Annual meeting of the RSGA

The annual meeting for all those working as managers and staff at the administrative offices of the 8 schools forming the Jesuit Education Network was held in Milan on Tuesday 31 January. Around 20 people attended the meeting, including staff from schools in Malta and Albania. The meeting, organised by the Foundation, was chaired by the President, Fr. Claudio Baretta SJ, Director Guido Bigotto and Alessia Fontana from the General Secretariat department.

The morning session was dedicated to the annual presentation of the network’s budgets, aggregated and analysed with regard to various specific aspects. In addition, each school presented to the assembly the individual challenges and obstacles it faces in terms of administration. The discussion then focused on the subject of discounts applied in different ways on the fee-paying system by each institute, developing a working draft for a collective network procedure that would subsequently be shared with the General Managers.

After lunch, the group went to the San Fedele church (the Jesuit church in the historic centre of Milan) for a special session of Jesuit instruction led by Father Guido Ruta SJ, who took the assembly on a highly engaging and participative tour of the church, in the style of ‘Pietre Vive’ (‘Living Stones’).

As one of the General and Administrative Services Managers reported at the end of the meeting, “Today has been a wonderful opportunity for us to share and exchange ideas. We have been able to work together, pooling our combined experiences and professionalism, but also voicing any doubts and concerns we may have had. As always, the entire meeting was conducted with the constructive approach and collaborative appraisal that is typical of the Jesuit Education Foundation. Our day culminated in a wonderful afternoon of training, during which we were able to gain invaluable insight into the role of our lay collaborators and their personal development in terms of the day-to-day work carried out in the service of the schools for the Jesuit Colleges network”.