Family,
Week #2 of my blog-every-week goal has been reached. Today, we are going to talk about paperwork. I know many of you involuntarily shivered at the thought of beginning yet another year of tracking down your teens to complete their paperwork. Not to worry though! We feel your pain. We are here to make your paperwork lives easier.
Last year, we launched a pretty aggressive plan to require online paperwork submission for all of our teen events. All in all, the vast majority of you completed the process with no problems. But, we were not completely happy with the results. Delays and glitches plagued some of your paperwork submissions and for that we are truly sorry.
We really listed when you told us your feedback. And we are excited about the 2013 paperwork procedures that take into account much of this feedback. Most of you will not see too many changes. But for those who had paperwork issues, it will make all the difference.
For Adult Events and Day-Only Teen Events:
Nothing will change. We will still require the paper participant agreement forms to be completed and turned in at registration. Easy enough!
For Summer Camp and LTLC:
We will continue to require online submission of paperwork like last year. We will do a better job with wordage so parents know where to go to submit the forms. Also, we will make sure the parent signature required wording is more obviously stated. The reason? Because we need these forms ahead of time, this will enable us to continue to prepare for you better. In addition, these forms will be available when registration launches this year. No delay.
For Steubenville Youth Conferences:
This is where the big change comes. We will no longer require online submission of paperwork. We will go back to paper forms that need to be turned in at registration and not submitted online. The reason? Because we get these forms the day of registration, having them ahead of time did not help us prepare for you. There is no reason to make your lives any harder!
So, there you have it! Our hope and prayer is that this will make your event preparation easier so you can spend more time with teens. Thanks for all you do to lead teens closer to Christ.
Peace,
Chris Turner
Events Director