blog time with… Ron

As we were brainstorming for ideas for blog topics, we thought it would be great for some of the directors at Shelby Systems to have a chance to write to you. This week we wanted everyone to hear from the Director of Customer Development, Ron Chandler, who has been with Shelby since 2007 leading the Support, Training, Education, and Events departments. He brought with him 30 years of experience in ministry and church business administration. Ever since I started working for Ron last July, I have felt welcomed and inspired every day.  He is always encouraging and positive and has been a wonderful Director to our department.  Here is what Ron has on his mind to say to you about ISC…

 Training can serve your church office by updating skills so that the ability to do ministry is enhanced.  It is important to make proper use of technological advances that will make your church or organization function more effectively.  By improving your skills, your church and ministry can keep up with technological advances and ensure that they are successfully integrated into your operations.  Sometimes a new or newly promoted church office worker will not possess the skills or knowledge needed to be competent on the job.  This occurs because:

1. No ministry or employee selection process is able to predict success or failure all the time.  Training may be necessary to fill the gap between predicted and actual performance.
2. Churches and ministries knowingly hire and promote personnel who need training to perform at standard levels.
3. In a church setting, the number of applicants may be small.  In this environment, many church office managers hire and promote an applicant with limited job related skills.  The remedy to this dilemma is through training.
4. In many church and ministry environments, the minister or office manager may simply hire or promote employees who possess the aptitude to learn but not the actual skills.  Training is the obvious solution to this scenario.

No ministry or organization can thrive without providing and encouraging continual training opportunities.  Training in a church office provides positive peer pressure to improve both one’s individual skills and the morale, efficiency and stewardship of the organization.  ISC provides an ideal training opportunity with over 200 classes in church information and organizational management.  ISC provides excellent opportunities to connect with others who do your job, build peer networks, and enhance your skills.  ISC is a premier ministry training event worth the time and investment!

The New Year is Here!

At the start of a New Year, we tend to daydream about everything the next 12 months will hold for us. As most of us do, I have created a nice long list of resolutions – I will get into shape and lose those pounds I put on during the holidays; I will be more charitable and help those who are in need; I will spend more time in prayer and reading my Bible. While the purpose of making these goals is good, they are still built upon the negative. These are all things that I did not accomplish this past year – parts of myself that need improvement. Very rarely do we look at the past year and remember the things that we did accomplish. While I did not fulfill many of my resolutions for 2008, I accomplished quite a bit – I earned my degree after several years away from college; I volunteered in South Africa; I even kept a new year’s resolution and did not eat any meat this year. Unfortunately, I tend to gloss over these things as I make plans for the next twelve months. So this year I resolve to remember my past successes and be proud of everything I have accomplished. Let’s start the New Year looking back at our accomplishments and forward to our future growth.

It’s the Holiday Season…

One week before Christmas Day 2008! Where do we stand in preparation for this awesome celebration by the Christian community? I still have some shopping left to do, some Christmas cards to complete and send, not to mention that my tree is up and lighted but without ornaments. But I am determined to not miss the blessing and joy of celebrating the greatest gift of love the world will ever see.

 

Last night I ate dinner with friends and family, and we focused on the relationships that are important to us all year, and especially at Christmas. Personally I am most thankful for people in my life, and here at Shelby Systems, we are continually grateful for the customers who use our products everyday, providing ministry all year, sharing the grace and love of our Savior through the world. What a blessing to serve alongside you and minister in the name of Christ!

 

Can we add value to our Christmas celebration this year? We can look at every activity with a grateful heart, thankful that the angels’ message resonates with us still and God still comes to us in our fields, stables, offices, and homes. Thankful that the Good News of their song is still the most joyful we have ever heard.

 

We can look at all the Christmas lights and see the light of Christ as we are reminded of His love. We can look at what we have and share it with our community in love and hope and faith. We can give more of ourselves—Suzanne in the Events Department is making all the Christmas presents she is giving to family and friends, and we eagerly receive an update everyday on her projects, urging her to bring them in so we can look at her most recent creation. She is a model for us to give fewer material gifts and give do-it-yourself photos, poems, special outings, donations of time or money. I think Suzanne has the right idea.

