volunteers Archives - Page 4 of 6

Volunteer Training Idea: Tailgate Party!

09/10/201409/10/2014 Kathie Phillips 2 Comments

We’re almost half way through September and it has been a very busy time for us! I’m sure you can relate. The month of August found us finishing out the summer and prepping for fall – updating our volunteer handbooks, recruiting leaders and planning for our volunteer training.

At the beginning of August, we met as a staff team to brainstorm ideas for our volunteer training. First, I wanted us to call it something other than ‘training’. No one wants to come to a ‘training’. I wanted us to go with a themed ‘training’. After about 45 minutes of idea swapping/brainstorming, we landed on a tailgate theme. With that decision, we were off and running, gathering ideas (thank you Pinterest!), purchasing decorations, designing and sending invitations, reserving rooms, drawing diagrams of room set-ups, selecting a menu and all of the other important details that go into pulling off a themed party successfully.

Here’s a little peek into the planning & execution of our tailgate party:

Purpose: The purpose of the event was to serve as a re-purposed volunteer training that would be infused with food, fun, prizes, inspiration and information to get our volunteers ready and excited about the new ministry year.

Planning: The event was divided into 5 areas of planning:

Food
Decor
Games & Prizes
Inspiration
Information

Each area of planning was delegated to one of our children’s ministry staff members. Each person ‘owned’ their area, so it made implementing rather simple. Here are some specifics and photos from each area:

Food: We selected a tailgate-inspired menu of foot long sub sandwiches (including veggie ones for our vegan/healthy eating friends), potato chips, pretzels (I found football-shaped ones!), popcorn, cookies, lemonade, water, and fresh fruit (for a healthy dessert option).

Sandwiches - lots of sandwiches! — Sandwiches – lots of sandwiches!

Decor: We wanted the environment to be fun and festive, and I think we achieved that! We chose to go with a sports theme but we selected bright, vibrant colors to make the room come alive. The colors chosen are colors used throughout our ministry rooms.

Table centerpieces: sand buckets, pom poms, balls, and foam pennants with the names of each ministry area.

We didn't forget about the cars - it was a tailgate after all! — We didn’t forget about the cars – it was a tailgate after all! Here, volunteers picked up their raffle tickets before heading inside.

We had volunteers pick up and decorate their name tags here.

Games & Prizes: We set up a prize table in a corner of the room – we chose sports-themed prizes (general items as well as items from our local professional football and baseball teams) as well as boxed candies. We did raffles throughout the evening to give away all of the fun prizes.

Inspiration: In July, our church did a parenting series that focused on passing faith on to the next generation. During that series, our Family Ministry Pastor preached a sermon that talked a lot about mentoring and the long-term impact of passing faith on to the next generation. I thought that some of her points were appropriate for our event, so I invited her to come and share a few highlights from that sermon. It was a perfect tie in! The intention here was to inspire our volunteer and help them see our vision and the role they played to help us move toward that vision.

Information: Since our event was a training, we needed to make sure that our volunteers received the information that they needed to equip them for the upcoming year. We had some changes in safety policies and procedures and some tweaks in our curriculum, so we broke up into age-level groups for the last hour of our time together. We invited our key leaders (or Team Captains) to lead this portion of the evening. Each area of our ministry (Nursery – Infants; Nursery – Toddlers; Preschool; Younger Elementary; Preteens) went to different areas of the building and received information targeted to them. During this time, we wanted to focus on practical tips that they would find useful.

Our elementary, preteen and welcome center handbooks

Overall, I was very pleased with the evening and based on feedback from volunteers, they seemed to be as well. Here are a few of things they said:

“My congratulations to the detail oriented person(s) who planned and implemented the meeting / party last night. I used to work at a retirement community, and one of the things I did there was help plan themed parties. So, I noticed (and enjoyed) all of the details last night, from the centerpieces to the background music! 🙂 Oh, and thanks for the box of M&Ms, too. :)”

“This was awesome!”

“Please do something like this again!”

“Last night was fun, informative and inspiring.…….”

Training your volunteers is necessary but no one said that training has to be boring. Brainstorm ideas with your team and see what you can come up with – and then share them with me…I’m always looking for new ideas! 🙂

Keep the conversation going! What creative themes have you used to make volunteer training fun for your volunteers? Leave a comment below!

VBS Volunteer Training – Covering the Basics

06/20/201406/20/2014 Kathie Phillips 2 Comments

Like many of my kidmin friends, we are busy preparing for this year’s VBS, which is taking place mid-July. One of the key areas that we address is volunteer training.

Last night, we held our first of two trainings for our VBS volunteers. As Director, I lead our trainings, which are usually 90 minutes in length, by using the following outline:

Welcome: I introduce myself, welcome everyone and thank them for giving of their time and talent to help children learn more about the God who made and loves them. I open our time together with a word of prayer.

