What we'll be doing differently at our next church-based respite care event

While our respite care event this past weekend went well, we'll be making some changes to improve our next one. In case you missed my previous posts, here they are:

• Tuesday's post - The first 3 questions for a church-based respite outreach event
• Wednesday's post - Safety measures for successful church-based respite care
• Thursday's post - Our recent church-based respite event: Roles, Layout, and Schedule

Today's list of potential improvements isn't complete because our leadership team hasn't met yet to create our more comprehensive list. Based on our informal conversations and my own reflections, though, I can offer the start to that list. Next time, we'll...

• ...bring carpet cleaner and paper towels. We had a puke incident on Saturday and discovered (a) cleaning supplies weren't easy to find at the church and (b) the napkins in our bathrooms are too thin for anything but drying hands.
• ...provide a little more training on our policies for diaper changes and bathroom visits. I didn't cover this as well in our volunteer training as I should have. 
• ...launch registration sooner. As we figured out the ins and outs of registration this time, we didn't get it up and running as soon as we would have liked. We'll change that next time.
• ...get the word out more. We have several - mostly secular - groups who were willing to publicize the event for us, and we didn't utilize them as well as we could have. We're ramping that up for December 10.
• ...get some freebies for families. We gave all of our families a little goodies bag with a stress ball, a CD of our children's ministry music, a mini-postcard invitation to our fall festival on October 29, and a brochure from the music therapist who helped us in the last hour of the event. I know we have connections in local restaurants and plan to offer Chick-fil-a freebie coupons and possibly a couple other gifts in the bag next time.
• ...get some freebies for volunteers. Just like we would show love to our families with those types of coupons, we love to show appreciation to our volunteers. We gave each of them a little gift for serving with us this time, and I know we want to do a little something like that again on December 10. 
• ...pass the torch. Right now my knee surgery is scheduled December 2nd*, and my surgeon says I can help with but not lead the December 10th event. I'll co-lead the planning of this event with two of my leadership team members, and then I'll turn them loose to run it. 
• ...increase communication with the parents of teenage volunteers. I didn't do a great job of making sure the details of the event were clear for all of the parents of youth who volunteered. As a result, some of our less responsible but still incredibly passionate student helpers were MIA: they wanted to help, but Mom or Dad didn't know enough to get them there or to hold them accountable to follow through. To be able to train the next generation to serve well, I need to do a better job of partnering with their parents.
• ...tighten up communication with other church staff. I serve at a large church in which most of our adult Sunday school classes are larger than the entire congregation of my last church (a small, rural church in Texas). For my old church, I had a key to the building, and I knew all of the other members. That's not the case at my current church, and I learned a lot about the differences in event planning/execution in a large vs. small church for this event. We have room to improve in our logistics, and we now know how to do that and who to talk to for each step in the process.

I know the other members of my team will have other good tips for future events, so this certainly isn't everything we can improve upon. It's a start, though, to move forward to our next one!

Next week I'll be posting about what we learned from other churches, based on research completed by our amazing intern. That research is what made this event as successful as it was.


~+~
*Note on the surgery, if you're curious:
It will be multiple procedures, but all can be done in one day via arthroscopic surgery so I should be walking (albeit with pain) that day and driving the next (as long as I'm not on pain pills). Why hold off until December 2? Well, my RA drugs inhibit my immune system, so I only have a one-week window in which surgery is safe during each seven-week IV cycle. We're hoping to reschedule for next Friday or the following one if the surgeon has an opening, and I would love your prayers for that!