 

As we move toward Christmas Day, let’s go out of our way to share joy and love with one another—give more hugs, say ‘I love you’ with ease and meaning, listen to the words of the wonderful Christmas carols, reach out to someone who needs our cheer and blessing. And let’s not miss out on seeing Christmas as Jesus’ birthday and see Him as the greatest gift ever hoped for and received.

 

Merry Christmas to all of you from the staff at Shelby Systems.

Register Now…Online.

By now I hope you have found our ISC Blog and are intrigued with all our ramblings. We love hearing from you, so jump in with all your questions and comments. Today I’m thinking about online registration. I know . . . not a particularly spellbinding topic! But, I just want to remind you that online registration for ISC 2009 is alive and well, and you can register now, take advantage of the lowest fees this season, and get a head start on planning for your trip to Dallas in June. Maybe there are some 2008 budget dollars still available you can apply to the 2009 trip. ISC 2009 is going to be awesome in every way, but it is only going to be the best ever if you are there.

Are you planning to attend ISC 2009 in Dallas? Let us know. What is your favorite part of ISC? We really want to know what excites you the most about our conference. It will be great fun seeing if we are all on the same page or if we have different priorities.

Building Community

Hello again to all of our Shelby customers!  We have been busy planning all the details for ISC, but most recently we have mailed out our first flyer.  You should have received it by now.

If you haven’t heard already, our theme this year will be “Building Community.”  We feel like Shelby Systems is a community already, and we wanted more of an opportunity for customers to build stronger relations with staff, trainers, and other customers.  A community can be a group of people sharing the same interests or jobs, or it could be a group of people having a common goal, but really community is defined differently by each person.

Our hope is that you come to ISC with a goal to build a stronger community in Shelby.  Whether it’s in your city, state, region, we want each attendee to feel they connected with the other users.

How can we help you “build community” this year at the conference?

Introducing the Team…

Before any further posts, we would like to introduce the masterminds behind ISC logistics and blogging.  Some of you may have spoken with us on the phone, but we all forget names sometimes!

Most of you know Karen Bishop, the events manager, and “head honcho” at ISC.  This is her 3rd ISC to plan and execute, and she loves it more and more each year.  With all this experience, she continues to come up with different ideas to add to the previous year’s conference.  She knows every detail about every time, place, class, speaker, etc., so if she doesn’t know the answer, then we have bigger issues at hand.

Now, you know Karen couldn’t do this by herself.  She has such great help from two lovely ladies.  Suzanne Schmidle has been at Shelby Systems for a little over 3 years now, and has been planning ISC with Karen since the beginning.  She is also the ISC veteran and does awesome design work for the flyers, event guides, logos, etc. 

The rookie this year is Martha Guinn, now Martha Carter.  She started work with Shelby Systems in Customer Development at the end of July, and her help was needed!  She is still learning the ins and outs of how ISC works but catches on so fast.  She will be right there as Suzanne’s “sidekick” learning how to answer questions and address concerns.  Martha is very excited to begin her work with ISC and hopes to meet many of you next summer!  During the conference, you will see Suzanne and Martha at the help desk and running miscellaneous errands.  You will probably speak to one of them when calling about all your questions beforehand.

These three ladies will be your main blog posters, unless we have a guest writer from time to time.  They want to hear as much feedback as you can offer because they are really tuned in to “building community.”

Blog with Us!

International Shelby Conference 2009 is fast approaching, and the preparations are underway. There are many facets of the conference; and in order to plan for them flawlessly, we look to our Shelby Systems, Inc. customers for ideas and opinions. With that in mind, we would like to introduce our ISC 2009 blog. Each week we will discuss what is going on at Shelby, often with an eye toward the Events Department and ISC. Regarding ISC, we will look to you for feedback on new classes, conference exhibitors, host city information, etc. Questions such as. . .What kind of conference food do you like? What class topics interest you? How do you like the classes listed? What is the best way for Shelby to update you on conference details? We’ll look for your answers and listen to all your suggestions and ideas.

What do you think about a weekly blog with Shelby’s Events Department? Join us so we can plan ISC 2009 together!