Download - UCAN Annual Report
Annual Report 2010
Annual Report 2010
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Front Cover: Sacred Heart Cathedral. Photo courtesy of the Liaoning Diocese
Table of Contents Page: Photograph sourced from UCAN Photo Service (UPS)
Page 5: Photograph sourced from UPS
Page 6 Purpose: Photograph sourced from UPS
Page 6 Vision: Quezon City Philippines. Photo by Dondi Tawatao
Page 6: Photographs sourced from UPS
Page 7: Photo courtesy of the Society of Jesus
Page 7, 8, 9, 10, and 14: Photographs sourced from UPS
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Table of Contents Chairperson’s Foreword ..................... 4
Purpose................................................ 6
Our Vision ............................................ 6
About Us .............................................. 6
Our Focus ........................................ 6
Our Values ........................................ 7
What We Do ........................................ 7
Our People ........................................... 8
Our Training ......................................... 8
Our Context ......................................... 8
Our Communications .......................... 9
Our Clients ......................................... 10
Our Impact ........................................ 10
Our Board ........................................... 11
Our Funding Partners ........................ 11
Our Systems and Processes............... 12
Our Management Team..................... 12
How We Distribute Our Money ......... 12
Where We Get Our Money ............... 13
What’s Ahead .................................... 14
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Chairperson’s Foreword The year, 2010, has been an energetic one for UCA News. We stand indebted to the pioneers Frs.
Bob Astorino and Ron Saucci who created and developed UCA News from a big idea in a small
Hong Kong office in 1979 to what it has become – a unique resource for the Catholic Church in
Asia.
We now have staff and offices across the length and breadth of Asia. Our 55 full time staff and
200 part-time “stringers” produce between 80 and 100 stories a week. We have a graced
opportunity to give voice to the experience of God’s work through the Church across our
populous and varied Continent.
But we also face challenges. How can these challenges be met in an efficient and effective way?
How can we deploy our limited resources to maximum effect? How can we face the huge
opportunity and threat that the transformation of communications represents in our region and
across the world?
This report details how the Board, executives, staff and part-time reporters are meeting these
challenges in a digital, multimedia age.
The Process of Change
The recently Beatified John Henry Cardinal Newman is famous for observing that to live is to
change and that to live long is to change often. Change is as inevitable as it is relentless in its
demands. To meet its challenges, UCA News needs to change administratively, in the skills
developed among staff, and in how it prepares and produces its products.
Change Management has been introduced and controlled through two means. Firstly with
assistance from a benefactor, UCA News has engaged the services of a qualified and experienced
manager to restructure Financial Management, Human Resources (training, contracts and job
descriptions) and ICT Infrastructure. Secondly, through the support of Missio Aachen and the
Italian Bishops, the UCAN Institute has developed beyond its historical roles as a training house
for reporters to one that is training audio and audiovisual reporters and editors.
Highlights of 2010
UCA News has commenced a three year program to re-equip all units in UCA News with adequate
ICT hardware to support their work. We have become a multimedia (voice and vision) news and
information provider. Our web traffic has trebled with our main site (www.ucanews.com) having
leapt 50,000 places in the last four months to rank in the top 230,000 websites for traffic in the
world. There are only three Catholic websites that rate above us.
Things Still to Complete
Nine months ago a decision was taken to enhance the marketing capability for UCAN so that the
organisation could realise its full potential. An operating framework and sound processes have
been introduced and the next phase will be to appoint a full time marketing director to carry this
forward, which is now underway.
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Although we had redesigned the website it still presented challenges for our editors and so
further redesign was required. This is currently underway and should produce results by
February 2011.
The changes to our financial management and processes have come up against some hurdles
with its re-organisation. We continue to work to address this matter and as we approach the end
of 2010 we are able to reflect on the great improvements we have seen.
Chainarong Monthienvichienchai
Chair of UCA News Board
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Purpose
UCAN exists to report and share news and information from, about and
of interest to the Catholic Church in Asia. We currently have operations
in 22 countries and employ 55 personnel, including editors, sub editors,
IT technicians, marketing, administration and general management.
Our Vision We aim to be a trusted and up-to-date observer,
reporter and commentator - informing and
engaging people interested in issues that impact
the Church as well as issues which are impacted
by the Church in Asia. We seek to provide a voice
for the Church in Asia - its struggles, triumphs and
disappointments from the people vitally and
directly involved.
