Director ’s Report

ELCA Youth Ministry Network 11821 98th Pl. N., Maple Grove, Minnesota 55369 T 612.597.6565 todd@elcaymnet.org www.elcaymnet.org

ELCA Youth Ministry Network

January 24, 2013

Welcome to Anaheim!

We are going to have a great week.I’m very excited for this event. I’m very excited for the program, and I’m very grateful to the team who put this together. The E-Team is a great, high-functioning group with creativity, energy and passion. Under amazing leadership fro Scott Maxwell-Doherty, they have done a great job creating an event that speaks to our theme.

We currently have 523 registered to be “in the house.” While less than last year in New Orleans (because of the Youth Gathering factor) this puts us on par or event a little bit ahead of the event 2 years ago in Kansas City.

We ran into a housing crunch this year as we overflowed our housing contract at the Hyatt. We contracted for 900 rooms (with a 675 minimum). We currently sit at 1028 room nights booked. The hotel is full because of another event that is here, and so we had to, in the last few weeks, contract with another property, the Hyatt House, for more space and negotiate for shuttle space. We have approximately 50-70 people staying over there.

It is a slightly different program model this year, with one speaker for three sessions. I’m interested in seeing how it goes.

Our relationship with the hotel has been pretty good. They have been a little more focused on revenue streams than they have been in the past, which has made for some more complicated negotiations. But overall they have been good to work with. And the customer service from the Hyatt staff has been outstanding.

My encouragement to you as a board is to spend time at this event talking to and (more importantly) listening to the people that are here. They are our “owners.” We need to hear what they are experiencing and to understand their needs.

But I continue to be grateful to you, our board, for all of your great leadership. Thank you.

Box Scores Current Network Membership Current Extrav Registration

653 (paid) 523

The Practice Discipleship Initiative

The Practice Discipleship Initiative is moving at full speed. Once we received word in October about ELCA funding, Catherine put her team together quickly and well. Eric Carlson, Lisa Kramme and Tammy Jones West are serving as “head coaches.” So far, 56 (out of 65) coaches have been recruited, working with Bishop’s offices, and all 56 are present this week for training. A full curriculum has been created and the first two webinars already produced.

ELCA Youth Ministry Network

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Clearly this is a Holy Spirit thing. It also helps that we have Catherine working on this project. She has done a lot of heavy lifting in order to make it work.

The Mobile Network

By the time that we are meeting at the E, the Network will be, in fact, mobile. I mentioned our work on developing a Network mobile app at our meeting in October. Work has progressed on that, in connection with iGivings, one of our new partner organizations (via this work). A significant discount in app development was worked out in exchange for partnership and I’m excited that we launch at this event our app for Apple and Android devices. In the reading and research I have done, it has become clear that this movement towards a digital mobile future is one that we need to embrace as a communication’s mode.

The app has a number of features that I’m excited about:

• Network news is pushed directly to people’s smartphones

• Network blog entries pushed to people’s smartphones

• Upcoming events/training calendar

• A leadership roster with contact information

• A media library

• An online prayer wall

• “Contact Us” information

• A simple, online giving option via the phone (can be designated in a really cool way)

• Streaming media

• Extravaganza keynote talks

• Practice Discipleship webinars

• 3rdTuesday Conversation webinars

• An online Bible

• About Us (mission/vision/values)

• An “ideas” feedback mechanism

• A listing of programs with details (coming in March)

• A GPS based “Local network finder” (coming in March)

Ok, so I admit to being kind of a geek. But I really do think this has the potential to be an important tool in our communications. I’m grateful to the small group of people (Michael Sladek, Andy Arnold and Rachel Claseman) who helped us to develop this.

ELCA Youth Ministry Network

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You can search for, and download, the app by going to the Apple app store, or the Android market/Google play and searching for ELCA Youth MInistry Network

Finances

As is our practice, I typically don’t include a financial report with the winter meeting. The reasoning is simple: With money flying in and out of accounts at the event, any data I enter here will be out of date prior to my pushing “send” on the e-mail. I will have a complete report for you at our spring Board meeting.

The only unanticipated expense was the purchase of a computer to replace mine, which fried last week. (Not good timing...) But we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do. We’ll be able to fund that with some adjustments to our admin budget.

Closing

Thank you again for all that you do. From where I sit, it feels like the Network is moving in positive directions. We are trying to stay ahead of the curve. I’m grateful for your work in making that happen.

Blessings!

Todd

Rev. Todd BueglerExecutive Director; ELCA Youth Ministry Network

ELCA Youth Ministry Network

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