June 17, 2015

By Deacon Kevin Mastellon
Staff Writer

Watertown  - Parish secretaries, business managers, pastoral associates and some volunteers from a dozen parishes in the Diocese gathered in Watertown June 3 and 4 for day-long workshops on the use of Church Office.
Church Office is computer software from ACS Technologies.  The software provides parishes with an easily accessed data file on families and the members of families individually.  It also has modules for tracking contributions, sacramental history and personnel.

Beth McCabe, a trainer from Parish Data System's Church Office in Colorado provided the training.

The workshop was organized as a next step in the Diocesan-wide census project.  Once cards have been returned parish staff and volunteers face the task of transferring the data collected to their computerized data base.

A majority of parishes in the Diocese now use Church Office. 

The costs for the workshops were principally borne by the participating parishes.  Additional funding was provided by the sponsor parishes; St. Patrick's and St. Anthony's in Watertown and St. Mary's in Clayton. 
Kathleen Mastellon from St. Patrick's was the event planner.