website says this: If you are aged between 16 and 18 and living or going to school in participating Dioceses, the Pope John Paul II Award will enable you to become more actively involved in the life of your parish and community. Religion is not just for learning, nor a list of rules designed to stop you doing what you want. Religion is for living and through taking an active part in your church and community you will experience the contentment and fulfilment that comes from serving others, especially those in great need. Not bad!

In another post-publication edit to this post, a member has sent me a message suggesting I check out the Derry Catechetical centre, which I was happy to do. It gives quite a bit of info about youth ministry in the diocese. I can't help but thinking that Derry really, really need links to these sites from their main diocesan page.


Well, our A-Z tour of diocesan sites has now visited 16 diocees, with 40 left to go. So far we have seen excellence and we have seen apathy. We have seen beautiful sites and we have seen diocees with no (web at least) evidence that they even have any young people. Derry is probably on the poor side of average as things go.

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DOWN & CONNOR

The Diocese of Down & Connor can be found in the Northeast of Ireland, and includes the City of Belfast. The first thing that strikes you about the main Diocesan site is that it's quite obviously built using an free php package. In this case, Wordpress. But that's okay, it really is. They have a functioning site which is attractive, accessible and regularly updated, and they've probably done it without shelling out stupid sums of money, so fair play to them!

Also impressive is the fact that youth related content and links litter the front page. There are World Youth Day links and pictures, the obligatory link to the upcoming Clonmacnois Youth Festival and a fairly easy-to-find link to the Diocesan Youth Commission as well as to the University Chaplaincies. A more creative search also reveals bits of information about something called the St. Louis House youth team, and a random page of services and events in the diocese.

Eventually - and accidentally - I found the Youth Commission site. It needs a lot of work, but it has some useful information, and gives some clear evidence that this is a diocese which cares about young people.

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DROMORE

The Diocese of Dromore covers a fairly small area in the Northeast of Ireland, near Belfast. The Diocesan website is simple and information is fairly easy to find, but it is otherwise fairly basic and unimpressive. Under 'pastoral information' there is an entry for youth, but it only gives a name and some contact information. No website.

In frustration, I turned to Google with the term 'Diocese of Dromore Youth'. I then got rather excited to find a rather awesome site. Sadly though, my excitement was soon dampened when I realised it was a Church of Ireland site. Grrrrr!

One of the better pages on the diocesan site is the parishes page. Since there are only 23 in the diocese and since I haven't found anything so far, I thought I'd have a brief flick through them all. But alas, none of the parish listings on the diocesan site include a web site address. Again, Grrrrr!

Okay, okay, so I could google each parish to see if it has a website, but surely the point of this all is that websites need to find people, rather than people having to work very hard to find them, at least to a degree. After all, somebody who goes to great lengths to find something about youth ministry on the web is probably going to seek it out by other means, like the parish newsletter. And so, sites that are hard to find aren't gonna reach people who thus far weren't aware. And that's sort of the point.

A few times over the past few days, after a relatively fruitless report on a diocese people have got in touch pointing out sites I had missed. I hope somebody will do that for Dromore, I really do!

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DUBLIN

We come now to our first capital city in our tour, as we visit the Archdiocese of Dublin.

The Archdiocese has a good website. It's welcoming, uncluttered, and affective. It's also regularly updated. At the bottom of the page (which isn't too much of a scroll) there is a graphic link to Catholic Youth Care.

The CYC website is visually very inviting. The menus at the top of the page are clear and thorough. It also has a load of local links, which is handy. It loses a little something when you scroll further down the page and I'm not entirely sure how often it's updated, but still, it's a good site. The list of local youth services on the right hand side, especially, gives a lot of information and shows that they are clearly doing some awesome work with young people in the archdiocese.


Given that we're in the capital here, there are a few catholic youth organisations around the place with websites...

The Youth Ministry Studies Programme, for instance, is based in Dublin, as is the Irish branch of Youth 2000. It is clear from our tour around Irish diocees thus far that Youth 2000 has a big impact in Dublin. They run events that a lot of youth services seem happy to pick up on and promote.

Trocaire (which is the Irish incarnation of the Caritas Network - like CAFOD, SCIAF) is also based in Dublin and has loads of stuff for young people on their site.

I'm sure there's a fair bit we've missed there in Dublin. As ever, please feel free to fill us in.

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DUNKELD

After being in Ireland (virtually, anyway) for what seems like an age and a half, we now cross over to Scotland to have a look at the Diocese of Dunkeld, which covers the City of Dundee and some of the areas round about.

The Diocesan website is really nice to look at and is well organised. They make effective use of sidebar widgets (or equivalent) to give punchy and interesting bits of info, including external links such as a Zenit feed and daily readings from Catholic.org. There is so much free, good content on the internet, and its great to see organisations using it - especially organisations that don't have the resources to work on their site round the clock.

