Leading events at church
24 x 7
Publicity... Registration... $in... $out... Post to Social Media... the Parish Office can help... see how...

In this training, you will learn five “How-To’s” that you need to know, about leading events at the Church of St Stephen, Downsview, in 2024.

1- How to get the word out.
2- How to take event registrations and orders.
3- How to receive payments.
4- How to submit expense claims... and...
5- How to post to social media, after the event.

Let's get started. ***

Topic One:
How do you get the word out?

Here at St Stephen’s, we have a weekly newsletter. We have oral announcements in worship services. We have physical, wall mounted, bulletin boards. We have a website, Facebook page, YouTube channel… and… we can send mass email to the congregation. The diocese has an online event calendar.

To announce your event through all of these channels, contact, the Parish Office:
Email office@ststephendownsview.ca or
message the parish office by text message or WhatsApp at
416-241-4639.

Question: Do I have to go through the Parish Office? Why can’t I just make an oral announcement in Church like I did in 2013 for our 60th anniversary?

Here’s the challenge: Human beings absorb information in 4 ways,
we read it,
hear it,
watch it, or
do something with it.

But, for each of us, one way is dominant.

This didn’t matter in 2013 when we all met for worship in person, because in-person we don’t have to think about communicating in each of the four ways, it’s automatic.

Today, at any given worship service, 50% of the worshipers are online. So we have to communicate online; that requires we design our communications to support video and interaction as well as text to read.

If you go it alone, you will likely only reach the 25% of parishioners whose dominant way of absorbing information is the same as yours.

Fortunately, you, as event leader, just give your information to the Parish Office, and the Parish Office takes care of the rest.

 

Question: I still have my 2013 mailing list. Why do I have to go through the Parish Office to send a mass email?

Two reasons:

One is that people change email and phone number surprisingly often… and… some of the people who have been diligent in updating their contact info with the Parish Office, but for whom you don’t have current contact info, will be upset if you do not include them.

Two, we have to respect an individual’s request to “unsubscribe.” Our neighbours who may be interested in church but not yet ready to commit, will be more likely to subscribe if they know they can unsubscribe. Our mail system, “MailChimp”, provides that guarantee.

 

Question: How long does all this communicating take?

Plan to publish your announcement at least six weeks before the earliest date that you want people to take an action.

That's NOT six weeks before the EVENT DATE, but six weeks before the close of registration, and, that’s not start thinking about your announcement 6 weeks before your event, but get your announcement into parishioners’ hands 6 weeks before.

Here's why it takes six weeks...

Over the course of a month, 88% of the congregation opens at least one newsletter, attends at least one worship service in-person or online, or looks at the church website... But… All parishioners, do NOT look at ALL the announcements, EVERY week.

To ensure everyone who wants to hear about your event, has the opportunity to hear about it, you have to give them four weeks to see your announcement and two weeks to act on it. ***

Topic Two:
How to take registrations/orders

The main points about event registration in 2024...

(1) For parishioners, the registration process has not changed much… the only change is that they can now use the church website to serve themselves… but they don’t have to. They also receive an automated confirmation as email or text message that confirms their order has been received and tells them how to pay.

(2) You, as the event organizer, have a single (Google) spreadsheet that will be up-to-date to the last order when you open it on a PC, and up-to-date to the previous midnight when opened on a mobile phone or tablet.

(3) Although the order process is more complicated in 2024 than in 2013, we have a team to support you: Ushers will be trained to support in-person parishioners. The Parish Office can take calls and email M-F, 10AM to 4PM. The parish office creates the web form

Question: Why not just post a paper sign-up sheet on the bulletin board at the back of the sanctuary like we did for our 60th anniversary in 2013?

In 2013, most (like 80%) of the people who wanted to sign-up were in the same physical place as the paper sign-up sheet, or could call someone who was, like the priest or office admin.

The other 20% called the event organizer and their number was small enough that the risk of over-booking was low.

Today, 50% of the congregation is online, priest and admin are generally not physically present in the church when they answer the phone or email, and many of the people who do come to in-person worship are no longer in the mind-set that they should commit to an event right away, while in-person.

Bottom-line: the sign-up sheet has to be online.

 

Question: Why a Google Spreadsheet? Why can’t I use a system that’s easier for me?

Consider what we need in an order taking system:

As an event leader, you have to be able to view all registrations entered to-date, on the device you have in your hand, or on your desk, right now as you watch this video, without having to install additional software or reconfigure your PC or phone security. People who are not authorized must not be able to view registrations.

Anyone with an internet connection should be able to enter an order… even if they are entering the order for someone else.