About Us www.ucanews.com is our main website which publishes news and information from, about and
of interest to the Catholic Church in Asia. We have six daily or weekly newsletters in four
languages that include both original and aggregated content. This news is reprinted and used
around Asia and across the world in publications and broadcasts to tell the story of the Church
in Asia.
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Our Focus
To be a News and Information Bureau which is:
� A modern, independent and accurate news service for the Church � An aggregated source of relevant stories published by others for the Church � A publisher of targeted country and language specific newsletters and information
services for the Church
Our Values
� Independent � Objective � Respectful � Humane
What We Do UCA News is a daily newsletter that distributes a summary of the major news and information
from, about and of interest to the Catholic Church in Asia. It is made up of entirely original
material.
CathNews websites are local, country-specific services which publish a summary of the major
news and information from, about and of interest to the Catholic Church in that country. They
are sourced from ucanews.com as well as local UCA News reporting and aggregated resources.
The websites and newsletters are in four languages – English, Chinese, Korean and Bahasa
Indonesia. A Vietnamese translation service is also available through the main website.
UCAN provides a unique opportunity in Asia and in the wider world for
the creation and sharing of news, opinion, analysis and discussion about
what the Church is doing on important issues in Asian locations
� UCAN creates, aggregates and distributes across and beyond Asia information on
the Asian experiences and ideas of Catholics
UCAN provides independent, objective and accurate reporting about issues of interest to
Catholics and the Catholic Church across Asia and around the world
� UCAN enables fast, locally sourced reporting of critical issues from
200 reporters across 22 countries
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Our People UCA News has 55 full-time staff and consultants with up to 200 reporters working on a part-time
basis across 22 countries. We have 12 offices, with some covering several countries or regions.
Our people are our greatest asset. Their skills are in the areas of:
� Reporting: text, audio, audiovisual
� Editing: text, audio, audiovisual
� Administration: finance, legal accountabilities
� Human Resources: induction, training, job description, accountabilities,
performance review
� IT: network and site management, database maintenance
Our Training The UCAN Institute is the multipurpose education resource that supplies:
� Induction
� Reporter training
� Supervision of editing
� Skill development in photography, audio
and audiovisual interviewing, editing,
reporting
� Preparation for writing and editing for the
web
� Basic and advanced English language
training
� Theology and mission in Church communications
� Business management and business development training
Our Context Asia is the growth hub of world economics and home to the two emerging giants – China and
India. But all its changes are not just measured by economic growth indicators.
Technology is having an impact across the board, most
obviously in education, business and communications.
But all those changes have a cumulative impact on
culture and it is the cultures of Asian societies where
the Church and its message witness impact.
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All of this change is especially important for a service such as UCA News. Though the reach is
uneven, all societies in our region, with the
exception of a couple with oppressive
dictatorships, have significant and growing
technology infrastructures. For UCA News, this
means the present and future of our work is on the
internet and ICT.
But the context is varied. In most Asian societies,
the Church is a minority. ICT availability and
internet penetration has the highest and lowest
levels on a world scale.
Each society has its own language, often script and communications protocols which make a
“one size fits all” solution inadequate and, in the long term, irrelevant.
Our Communications www.cathnewschina.com
www.cathnewskorea.com
www.cathnewsphil.com
www.cathnewsindia.com
www.cathnewsindonesia.com
www.cathnewsasia.com
These publications cover locally relevant news:
� Share news of the Church elsewhere which is relevant
or of interest locally
� Enable content to be sensitive to local church
community
� Reflect the life of Catholics living in a particular
country with its unique culture, religion, language,
political or social situation
� Able to publish in local languages:
o Chinese (simple & traditional)
o Korean
o Indonesian
o Vietnamese
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Our Clients Indian Catholic Youth Movement - offers an online
environment for Catholic youth in India. This provides news
services, social networking and mobile applications. The key
objective of this site is to improve the strength, identity and
cohesiveness of Indian Catholic Youth Movement (ICYM) and to
facilitate interaction among members and key stakeholders.
