I started this blog to chronicle the things I do through a year of kid ministry as a volunteer. I haven’t been consistent in posting throughout the year so what better way to kick off a new year than with a post about our first planning meeting. I want to share with you how I organize this type of meeting and share our plans for the coming year.
So where did I start? Do I need to say it?
PRAY
I spent some time in prayer before I even met with the team. I invited them to pray as well.
Next I set the meeting date. I invited team members via a Facebook event on our church page and through a personal message.
Side note: In our church Facebook Event invites and Facebook messenger or text seem to work the best.
This year we scheduled the meeting for lunch after church with everyone bringing a portion of the meal. I decided it would be easier to have tacos so busy leaders didn’t have to cook. I fixed the meat and my friend, the preschool leader fixed the beans and dessert. The rest of the team brought lettuce, salsa, cheese, tortillas etc. We had plenty to go around since most team members had to bring their children too.
Now for setting the agenda; I made a simple chart with the date, event, and person-in-charge columns for each month of the year and printed a year calendar on one page for each leader in attendance. The hand out looked like this:
We started our meeting with prayer and food then when everyone was onto dessert I started the official meeting. We went through each month and event and talked about what had worked before, what didn't work and what we did or didn’t want to do again and made some assignments.
Most of our events are annual events and so it was just a matter of choosing the date and moving on.
Note: We have a few team members notorious for getting bogged down in the details. Keep things moving along. This is not the meeting for details.
However, there was one obstacle we needed to overcome. The children’s department has hosted a Valentine Banquet every year for probably 15 years. It was a fund raiser for our department (we have no budget and so host 2 fund raisers throughout the year). A few of us didn’t want to do it anymore and just weren’t sure how the others would react. To my delight, when we presented our ideas the reaction was great! No one had the “we’ve always done it this way” attitude and all were ready to embrace a new chapter. My friend, the preschool leader and I wanted to do a lock-in instead (also not a very popular event with the leaders) because we would rather spend our time with kids than cooking for adults.
So now our calendar for the year is set. We will have planning meetings as the year goes for each event and we got a few new volunteers to help.
Here are our basic plans for the year:
Jan – planning meeting
Feb –
Mar – Spring Break Lock-In Fund Raiser
Apr – Easter (Family)
May – GF Kids LIVE!, Bake Auction, Summer Bash
June – VBS
July – Independence Day Celebration (Family), Preteen Camp
Aug – Back to School Bash
Sept – Sunday School Promotion
Oct – Light Up the Night Festival and Black Light Show
Nov – Shoebox Packing Party
Dec – Happy Birthday Jesus Party, Family Christmas Event (Family)
I never thought the day would come when people would see such exciting things happening in the children’s department that they would come to me asking to be involved but it is happening and I’m so grateful to God for what He is doing.
Do you plan a year at a time? How do you plan your year? Is it a team effort? Does it come from the Pastor or a committee?
I’d love to see how others plan.
So where did I start? Do I need to say it?
PRAY
I spent some time in prayer before I even met with the team. I invited them to pray as well.
Next I set the meeting date. I invited team members via a Facebook event on our church page and through a personal message.
Side note: In our church Facebook Event invites and Facebook messenger or text seem to work the best.
 |
| The Facebook event photo (It says "pot luck" but we changed it to build your own tacos.) |
This year we scheduled the meeting for lunch after church with everyone bringing a portion of the meal. I decided it would be easier to have tacos so busy leaders didn’t have to cook. I fixed the meat and my friend, the preschool leader fixed the beans and dessert. The rest of the team brought lettuce, salsa, cheese, tortillas etc. We had plenty to go around since most team members had to bring their children too.
Now for setting the agenda; I made a simple chart with the date, event, and person-in-charge columns for each month of the year and printed a year calendar on one page for each leader in attendance. The hand out looked like this:
We started our meeting with prayer and food then when everyone was onto dessert I started the official meeting. We went through each month and event and talked about what had worked before, what didn't work and what we did or didn’t want to do again and made some assignments.
Most of our events are annual events and so it was just a matter of choosing the date and moving on.
Note: We have a few team members notorious for getting bogged down in the details. Keep things moving along. This is not the meeting for details.
However, there was one obstacle we needed to overcome. The children’s department has hosted a Valentine Banquet every year for probably 15 years. It was a fund raiser for our department (we have no budget and so host 2 fund raisers throughout the year). A few of us didn’t want to do it anymore and just weren’t sure how the others would react. To my delight, when we presented our ideas the reaction was great! No one had the “we’ve always done it this way” attitude and all were ready to embrace a new chapter. My friend, the preschool leader and I wanted to do a lock-in instead (also not a very popular event with the leaders) because we would rather spend our time with kids than cooking for adults.
So now our calendar for the year is set. We will have planning meetings as the year goes for each event and we got a few new volunteers to help.
Here are our basic plans for the year:
Jan – planning meeting
Feb –
Mar – Spring Break Lock-In Fund Raiser
Apr – Easter (Family)
May – GF Kids LIVE!, Bake Auction, Summer Bash
June – VBS
July – Independence Day Celebration (Family), Preteen Camp
Aug – Back to School Bash
Sept – Sunday School Promotion
Oct – Light Up the Night Festival and Black Light Show
Nov – Shoebox Packing Party
Dec – Happy Birthday Jesus Party, Family Christmas Event (Family)
I never thought the day would come when people would see such exciting things happening in the children’s department that they would come to me asking to be involved but it is happening and I’m so grateful to God for what He is doing.
Do you plan a year at a time? How do you plan your year? Is it a team effort? Does it come from the Pastor or a committee?
I’d love to see how others plan.
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