August 3-6, 2006 two of us from the synod - Joanne Hamilton from Our Savior's in Rochester and I - attended the ELCA Communicators' Conference in Chicago. This biennial event is a great continuing education opportunity. As congregations look at budgets, consider asking your council to budget for this event in 2008. The cost this year was about $500 (includes hotel, meals and workshops). Thrivent provides some travel scholarships (the whole cost may be covered, depending on how many go). Below are the reasons that Joanne used (successfully!) to persuade her council and her message to you:
1. I brought back a large amount of knowledge of how communications happen between Churchwide to the Synods to the Pews.
2. I also brought back knowledge of how to better use our website, how to use e-mail effectively, how to encourage volunteerism and how to accomplish a communication audit.
3. I also made a wonderful array of contacts for future needs, which I have used.
4. It helped me to get excited about communication.
5. It felt great to be so support by our other communicators. It was truly a great learning experience.
I would strongly suggest that we all attend this conference. You will not disappointed by what you learn and it is fun. Remember to tell your budget committee that is an every other year expense.
Unless you want to torture yourself, you web stewards out there probably use some kind of design software. Adobe, which has an excellent reputation for design programs, produces a program called DreamWeaver.
One good review and overview is available at HoustonBusiness.com. Essentially, though, it does require a little more investment of time and money to use, but those who do make that investment are typically happy with it. If it's like other Adobe products, though, the "Help" feature is probably not so helpful, so investing in another book and/or doing online research would be beneficial.
What do those of you who use DreamWeaver think of it? Do you have any questions you need help with? Joanne from Our Savior's in Rochester wants to know if there is a way to change a link on all pages without having to go to each individual page. Any tips?
I have realized how much I take for granted the fact that so many internet services are free. Why web hosting (where your pages "live") be free too?! Thanks to Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (and various other services), having a web presence CAN be free. Also, make sure if and when you update away from Lutherans Online or decide not to maintain the site, you take your site off. Having people run across an unmaintained site is not a positive image for your church. Any questions about how to use Lutherans Online? Post a comment here or contact me at butler@semnsynod.org, 507-280-9457, or 800-426-6376 (MN only).
Lutherans online is a site maintained by Thrivent that has several free services including classified ads, e-greeting cards, games, genealogy research, recipes, branded merchandise store, and ways to connect with people like chat rooms, message boards, even a singles site. For congregational communicators on a tight budget, the web site service is an excellent opportunity.
The plus side to this service is that it's FREE and it doesn't require any special technological knowledge. The downsides are you don't have your own domain name, the page does show the Lutherans Online borders, and it is not the most intuitive system ever created.
My 2 cents in designing your page - make sure you select a name for your site. This makes you www.lutheransonline.com/yourname instead of a lot of gibberish. When viewing the page, the URL (address) will still show up as gibberish, but you don't have to type that all in.
Hello Communicators!
Hope you have all taken some time in the last week to skim the new Communicators pages on the Synod website. Now I'd like to hear a little more from you all (and give you a chance to try this out!).
At our next meeting (Sept. 14 at Zion in Stewartville) we'll set up a schedule of topics for the 2007 year. What do you all want to talk about in the coming year, what kinds of speakers would you like to have, etc.
The idea of some kind of retreat has also been brought up. Thoughts on that? I would think a Friday afternoon through Saturday morning timeframe would work best. Thoughts? What's the best time of the year and month? What would you like to do?
Also, if you would like to host a meeting for this next year, speak up now. This involves a minmal amount of set-up (depending on topic and number attending) and providing lunch (arranging to have it made at your church, having it catered, or finding a restaurant for us to meet at - you do NOT have to pay for it).
Post your thoughts here. If you need help with the process, email me at butler@semnsynod.org or call me at 507-280-9457 or 800-426-6376 (MN only). Blog on!