ICYM has a membership of up to 1,000,000.
http://youthactiv8.org/
CRIB is a website and weekly newsletter which creates and
distributes Indian and Asian religious news, features, interviews
and opinions for the 125,000 Catholic Religious of India.
http://www.religiousindia.org/
ESSC - is a Jesuit research institute that promotes environmental sustainability and social justice
through the integration of scientific methodologies and social processes.
http://www.essc.org.ph/
Our Impact In 2009/10, UCA News has for the first time begun to track traffic to our sites and our ranking
relative to other sites on the web – both generally and among Catholic sites.
During 2010, according to the records of Google Analytics, traffic to our sites has trebled – from
50,000 visitors per month and 70,000 page impressions a year ago to a current monthly traffic
of more than 150,000 visitors per month and 240,000 page impressions.
Our premier site www.ucanews.com, has leapt 60,000 other sites from ranking 290,000th to
under 230,000th among sites whose traffic is compared. This rating system compares traffic
among 10 million sites in competition. There are only a few Catholic sites with higher ratings –
Zenit, Catholic News Service (USA) and the Irish Jesuit prayer site, Sacred Space.
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Our Board
Chainarong Monthienvichienchai (Chair) (Thailand)
Fr. Guillaume Arotcarena MEP (France)
Peter Monthienvichienchai (Thailand)
Virginia Saldanha (India)
Wong Wai Fong (China)
Yoshio Oyanagi (Japan)
Fr. Jose Aramburu MM (USA)
Our Funding Partners
PONTIFICIUM OPUS A PROPAGATIONE FIDEI
Città del Vaticano
ERZBISTUM KÖLN
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Our Systems and Processes UCA News operates in 12 jurisdictions and makes transactions in up to 20 currencies. To manage
this, an array of supports has been put in place over the last 15 months.
Incorporation
UCA News has only ever been incorporated in one jurisdiction and registered in another. To
meet with tax, insurance, employment and health and safety regulations where it operates,
UCA News is now legally incorporated in five jurisdictions and is fully compliant with laws in all
places where it operates.
Human Resources
As of 2010, all full-time staff and contractors have job descriptions and contracts. All have Key
Performance Indicators and are assessed annually.
Financial Reporting
In 2010, and for the first time, UCA News accounts are fully managed by an accounts package
(MYOB) and, again for the first time, management have access to monthly reports across our
work.
Our Management Team
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How We Distribute Our Money
Where We Get Our Money
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What’s Ahead Partnerships provide enormous opportunities for UCA News to realise its mission in a world of
convergent media. They occasion three particular areas of partnership:
� With Radio Veritas and other Church media producers in Asia: to develop a
multimedia, multilingual and multi channel web platform. Triggered by a concern of
European funding agencies about the declining relevance of short wave
broadcasting as an audio channel and the fragmented nature of much media
production funded by them in the region, UCA News and Radio Veritas Asia have
signed a Heads of Agreement to create a concept paper describing a potential way
forward. This will be circulated to stakeholders after consultation with them; a
business case to support the desired solution will follow.
� With the Jesuits: UCA News is very proficient at writing and reporting news and
features. We are weak in the areas of comment and analysis of issues and contexts.
This is largely due to the type of writer and reporter we employ. Our base needs to
widen and our News Editor and others are working on it. But we also need the
engagement of other parties that can take us to networks where effective and
opinionated writers and commentators can be found. One place is the Jesuits of
whom there are 6,000 in Asia.
This exploration, and a way to fund the product which emerges from the
exploration, is well underway and will become the main focus of two workshops
that are to occur in the first quarter of 2011.
� In Vietnam: UCA News has a Vietnamese language service which consists of 10 to 12
UCA News stories translated into Vietnamese and posted on our site every week.
This produces excellent traffic to our site with several thousand visitors a month
from Vietnam.
In Ho Chi Minh City, there have been
meetings with the Director of the
Archdiocesan Social Communications
Office. He sought our help in
developing a Vietnamese script site and
newsletter. This will require some
training of local editors in Vietnam and
the development of a site and
newsletters. We will make progress on
this project in the first quarter of 2011.
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Back Cover: Photograph – India courtesy of Michael Coyne
UCA News Bangkok Head Office P.O. Box 40, Ratchatewi Post Office, 10401 THAILAND Telephone: (66) 2954 9311