fter a two-day marathon session, CFA’s management team recently completed its 5-year strategic planning for the Foundation.  Over the weekend of December 9-10, CFA updated its previous medium-term plans and laid out new strategic plans for 2008-12.

Discussions on the outcome of the initial medium-term plan (2005-2008) took place on the first day, as well as a review of the departmental clusters’ performance during the past year, including an analysis of accomplishments and failures, strengths and areas of concern. It was agreed that there has been remarkable achievement in the development and funding of projects, upgrading of facilities and equipment and improvement of information-sharing and networking with churches, media and educational sectors. CFA has effectively increased its productivity with less people.

Fr. Francis Lucas, president of Catholic Media Network, gave useful insights as part of his environmental scan to help the planning process. The synthesis and discussion focused on the three priority themes of CFA: citizenship education, poverty alleviation, and environmental protection.

Among the more general goals set were the boosting of CFA’s outreach to Asia, the production of new publications, TV series, full-length films and catechetical materials, and the expansion of training activities and networking. Each of the three CFA clusters came up with their strategic plans for the next year and the next five years.

Present at the meeting were CFA executives and members of the Operations Committee (OPCOM) namely: Fr. Filoteo Pelingon (CFA President), Terry Hermano (Executive Director), Noel de Leon (Electronic Media/Training/Catechetical Resources Director), Cora Despabiladeras (Print Media and Sales Director), Lolit Serrano (Administration Department Head), Paul Sedillo (Finance Head), Evelyn Alinea (Catechetical Resource Center Head), Rocks Sumera (Sales Head), Nick Melgar (Publications Head), Bob Lopez (Training Department Head), Antonio Abel (CFA’s new Chief Accountant), and Fr. Stephen Cuyos (Electronic Media Production Supervisor).