Above the fold on the front page is a link for Youth. Dunkeld have opted to integrate their youth service site into the main site rather than to have a separate site, which is actually quite a good option in many ways, just as long as its clearly not just a token information page - which in this case, it isn't. The main youth page gives a thorough introduction to the work of the youth service, and also brings up four submenu items on the left hand side of the site. These four options tell you just about everything you need to know about the youth service and its events without being over-complicated. All very nice.

The lesson from Dunkeld is that you can effectively integrate your youth service site into the main diocesan site. I'm sure that this way of doing things will reach a lot of people. Okay, so if you have good web designers at your disposal then this clearly isn't the option to go for. But if you don't...

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EAST ANGLIA

Since we're on a role, let's move straight on to the next diocese on the list.

East Anglia is one of the smaller diocees in England and Wales in terms of Catholic population, largely due to the fact that the East of England is the least Catholic part of it. A convert to Catholicism - and a Dominican Friar - once reminded me that this was the area where Cromwell (I think?) raised his army to suppress the Irish. And with them, their popish religion too!

The diocesan website - despite the completely pointless welcome page - is pretty effective. The messages of welcome in multiple languages are a nice touch, as is the fact that there are two different links to the youth service in accessible places on the page.

The Youth Service site has a few things which could be sharpened up visually - like the page title which says World Youth Day Cologne! - but let's not get all smug and superior, because it's a friendly, effective and well laid-out site that gives all the information it needs to give. They clearly have a lot of events running and the website will give you the info you need if you are interested in any of them.

In actual fact, the more I look at the site and click through its sections, the more I think that this is really one of the better youth service sites I have seen. There are some good links to external sites and content such as Taize, WYD, CYMFed and the Ushaw Vocations podcasts, and there are some effective subpages too. The Resources page is particularly good and deserves a special mention.

High marks then for East Anglia.

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ELPHIN

After a brief foray into mainland GB we cross the Irish sea once again to have a quick look at the Diocese of Elphin, a medium sized diocese which is located in a sort of central northwest area of the country.

With the exception of the nice graphic above, the Diocesan website is a bit of a mess to be honest. The layout is a little random and the things they chose to push via the front page features are a little bit of a mix and match. The main focus of the page is the latest news. It's visually unappealing, but it looks to be fairly relevant stuff which probably does a bit to connect people. All in all though, a fairly uninspiring front page.

Unfortunately, I can't find an evidence of a Diocesan youth service on the internet. There is mention of a youth officer in the context of other things (like vocations and safeguarding) but no mention of what he (or anybody) actually does with young people. I also cant find a list of parishes and so, alas, I can't check to see what's going on on their websites.

Another diocese, I think, to add to the list headed sort it out!

[CYW.com]

FERNS

The diocese of Ferns is in the southeast corner of Ireland, just below Dublin. The website says that it is 1400 years old and has a Catholic population of 102,000. The first thing that caught my eye while flicking through the website was the name Bishop Brennan. Some will understand why this name caught my attention. I won't dwell on this, because I'm sue the good people of Ferns are sick of it. Instead I will just discretely provide this link, and move on...

The Diocesan website is pretty good. Friendly, accessible and regularly updated. I can't find any evidence of a Diocesan youth service, but there are a few other youth links on the site alongside the obligatory high prominence of safeguarding issues. There are a few WYD links and a flyer for the Ferns Youth Festival, which is coming up this Saturday.

As I always do, I ran a Google search for 'Diocesan Youth Service Ferns.' It gave me a DYS site as the top hit but, alas, the link was broken. This tipped me off to the fact that a DYS site must exist though and so I tried a few URLs at random, and found this.

Okay, so their youth service site is under construction. This means that they currently have no presence on the web, but at least they care about having a presence, and the fact that they are redeveloping an existing presence shows that they get the importance of staying fresh. So, okay, not too bad. Now they just need a DYS link from the diocesan site.

[CYW.com]

GALLOWAY

The Diocese of Galloway, covers the southwestern tip of Scotland, bordering Lancaster Diocese in England to the south. The Diocesan website is fairly basic and isn't updated that often (tip of the day: if you're not gonna update your site that often, don't have a dated news and events section on the front page!) but it has a lot of info, organised fairly well. There is also a youth link on the top of the page, so kudos!

This link brings up a youth page on the diocesan site, which gives a contact for the youth officer and a link to the main youth service website.

The Youth Service website is colourful yet basic. They have also been playing with some generic, common clipart package or other - a habit that should be left in the last decade. There is little more information on this site than on the youth page of the diocesan site, and so you have to wonder why they want a site. There is a links page which is pretty useful, even though slightly obsessed with the Da Vinci Code.