Church Communication Link

When working with a client or department on any communication piece, it is important to start off with as much of the key information as possible. In our last round table meeting at Kentwood Community Church, one of the things we discussed was how we collect information for projects in a way to really get the most information from the start.  

While some clients think they know exactly what they want in a project, the reality is that drilling down to what they want to accomplish is more efficient than just unquestionably making what they ask for.  As Becky Martin pointed out, it’s our jobs as communications pros to ask the right questions so we can produce the best communication tools for them to use.

One of the key things that came up in the discussion is the idea of getting to the heart of what the client(s) really want the project to accomplish by asking the right questions.

I like how Becky described a question she often poses to her clients: If you were on an elevator and someone asked you to describe your church or what’s special about your church, what would you tell them when you’ve only got 8 floors worth of time to tell them? Questions like this can be helpful to get at the heart of what they want to get across. If it’s youth that you’re working with try a question like, What is it about this event that will make a teenager want to leave their video game to come?

Another good thing to ask if there are any MUST HAVE aspects of the project so you don’t come up with something wonderful, that misses the point they forgot to mention! Continue reading ‘Asking the right questions’

Have a project that you need something in foam? 

Linda Lanning (Sunshine Community Church in Grand Rapids) ordered 13 letters of the alphabet from Arvron. They were 4′ tall, 2.5″ thick and $21 each. “They had lots of sizes of Styrofoam also, if you need a backdrop or other items that are large but you need light weight and portable etc.”

Arvron
4720 Clay Ave. SW
Grand Rapids, MI, United States
Tel: (616) 530-1888
Fax: (616) 530-9232
www.arvron.com

Josh (Central Weslyan in Holland) has had simple and complicated foam pieces produced by Falcon. 

Falcon Foam
8240 Byron Center Road SW 
Byron Center, MI 49315
Tel: (800) 917-9138
Fax: (800) 626-9942
www.falconfoam.com

Original post by Becky Martin
 

Original post by Becky Martin

Holland Litho
10972 Chicago Drive
Zeeland, MI 49464

Tel: (800) 652-6567
Fax: (616) 392-7444

www.hollandlitho.com

I know that Josh (Central Weslyan in Holland) frequently uses Holland Litho’s weekly “Combo Run.” I have yet to choose them (because I can get better prices from www.overnightprints.com on 6×4 postcards, using the coupon “postcardsale”).

However, I thought I’d post the Holland Litho Combo Run Sheet. UPDATED!

My contact there is Mike Baarman.

I have used Holland Litho for several other specialty projects and been very pleased!

Building Beyond Cube

Connection Point (Visitor’s Packet) “brochure”

Original post by Becky Martin
Want to know how 65# cover compares to 110# index? Or 24# bond to 70# offset? Different paper weights can be a challenge to compare. Here’s a link to a conversion table that is helpful.

 http://www.paper-paper.com/weight.html

With the Internet at our finger tips, there are many great tools that communications leaders can get their hands on. Some are free, some cost, but when we learn how to use them, these tools can help us reach audiences that never heard our message before. They can also help us increase our creativity and get our messages out in new ways. Below I’m sharing a few, I’ve used, but I’d love to hear what resources or companies you’ve had success with and how you’ve used them.

• Photos.com and istockphoto.com are two great resources for adding people or unique images to your design projects. Photos.com has a handy subscription service with a flat annual fee and unlimited number of downloads. istockphoto.com has a great variety that includes vector images and more. istock offers watermarked sample images that you can mock up your design with before purchasing the un-watermarked version. istock charges per credit but you can get many images for about 10 credits (which ends up at about $10-$15). As with anything on the Web, keep in mind that there can be images that are not friendly to the moral mind so you’ll want to be cautious and on guard when searching for images

• A simple but wonderful photo processing tool that’s free is Irfan View. As much as I like Macs I’d keep a PC around just to run Irfanview because it’s so sweet for batch processing images if you’re running on a PC. However, I must note that if you have but are not using Adobe’s Bridge then you’re missing out. Bridge is a wonderful way to sort through thousands of images quickly and has some nice batch processing (renaming, keywording, rotating, etc.) available. If you don’t have Bridge, I’d definitely ge a hold of Irfanview. For some areas that want to be able to work with lots of photos but don’t have a budget for Photoshop, we’ve set them up with Irfanview and it’s been a big help for basic viewing, slideshows, re-sizing, and rotating. It’s not Photoshop, but it’s a mighty little viewer and processer for your images

• The Church Marketing Lab on Flickr is a great way to see what other churches are doing and the cool ideas that are out there. You can sign up and share your own ideas.

• Granger Community Church has a heart for sharing ideas of what they’ve done with others. Through conferences, workshops and blogs, leaders at GCC are really doing cool stuff to get the word out and connect people. Check it out at Wiredchurches.com