Over the last few months we’ve been playing around trying to plan a schedule for next academic year, especially in terms of big events and volunteer meetings. How do you plan your youth work diary, and how early in advance do you work?
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Hey Chris,
As I spend more time in ministry, the more I realize the need for planning events well in advance.
The biggest factor is PARENTS, I’ve found. If parents are aware of a trip as soon as possible, the less likely a vacation will be scheduled to conflict with the trip.
Some camps/retreat centers book a year in advance and fill up fast, so sometimes booking that far ahead is required.
During the school year, this gives kids a chance to prepare for it, tell their friends, and you can better plan your advertising for events.
I also think being able to plan some sort of follow-up youth group night is important. For example, we’re going to do an urban mission trip in the fall that will expose my kids to the poverty in downtown LA. A few lessons to follow up that experience will help that experience sink in.
I’m planning all of next academic year’s calendar (2009-2010) so that I can give the parents in my church the calendar on the first youth group of the school year, including dates for summer trips NEXT summer.
Thanks Nick, great comment. Young people are so busy these days we have to plan ahead to allow them and their parents to choose us over other activities that get presented to them.
Iv just spent the last week planning long and hard. I am new in my job and thought that the best way to spend Aug is long term planning then developing an annual. Thinking about vision/purpose all that jazz has really helped me get my head around a big church youth ministry. An example has been rethinking through the friday night project that seems to have been loosing its direction so after talking to volunteer and YPs we have now signed up to YFCs Rock Solid (http://www.yfc.co.uk/resources/rocksolid). This seems to have started to get some new buzz about Fridays going.