This is a followup to a post I did back in August of 2009 // Creative Volunteer Training

Two things about me as a Children’s Pastor:

1. I hate meetings.
2. I hate meetings.

A few years ago, I read Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni and his book has helped me work to make meetings more beneficial with my staff (at least in my humble opinion.)  I have however continued to struggle with how to communicate with volunteers in an effective way.

How do I train them?

How can I communicate best practices?

How do I let them know about changes in the curriculum?

But most importantly, how do I do these things without calling meetings for every weekend or every month?

My solution has been something I call “Kidsplace Unscripted”  The unscripted videos are my way of communicating values to my volunteer team in a non-confrontational, non pizza eating after church way.  I film these videos every two or three weeks using my Macbook, iMovie and uploading them to Vimeo.  I have had issues with Vimeo, but since they now offer mobile viewing on iPhones I’m back on board with their video greatness.

So after a year of doing these video’s what new and what have I changed?

• I had about a 30% open rate in emails and newsletters. When I started sending videos, it jumped to about 50%, and now I have an open and click rate has jumped to about 80%.
• I have too many leaders to personally meet with them all each week, and I’ve seen these videos help with my ability to keep in touch somewhat with everyone.  It’s gonna sound crazy, but people feel like they know my heart and passions without even meeting me.
• I’ve now added a different video series just for my Preschool and Kindergarten leaders.  They were asking for it, when word got around about the Elementary videos.  I obliged, and tweaked the content to fit that demographic.
• In 2010, I’m tackling best practices in each area.  I’m defining a best practice as those things that we do each and every week with no exception.  They are the same whether doing large group storytelling, or leading a group of 2nd grade girls in a small group.  So far so good in 2010.

Here are my most recent videos for both Preschool/Kindergarten and Elementary.

Kidsplace Unscripted #12 from Jonathan Cliff on Vimeo.

Preschool Unscripted #5 from Jonathan Cliff on Vimeo.

There is a Vimeo shortcut to my videos on the right side of this blog, just click the tiny V.  You can also visit my Vimeo page directly at www.vimeo.com/jonathancliff and even subscribe to my new videos at http://vimeo.com/jonathancliff/videos/rss.

For the record:  I do still have meetings from time to time, but the Unscripted videos have allowed me to be much more intentional about when we do need to have in-person meetings with volunteers and those on my ministry team.