Vacation Bible School, or VBS, is a popular summertime activity which requires an enormous amount of organizing and coordinating; this is because the nature of the event calls on LOTS of volunteers to make the event a success. Organizing a small or large-scale Vacation Bible School for the first time (or the 21st time) can be complicated, but Sagepoint has new technology to make it faster and easier.
“Sagepointers: The Blog” is here in part to introduce new ways to use Sagepoint’s tools at www.sagepoint.com to make your busy life easier. I am excited to tell you about using Sagepoint for coordinating Vacation Bible School for 2 BIG reasons:
BIG Reason #1
Coordinating VBS on Sagepoint will force you to be organized, whether you are an organized person or not. And if you are not an organized person, well, you may just come out of this experience with a whole new “organized-person” image.
Setting up the details of your event on Sagepoint will help you to name all of your needs, like leaders for a group, helpers for a station, volunteers to bring snacks, or someone to prepare art projects at home. You can even detail your setup and cleanup duties, from stage set-up, to sound set-up, to snack area clean-up.
Once your VBS event is on Sagepoint, you can take advantage of these features to save you time:
- Automatic email reminders for all participants, including you, the coordinator
- Automatic sign up tracking
- Ability to add a custom link for social media, websites, and printable flyers
- Printable online sign-up sheets, maps, and invitations
- Ability to assign volunteers to specific tasks (For example, you need an experienced volunteer to set up your audio/video equipment. You pass Joe, an a/v specialist, in the hall. He indicates in passing that he is free to help, but does not have time to go online and set up an account to sign up. Well, he does not need a Sagepoint account to sign up. You can sign him up online, and if you enter his email address, he will get all reminders that you scheduled Sagepoint to send for you).
Many volunteers appreciate that they do not have to sign up for a Sagepoint account just to sign up to help at an event. They will still get automatic email reminders to help them remember what they signed up for.
BIG Reason #2
All of the work you have done setting up Vacation Bible School THIS year can be easily copied to use in future years.
Next year when Vacation Bible School rolls around again, much of your organizing will already be done, even if you are passing the VBS Coordinator role to someone else. Sagepoint will store your past events for you, and you will notice 3 icons next to your event listings:
Use the “Copy” Icon to easily copy events and edit the details to fit your new event.
Simply copy the event by clicking the blue page copy icon. Sagepoint will open the event for you to edit. Read through and change what you need. Not sure of every detail at that moment? Simple click “continue” until you get to the last page and “Save a Draft”. Your draft will be saved under the date you specify. Go back and EDIT as many times as you need to, while each time you end with “Save a Draft”. When the event is ready to be sent out and all email addresses are added to invitation list, you can “Save and Send”.
Vacation Bible School Themes and Ideas
If you came to this blog looking for themes and ideas for Vacation Bible School, you might be interested in this resource which has information and opinions on various programs:
http://ministry-to-children.com/vacation-bible-school-themes/
Once you have chosen your program, don’t hesitate to set up your VBS on Sagepoint for the most organized Vacation Bible School ever.
Have a relaxing (and organized) summer!
