Monday, January 19, 2009

More info about switching to computerized check-in...

Steve asked some great questions in the comments in the post below. I wanted to answer it here so that no one missed it.

1. "is there going to be enough computers for everyone to check in at?"
We are kicking off with with four computers located in the same area where the nametags are now. We will have one additional computer down by the Celebration room. I feel this will be a good start, especially when you take into consideration that many families will check their preschoolers and elementary kids in at a preschool station. According to our records, only 100 families have only elementary kids, so divide that between 3 hours and 5 computers, unless they all get there at the same time, I think we will be good. As soon as we see it is not enough or we are outgrowing it we will expand.

2. "How are visitors going to check in?"
Visitors will go to the children's information desk just like they do now. That desk team will be trained to print them a special one time label. This will be separate from where everyone else checks in. The good news is that our desk team will be able to focus solely on new visitors and registrations for events. Right now alot of their time is taken up by making temporary tags for our members who have lost their tags!

3. "Also it would be helpful to have some of the children's ministry team to offer to man a particular computer"
The part that I'm most excited about in this whole process is that along with introducing the computers, we are introducing a whole new Children's Guest Services team. We have already recruited people who will serve as greeters (saying hi and escorting families to classes) and computer station attendants (who will help parents when they get confused about what to click). I'm thrilled that we have recruited a whole new batch of volunteers who are mostly new to our world!

4. "What will we do not if but when a child chews up their stick on name tag?"
We have done nutritional analysis and determined that the stick on tags have a higher amount of minerals and vitamins that are beneficial for elementary students than the old clip on tags had. We will in fact encourage hungry kids to eat their tags.

You do know I'm kidding, right? :) :) :)

Steve - thanks for helping us continue to make everything more clear. The more we as a team know ahead of time, the better we can prep and encourage parents. Anyone else... thoughts, questions, concerns?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I love it! Parents will love being able to check in preschool and elementary at the same computer. (me included)

Frankie G. said...

I can't wait! No more missing name tags, no more name tags clipped in their hair, etc! I am sure that pulling a sticky name tag out of a fifth grader's hair will hurt more! Thank you for researching and preparing everything for this transition. In case I haven't told you lately, you are awesome! :)

Dave said...

I think it is a great idea. Here are a couple of non Sunday questions.

Will it be for AWANA too? Will the Children's Guest Services team be there on Wednesday? What about kids that might come on in by themselves (sans parents)?

Jenny said...

1. Yes we will use it on Wednesdays.
2. We will not have a full-fledged guest services team on Wednesday because we do not have the onslaught of people that we do on Sunday mornings, but we will have people available to help, especially the first few Wednesdays.
3. In communicating with parents about the change, we will stress again that kids must be brought in by parents. Even now that is supposed to be what happens, but we all know it doesn't. We will work with circumstances as they arrive.