Western Plains District

Communications Vision Fulfillment Team (VFT) Meeting
September 21, 2013
Western Plains District Transformation Vision Team Retreat
Community Church of the Brethren, Hutchinson, Kansas 

 Present: Bruce Clary (Chair), Kendra Flory (Staff Rep), Eric Goering, Ryan Goering, Peter Samland (by Google Hangout)

After a year of dormancy, the Communications Team met to process conversation and suggestions from the larger TVT group and figure out first steps as this new team…

Website Training

While some on TVT have been trained to post on the new website, Ann Stover (TVT chair) suggested that it would be a good idea to redo the training for everyone. She would like the training to be complete by the end of the year. It will be expected that team chairs will make monthly posts about what’s going on in their different areas. Ann will make monthly calls to all team chairs to make sure they have posted. It was discussed in this meeting as well as the larger TVT group that as leadership, we have to make use of the website and technology on a regular basis if we want the website to be used by others.

Ideas discussed for making the training available:

• Screen-grab videos
• Screen-capture in a PDF with text
• One-on-one  screen sharing
• Team viewer and phone call
• Blog posts and call

It was noted that there are different learning styles, but video might be the easiest way to start.

Video Discussion: Eric said he can do video editing. Applications suggested: Screener; Jing; SnapsXpro (video capture). It was suggested we do separate episodes for different lessons. Communications Team will need its own tutorial to start, so that answering the questions of team chairs is consistent. [Did we talk about when/how this might happen?]

Website Access: Peter will create website accounts for the team (Kendra already has one). Ryan and Eric will then set up log-in credentials for the TVT team chairs. [Kendra will be sending out a TVT member list soon, for reference.]

Congregations need help with technology (i.e. training)

We are hearing from TVT that they want Communications to help congregations with technology.

I think we realized this topic is a bit complicated. Different congregations have different needs and different abilities and resources for using technology. (i.e. Maple Grove is a tiny church that is disconnected from the District in some ways. We do not have an email address or even a phone number for them. Personal contact is one things that is needed to help reconnect with this community.) We would need to know what each congregation would want to accomplish with technology. If a congregation is interested in using particular technologies, such as meeting with others through an internet connection, they would need to know what is required (Internet connection, Google account for Hangout or Skype, etc.

Online Survey: We decided it would be good to survey the TVT/VFT to see how much interest they have (their congregations?) in the use of technology. Questions on the survey might include:

• What should the technology accomplish? ? (Audio conference—phone? Video conference—internet?)
• What do you want the end result to be?
• Survey should include: names, location, congregation
• What equipment/access do they already have? (webcam, Gmail account, internet access)
• What experience do they have? (have you video-chatted before? Are they “connected”? Do they use email often? Others?)

Bruce will work on the survey using Survey Monkey. It gives a nice report and up to 50 responses.

We also had short conversation about the viability of using Facebook. There was no resolution. This might need more conversation at some point as we see where people are at with using technology…?

District Newsletter

Because of the monetary cost of the newsletter, as well as the cost of time for the administrative assistant to put the newsletter together, we will look at ideas for moving the newsletter toward an all electronic format, phasing out of the use of hardcopies that are mailed out by post. Bruce will draft a proposal for the team to look at. This proposal will be presented to TVT for discussion/approval.

Future Meetings

We decided to meet on the third Sunday of each month at 9:00pm (central). Peter sent an invite for our Google calendars. We will meet by Google Hangout (and I suppose those of us in McPherson can meet in person if we choose to).

Respectfully submitted,

Kendra Flory