Behind the scenes: the secretaries...

Françoise Greffe, Sandra Bossio, Sandra Mc Sheaffrey, Mary Hinde

You know about “bookworms”, but have you heard of “computer worms”?

If not, go along to the Chapter Secretariat, be it early morning or late in the evening, and you will find Mary Hinde (ENW), Sandra Mc Sheaffrey (IRS), Françoise Greffe (FRA) or Sandra Bossio (Lay secretary from the Mother House) sitting in front of their computers!

The capitulants show their interest by asking, « What do you do? »

We translate timetables, conferences, power points, group papers, interventions, the Assembly Summaries, everything in the three languages – English, French, Spanish. We print out everything required by the facilitators, the interpreters, the capitulants, the groups, the Coordination Commission (CoCo), not forgetting the Archives! Thus we are fairly up to date with the content of the work.

What can we say about the life of the Chapter? “Spirituality and Dialogue of Cultures is not just words, an aspiration, it truly describes what is going on in the house, and it can be seen in everyday life: multitude of languages, mentalities, great variety of cultural expression in the liturgies, presentations of work, decorations.

One can sense an atmosphere of sharing, of serious work and discernment, all issuing from a foundation of prayer and contemplation that was established in the early days. At mealtimes there is also a lot of laughter!

Sometimes we are snowed under, sometimes the pace is a lot calmer, but we don’t mind; we know that we are contributing very happily to this great event, even if we are sometimes put to the pin of our collar while they are waiting to take the papers from our hands!