These requirements lead to the following discussion:

  • We have to choose one system that will support all the types of events St Stephen’s hosts. We don’t have the resources to support a different system for each event. Some people do not like seeing a Google spreadsheet when they click on a link. But as long as they have a Gmail account to which St Stephen’s has granted access, they ARE ABLE to see the Google sheet, and in three clicks, download the Google sheet as Excel.
  • People who are NOT logged in with a Gmail account that St Stephen’s has authorized, cannot view the registrations… even if they have the link.
  • All other systems don’t work at all for key people. To see this, try opening a secure Excel file if you don’t have the Microsoft security framework installed on your device.
  • We also noted that we should minimize the personal protected information we record
    … and…
    We don’t handle money in the registration process.

In summary: Google sheets are ugly, but they work for everyone on every device, reliably, securely, at an affordable cost.

So what do we do to manage event registration and orders?

We designed our website and weekly news email to support web forms that enable everyone who takes an order to update the same spreadsheet.

The web form has edits to ensure that we don’t accept more orders than we can fill.

On submission, the registration web form will send an automated email or SMS to the parishioner to confirm the order and tell them how to pay.

To get a web form for your event, include the registration details when you send your announcement information to the Parish Office.

To enable your access to the registration/order spreadsheet, give the Parish Office your Gmail account.

Topic Three:
How to receive payments

Individuals can give your event money in four ways:

  1. Electronic payment: they scan a QR code, click a link, and pay with the method they have set up on their phone, such as Google Pay, Apple Pay, credit, debit...
  2. Use the bank app on their phone to send an e-Transfer
  3. Put cash or cheque in an envelope dropped in the offering bucket at a worship service
  4. Give cash or cheque to the event team

Question: How do we ensure the payment process is secure?

Answer: As a church, we do not handle online payments ourselves, rather we connect parishioners to a financial institution whose system handles the payment. In addition, we maintain the option for parishioners to pay in-person by cash or paper cheque.

Now we’ll look at each of these four methods in more detail.

For Electronic Payments, We use the Pllenty service, that’s P.L.L.E.N.T.Y.. Each week we download a file from the Pllenty portal to update our accounting systems. Pllenty emails a confirmation to each payer at the time of payment. As event leader, you will receive the same email notification of payment as fast as your email service will deliver it. 

e-Transfers transfer money from the payers bank account to the church bank account. Unlike Pllenty, YOU, the event leader, do NOT get a copy of the payment notification. The church wardens record e-Transfers in the church accounting systems at the start of the month following the payment. The e-Transfer confirmation email is different for each bank and may not contain enough detail for the wardens to distinguish an e-Transfer for your event from other e-Transfers the parishioner has made.

Each Sunday, The Sunday counting team processes the weekly offering each Sunday. If a parishioner indicates on their envelope that an amount included in the envelope is for your event, the counting team records it in the donation and accounting systems.

To handle the Cash/Cheques the event team receives directly, ask the Parish Office for a “cash envelope.” This is a paper envelope with a form printed on it. In the envelope you will place cash and paper cheques to be deposited and the receipts for any expenses you paid in cash. (we will say more about the receipts, later, when we talk about expenses). After your event, you will give the envelope to one of the wardens or the parish admin to place in the safe. The counting team will include it in the next Sunday deposit.

To-Do: As event leader, advise the parish office and wardens of the payments you expect to receive

... and...

if you will need a report of who has paid what amount. The parish office will give you the QR code, links, and cash envelopes and explain how to use them.

Note: We’ll talk later about the “Job Cost” report that you, as an event leader, can request from the Parish Office. This report will show each payment and expense for your event, but the Job Cost Report will NOT list the name of the person who made each payment, unless you tell the Parish Office in advance that you need to know the name of each person who made each payment. This is a privacy concern, we do not record the name of who made what payment unless there is a need to know the name, so if you need to know, you need to tell us, before the payments are made. 

Topic Four:
How to submit expense claims

Your event can process event expenses in two ways:

Here's what you need to know about both processes:

Even when you pay expenses in cash, from the cash payments your event receives from participants, we still need the expense receipts.

To-Do: Ask the Parish Office for a "Cash Envelope."

You place your event's cash and expense receipts in the envelope, complete the form printed on the envelope, and return to the Parish Office or wardens.

The Parish Office or wardens will place the envelope in the safe. The counters who process the Sunday offering, will process it the following Sunday.

To request a cheque from the Parish Office...

Open the "payment request form" on our website: Enter the payment details. Photograph or attach receipts or other documents. Submit.

Submit all expenses to the Parish Office before noon on the Wednesday following your event.

Ask the Parish Office for the “Job Cost Report” for your event so that you can check that all revenues and expenses have been recorded.