Brief curriculum overview: I give a general overview about the main Bible person we’ll talk about during the week and share what the children will experience through worship, crafts, drama, games, and snacks. This year, I showed the “Day at Wilderness Escape VBS” video to give them an even better idea of what the week would look like. I think that doing this fires up veteran volunteers as well as rookies, who have likely never seen a Holy Land VBS in action before.

Event details: I reiterate dates/information for:

Week of VBS
Times
Times volunteers should arrive
Set-up & take-down
Celebration Service (our end-of-week family worship service – this year we’re moving it from Sunday to Friday night and following up with a picnic for volunteers, campers and their families to connect)
T-shirt Sunday (the day that all VBS volunteers where their camp shirt and are prayed for at all morning services)

Safety Priorities: We cover 4 main areas for safety:

Background checks (required for all volunteers ages 18 & older)
Sexual abuse prevention (appropriate and inappropriate touch)
Restroom policy
Drop-off & pick-up procedures

We also cover other safety precautions (such as evacuating the building, first aid, etc) in the individual area breakout groups.

Dress Code: We give simple guidelines for teens & adults, as we want to make sure that ALL of our volunteers are appropriate covered.

Q & A: A time for volunteers to ask questions about anything they need clarity about.

Overview of ways to serve: Some of our volunteers do not indicate a preference on where they’d like to serve, so I give brief overviews of each area.

Wrap Up: I again thank everyone for coming and for signing up to serve with us. I encourage them in how their service will impact children and families as well as impact them personally. I close in prayer and then send everyone off to meet with their prospective groups (crafts, family leaders & assistants, games, preschool, etc.)

Setting the environment is also something we give some thought to in advance. We:

Reserve rooms for the training
Submit work orders for room set-up
Email reminders to volunteers about the training dates, times and locations
Purchase food & drinks
Make necessary copies of manuals, volunteer spreadsheets, background check authorization forms, etc.
Set out name tags, markers and pens
Play camp music as volunteers arrive
Create/select media elements we’ll use
Do sound check for sound equipment
Distribute t-shirts

Of course, I also touch bases with our leadership team (via email or text) with last-minute information ahead of time. I also send a ‘thank you’ text to the team after the training to thank everyone for all they did to make the event a success.

Before our last training, I get input from the team by asking them what areas we need to cover at the last training that might have gotten overlooked at the first one. Based on their responses (or my own thoughts), I tweak my talking points and make sure we’re all ready to go for Round 2!

How do you prepare for your VBS volunteer training? I’m always on the lookout for new, creative ideas, so share your ideas below!

Mother’s Day

05/13/201405/13/2014 Kathie Phillips

This past Mother’s Day was special for so many reasons. Here are a few highlights:

The morning began with a handmade photo collage given to me by my daughter, Kennedy. The collage was a mix of pictures of her as a baby and as a teen; many of the pictures were of the two of us. It is one of the most precious gifts I’ve ever received. My son, Daniel, gave me a Starbucks gift card. He really knows how to speak my language (hint, hint).

Once we arrived at church, we did last-minute prep for the busy morning ahead. Because there were six (6) children being baptized, we presented each child with a handmade prayer shawl (I’ll share the back story on this in another post – it’s a really cool story!) In addition, we had our elementary children join us in the Worship Center during the baptisms. Not only did they witness the baptisms, they were able to accept the charge given by our Senior Pastor to be a good example to the children being baptized and doing their best to help them know and follow Jesus. It was such a special thing to have the children join us for this special milestone event.

I should also mention that our Senior Pastor’s sermon talked about the importance of Children’s Ministry in our church and following through on the commitment during baptisms and dedications to help parents raise their children to know and love God. It was a very compelling sermon, encouraging people to get involved and serve in Children’s Ministry. While Pastor John was speaking, photos scrolled through on the screens of our volunteers and ministry in action. It all tied in together so beautifully. We were even blessed to meet people moved by the Pastor’s words who signed up to serve in our ministry!

Also, we had a mini recruiting campaign that asked for a few good men to sign up to serve in our ministry as a Mother’s Day gift to the moms. Well, we wanted to give a small token of appreciation to the men who signed up. Here’s a pic of what we offered them:

We filled a plastic tumbler with individually-wrapped Lifesavers candies and then tied on a gift tag with curling ribbon. A simple gift that all of the men appreciated – some even cracked it open before leaving the building!

After such a wonderful day at church, our family gathered together and enjoyed good food, fun (including games with a cash prize!) and fellowship – and a few gifts.

Overall, it was a great Mother’s Day from beginning to end. I’m so thankful.

How did you spend your Mother’s Day?