Conference Recruitment Gameplan - Ministry Exchange (MX)

Recruiting for Big Events

Jesse North

Timeline: The bigger the event, the longer the timeline. For a conference,
think 6 weeks or so before registrations are due. For Camp or Urbana you
want to be thinking about your overall effort starting the previous
semester.

Plan ahead. Your leaders should always know what is going on – keep them
in the loop. Don’t rush to get brochures in the hands of everyone at LG if
your leaders haven’t seen them first.

Pre-recruitment Period: Creating Buzz.
How to do that? Get people talking. Leaders should be informally talking
about it before the “official” recruitment period begins.
Try a “teaser” announcement at LG – depending on the event, you will want
to time these before breaks, etc. (i.e. it is a good idea to make a camp
announcement before Christmas break and spring break – times when folks are
going home and making plans for the summer.)

This is the time to be inviting your leaders, it will be hard for your
leaders to invite their friends if they themselves are not coming. For most
regular chapter events, your leaders should already be committed to
attending, as it was part of their commitment when they said yes to
leadership. Get them registered before the first major announcement about
the event at large group.

6 weeks before Event: Training on Inviting
Line up a student to coordinate scholarship money. Try to find someone who
is not in a leadership position. This is a great opportunity to talk about
discipleship issues of money and giving. Think particularly about using
this as a learning experience for students who may have the gift of giving,
and/or are heading into careers where they will acquire significant wealth.

LG: Place brochure on every seat before start of LG. Big, fun
announcement – still not lots of details – do make sure that the dates are
out there. Let folks know that money should never be an obstacle.
SG: N/A
LM: Spend time in leaders meeting training your folks. Potentially have
them commit to inviting 2-3 people this week. Help them think through why
it would be good for individuals in their sphere of influence to come.
Pray for invitations, pray for event, pray for good decisions.

5 weeks before Event: The invitations begin in earnest.
Keep lists, either written or mental, of who is being invited – check to
see if people are being missed (often fringe folks) and make sure they are
being invited.
LG: Good, fun announcement.
SG: Hand out brochures, have leader or older small group member talk about
why the event was good for him/her in past.
LM: Check in to see how invites went this past week with the folks leaders
committed to inviting. Troubleshoot folks obstacles and reasons for not
coming.

4 weeks before Event: Cheerleader Week
Invite student to coordinate rides – again ask someone who is not a leader.

This will help someone else be invested in the event, they will start to
recruit folks to the conference as they try to line up rides.
LG: Serious announcement about the substance of the event. Student
testimony about last year’s event is a great fit for this one.
SG: Pray for conference
LM: Check in with Bible Study leaders – have they personally invited
everyone in their study? Oftentimes it by this point it feels like numbers
will be low, registrations for non-leaders haven’t been turned in yet, and
leaders have been working hard – it is easy to be discouraged – you will
need to play the role of cheerleader. Pray.

3 weeks before Event: Beating the Bushes – Registrations due!
This is a busy week for you as you are on the ground. You will be
following up with the students you invited as well as with your leaders to
see how their invitations are going. Following LG email a list to all
leaders of who signed up so that they can follow up with anyone they
thought was coming but didn’t turn in a registration.
LG: Brief announcement. Collect remaining registrations. You will want
to bring extra forms with you.
SG: Reminder to bring registrations to LG
LM: At leaders meeting this week give final encouragement to follow up with
folks. Instructions about what to do with emailed list sent after LG.

2 weeks before Event: Final Details
Check with scholarship coordinator – make sure the money is lined up and
students have been notified of amounts. Check in with your ride
coordinator – email with details should be sent early in the week by
student coordinator to all student attendees.
LG: Announcement to check email for conference details
SG: Announcement to check email for conference details
LM: check-in about details, any 11th hour registrations, pray for impact
at event

Week of the Event: The Big Event

LG: Brief announcement about the weekend – no need to give details, folks
have info in email and those not going don’t need to hear it.
SG: Check email for instructions.
LM: typically this LM is after the event – celebrate what Jesus has done
LM: Talk about what it means for leaders to be at event – they need to be
receiving from Jesus too. Pray for conference.

**Note on videos: these can be hip, funny, usually have images of students
from your campus at last years event having fun, can have speaker on camera
about the event, . They can totally hit the bullseye – they also can take
enormous amounts of time. If you have students who really like video
editing, and “get it”, this is a great way to win them into the conference
by helping promote it, and will give you some quality time with them. if
not – try to pool resources by area or region so that you get more bang for
your buck. Or skip it and go with a different promotion. In the end if
you are doing all or most of the work on this one, it would probably be a
better investment of your time to just out and invite people in person.