Note about paper forms:

You can also get a paper copy of the Cheque Request form from the Parish Office, attach your paper receipts to the form, and place the form and receipts in the Treasurer Mail Slot. You will get an email confirmation that your payment request has been submitted when the Parish Office enters the payment in the webapp.

Note about receipts:

An expense receipt must have the vendor's HST registration number and show the HST amount

In particular... The printout from a debit machine and a Credit card statement are NOT acceptable as receipts... as they do NOT include the HST registration and amount.

If a vendor is not registered with the CRA (because their business is too small), the receipt must include a person's full legal name and postal address. We can also accept receipts without an HST registration if the receipt shows that the business address is outside Canada.

Let’s pause to talk about
Timing & Reports:

So far we have talked about announcements, orders, receiving payments, and paying expenses. You need to get your announcement into parishioners’ hands at least six weeks in advance of the first action you want event participants to take. You view your orders in a Google spreadsheet that is updated continuously. The Sunday offering is processed weekly. E-Transfers are processed monthly. E-Payments (via Pllenty) sends a confirmation to the payer at the time of payment that the payer can show you as proof of payment.

Here are some more workflows that impact when revenue & expenses show-up:

Now let's look at the financial reports

If you submit an expense claim after the financial statements have been circulated, the Parish Office will have to report a correction to the financial statements and explain that the correction is needed because you were late submitting your expenses or revenues.

Bottom-line: Make your best effort to submit all expense claims and any un-deposited cash and cheques within one week of the end of your event… and… even if you are not a financial person, you will want to review the Job Cost report because it enables you to find mistakes. 

Topic Five:
How to prepare video and photos
for Social Media

Question: Why bother?

Answer: Jesus commanded us to bear witness of our experience of Christ in our lives to the ends of the earth. The church is the body of Christ, which means parishioners’ experience of the event you are leading is part of their witness. Online video and photos are a big part of how we share our own experience.

Conclusion: Event video and photos matter.

Our task as a church:

Make it easy for parishioners to download and share a video of your event to their own social media Protect the privacy of event participants who have not given their consent

So how do you record event video and photos:

You assign a volunteer as “videographer” who does the following…

The Parish Office does the following…

Question: Can I post the video I take myself of my own family to my own social media?

Answer: No. You and your videographer should NOT share the unedited video you have recorded on your own social media, for two reasons,
(1) consistently applying edits to protect privacy is key to building trust, and
(2) we want to be consistent in our branding so that the video of each event promotes participation in later events, and in the church in general.

Consider an example: You video your own child at the event you are leading. You post the video on your own social media feed. People in our neighbourhood see the video and maybe even click “like”
... but…
they can see people in the background. If they’re interested in our events, but not yet ready to be seen on the internet as attending a church event, they may not come to our next event.

Phrase to remember about the witness we give: Before our neighbours will care how much we know, they need to know how much we care. That parishioners share their experience of the event, that we enable them to participate, and that we protect their privacy, is a big part of how we show we care.

Time to wrap-up:
Let’s plot these five actions on a timeline counting backwards from your event date

wk Event Leader Parish Office
-8 Send event details to the Parish Office Reply with registration and payment processes and a draft announcement
-7 Send the announcement to the Parish Office as you would like it to appear in the weekly news email Update the website
Update the Diocese event calendar (if appropriate)
Send weekly news email to parishioners

-6
to
-2

 Record Registrations with the web form; View registrations on the Google sheet Record Registrations with the web form
Post payments received in the accounting systems
0 Hold the Event Submit cash envelope to Parish Office
Share your video/photos with the Parish Office
Place cash envelope in the safe
Sunday Counters deposit event cash in bank
Parish Office edits video/photos to a 1-minute short and shares on website & weekly email
1 Submit Expense Claims
Request “Job Cost” report to verify all revenues and expenses have been entered in the accounting system		 Print cheques to pay expenses
Prepare “Job Cost” report

Now that you are ready to lead events at the Church of St Stephen, Downsview…

The thought I want you to take away is this: Jesus reminded us, that God commanded us, that we must love our neighbours as we love ourselves… even if our neighbours don’t love us back.

We often hear the words “love our neighbours”, but miss the words “as ourselves.”

Fun, food, fellowship, and events to help each other, are how we love and care for ourselves. Managing our events so that our neighbours are able to join us… matters… even if it takes a long time and many events before we see them… because… When we allow God’s will to work through us, mountains move.

More links to support you...

Acknowledgement

The development of this training package and the refresh of our parish office processes, software, and computers, has been funded by a Federal Government grant from the "Community Services Recovery Fund" administered by the United Way of Greater Toronto.