regnumchristi.ph

by Buding Aquino-Dee

REGNUMCHRISTI.PH
by Buding Aquino-Dee

Regnum Christi has existed in the country for 20 years. There was no real need for a website until the pandemic hit and everything went online. Carving out a home on the web became a possibility and necessity that presented itself. Sure, we could just make-do with our existing social media pages — they will work just fine. But there was something about coming together to create a website that was uniquely ours. A website that would be conceived from a current, collective vision…a website that would be mounted as the first major project of the newly installed Communications office. Given the green light and full support from our local director, Fr. Andre LaSana, the mission of creating regnumchristi.ph began.

October 5th, 2020 was the first meeting we had with Charisse Rubio, a long time Regnum Christi member from Ohio Valley. She had been overseeing various websites of the North American Territory and was truly instrumental in helping us get started in the right direction. Her generosity and experience was limitless. We met during our daytime, while she stayed up late at night.

"This website was to be a gift to the RC community. Would we be able to do it in a couple of months? Enter, the talented team of volunteers who I had the distinct pleasure of working with."

Our target date was December 25th, Christmas day. This website was to be a gift to the RC community. Would we be able to do it in a couple of months? Enter, the talented team of volunteers who I had the distinct pleasure of working with.

Here’s what I recall as my highlights and key lessons:

Under the leadership of Monse del Rosario, we devised a carefully managed working schedule to follow. It was a huge undertaking. It was quite daunting, even. But I learned that supported by the right structure and strategies, nothing was impossible.
A beautifully crafted Welcome Video was ambitious (we were on lockdown, after all) but we were dreaming big! And with the script by Kitchie Pingol and the video produced by Justin Bichara, we just needed to gather the cast who will be the voices and faces of our locality. The process was wonderful. Shooting day was fun (and safe) and the final output was something we were all very happy with. It is a joy to share and express who you are!
For launch day, we had another team (Pau Piedad and Marga Medrana) to create a 12 Day countdown campaign. They even got Fr. Eric Nielsen to be part of it. Roots and wings! It was great to look to our past in preparation for celebrating the present and future.
The website content needed to be thought-out mindfully and for that we looked to Beverly Dalton who has a background in publishing. The task of creating themes and collating profiles, stories and writing articles fell on this team. Planning takes time and to have a platform to develop our voice is a blessing.
The Social Media team with Annina Nakpil, Pia Pascua and Melanie Lara were tapped to contribute design wise. The Comm Coordinators also did their share of building up the website with content from their respective sections. Collaboration was key. Where the Holy Spirit dwells, unity exists.

More highlights:

A generous donor sponsored our domain name and hosting. We were able to showcase wonderful writers whose articles even got picked up by the Territory. The website is a hub for past recollections and preachings that members have requested to watch over and over again. Also, the bulletins have increased awareness of locality and territory leadership. All is grace.

The whole time, we felt led and supported by no less than the Holy Spirit. The website gave us experiences that eventually made us grow in confidence. As time goes by, I just know that there will be more clarity and concrete progress. This Website project is a glimpse of greater things to come. We have only scratched the surface in terms of making use of it.

For now, I leave you with some teasers. Watch out for Lena Lumen (pseudonym) — a series of articles that will soon be released via the website. We are also working very hard to make the Events calendar user friendly for the Sections. We will also be uploading more tools and pages that will bring us closer together as a Spiritual family. Stay tuned!

About the Author

Buding Aquino-Dee is the Director of the Regnum Christi Philippines Communications Office. As a pioneer member of the Regnum Christi Women's section, Buding has helped launch various apostolates in the country such as RC Familia, Family Missions and Pilgrim Queen, just to name a few.