Notes from the meeting with Ed on 2/12

Church Management Software - ChMS:

• Church currently owns 2 modules each with a single license from ACS
• We have an XP only version of the People Module install disc we have is NOT Vista compatible
• We also own the Donation/Money module to track giving and generate statements
• People Module was previously on the Office computer
• Donation/Money module is on Rita Marcell's home PC and she handles data entry after receiving info from Don/Collection
• Ed believes the data in the Donation/Money module is up to date/recent
• After the office computer died, Ed replaced it with a new one and it only came with Vista
• That data has been copied over to the newer Vista PC that Jude/Office uses but software is not installed because of the Vista compatibility issue.
• The People module data is now over 1 year old.
• ACS does have a newer version of People module now BUT it might cost us to get it as well
• Tech support is running $70/month that's $840/year - 99% wasted as no one is calling them
• Ed felt the tech support was useless when he actually was having the Vista compatibility issue and they had a solution and the rep on the other end did not know about it.

Marketing / Web:

• Ed it still very much a critical part of the life of the church in marketing and web duties.
• I promised we would move to offload this as much as we can in pieces as we build more capacity so that he can better choose where he wants to add.  He has very high level skills and we are using him to do very basic tasks.
• Our main "advertising" item appears to be a phone book ad for $600/year.   I'm not sure which phone book, etc. but we both questioned that this was effective.
• Ed felt almost shame that the billboard board across the street was advertising another church further down the block. 
• Ed personally bought bayareaministry.com and another URL since the diocese did not.  They are do to expire/renew soon.  I asked him if he could renew them as they might be a good URL to cover the co-op marketing and outreach effort we want to launch.  That URL might not the be the landing page for any specific campaign but that URL and any associated site might be an excellent place to house the more administrative communication.

Welcoming

• One are that Ed really had good insight was his families recent process at church shopping and specifically what All Souls in Berkeley does to an EXCELLENT level.  That is where they landed and it was definitely the place with the most formal and active Welcoming focus.  
• I really need Ed to document all their experiences and see what lessons we can learn on putting together a survey to ask past St. A's visitors questions along those lines.  The did we do this, if we did this would it have helped.
• Great idea on a "Join Me In Church" lunch date program i.e. post cards for those non-tech and a e-card for those more tech savvy.
• Ed said Howard Ramsure had expressed interest last year in better welcoming process/welcoming committee

Survey

• I received the printed surveys and the analysis that Ed & survey monkey did 
• Survey was mainly targeted at attending members at the time
• Survey focused 90%+ on issues surrounding the Worship Service
• Survey had a few "customer service" questions
• Several questions had results that were too evenly divided to get any clear consensus (1/3 Like, 1/3 hate, 1/3 of the respondents neutral )
• Survey is technically still open on Survey Monkey
• Some respondents may have identifying information so access to the original forms should be limited.  Will talk with the Vestry Warden on that issue before handing them over.

Stewardship Interviews

• Another good person to connect with is Peter Reinke head of Stewardship to see what data / information he collected when the stewardship group contacted members, lapsed members, etc. by phone and in person meetings.

Member Expectations

• One area Ed really wanted for St. A's to expose in future study is the concept of who comes to church for what and how many members just don't want to be engaged above and beyond the service.  
• This is a critical question.  Some people say they attend because "culturally" it is very acceptable in the congregation if not the norm for many.  

Tech discussions

• Ongoing CMS talk surrounding WordPress and issues I needed to resolve - those seem to be answered now
• Overall who is tech savvy (Staff, Vestry, Members, Volunteers) and what were his frustration points on process
• Most of the email addresses for the church are forwards -- this really hurts in our ability to track email.  Web based email interface that dreamhost offers is inadequate.  This is something a CRM / ChMS needs to address and we may also need a better native solution.
• Laura had donated a Sony (PC only software) Digital Voice Recorder that could be used to audio record sermons so that we could get a podcast back up and running.
• Both Lisa P. and Victor Clarke expressed interest in helping with the web site but neither are HTML savvy at this point.