Analysis of the Ignatian Day

Chanda has done a great job in tabling the feedback from the Ignatian Day and WLT.  We are still waiting for the Cape Town WLT forms before we can have a complete picture of that, but in the meantime here are some headlines from the Ignatian Day.  This is helpful both in reflecting on the day and who came but also in thinking about how we use this event (or a version of it) in the future. 

We had c. 110 people present of whom 75 completed forms so that is reasonably good sample.

Overall 72% of respondents were Female and this skew was relatively consistent across all age groups.  The age split was as might have expected: 3% under 30, 20% 30-45, 35% 46-60 and 43% 60+. 

As we might have expected, the majority were Catholic: but only just: 56%.  A further 16% ticked Anglican and 7% Methodist and a surprising 21% ‘Other’ or ‘blank’.  This suggests that denomination may not be a strong identifier for this group (especially since it was the 30-45 year olds who were disproportionately likely to tick ‘Other’).  Denomination did not vary significantly by Gender, except that the Anglican group was even more Female than on average. 

Very few (only about 12) were new to our database which means that they are (as we would expect) people with whom we are already engaged one way or another. 

63% were lay, 25% religious and 6% clergy (1 Anglican priest, 1 Methodist and 2 Catholic though these were probably Jesuits!).  5% left this blank.

We were interested to know the degree to which respondents were involved in their own parish life.  20% said ‘very involved’, 35% ‘quite involved’ and 33% ‘not very involved’.  Interestingly, the Catholics were much less likely to be involved than the Methodists or Anglicans.  This might be because the kind of Catholics who come are more likely to be general pew sitters rather than just the really committed (unlike the Anglicans and Methodists we deal with).  Or that the kind of Catholics we attract are ones who are looking for something new because they are unhappy with what their parishes offer.  Or a bit of both. 

Internet usage was very positive: 77% being daily users and a further 9% weekly.  Curiously, the 30-45 age group was much more skewed to weekly rather than daily usage but those 46-60 and 60+ were as high as the average.  (There was no Gender skew on Internet usage).  While the Ignatian Day group is not representative of our overall target audience, it is representative of our core committed supporters and so the Internet usage figures are reassuring given how much of our outreach is dependent on use of the net. 

A number of questions were asked with a scale of 0 to 5 (with 5 as the most positive).  The results of these are summarised below with a comment if there was any significant difference by gender, age or denomination (where the numbers are big enough to be representative).  The most important thing to notice is how very rarely anyone gave marks of 0, 1 or 2. 

To what extent were your hopes for the day met?: Of those who replied: 5: 23%, 4: 48%, 3: 23%, 2/1/0: 7% (but note that only 59% replied).  Satisfaction was especially high among the 46-60 group and the Anglicans. 

Location of venuewas 4 or 5 for 78% and Quality of Venue was 4 or 5 for 88% (very little difference by demographic).

The Main Speaker rated 5 by 71% of people and 4 by a further 20%.  Ratings were generally higher for women and for Catholics; there was no particular skew by age.  Relevance of talks was also high but not as high (80% rating 5 or 4 with more 5s than 4s), again with better ratings from women than from men. 

Meditationsand Small group work both scored well overall (84% rating 5 or 4 for Meditations and 71% rating 5 or 4 for Small group work).  But for both of these there were more 4s than 5s and significantly higher ratings from people below 60 and from non-Catholics.  There was no gender difference. 

The Review of the Year curiously was not rated at all by 37% of people.  But of those who did rate it, 100% gave it a 4 or 5.  Again the highest ratings were given by the younger groups and the non-Catholics. 

We were also interested to know which other of the Jesuit Institute’s activities, the attendees were familiar with.  28% had visited the Website (though this went up to 50% among people aged under 45 and also among men).  40% are reading the Monthly Newsletter (though this dropped to 35% among those 60+), 5% are involved in the School of Theology (all of them Catholics), 13% had attended some part of Winter Living Theology (not all of them Catholics and highest in the 46-60 age band), and 35% had attended Other Lectures from the Jesuit Institute (though this was lowest in the 46-60 age band and significantly higher among non-Catholics).

20% had been on a Residential Retreat (though only 14% of the Catholics) and 21% a Week of Guided Prayer (or similar) (and again only 14% of the Catholics).  On these 2 areas there was no particular difference between men and women but the attendance was highest among the 46-60 year old group.  33% had attended some sort of Spirituality Training (Prayer Guide Training, Spiritual Directors Training or Ngi hamba neNkosi).  Again this was higher among the non-Catholics and among the 46-60 group.  For this there was also a skew towards women.