Archive for the 'Church administration' Category

A style guide for that church Web site

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

Earlier this month Jina Bolton wrote “Writing an Interface Style Guide” at A List Apart, and if you have responsibility for your church Web site you should click over to it, read it and bookmark it.

She wants to spare your beautiful site from disintegrating from a thousand little degradations and so do I. If you […]

Bylaws for telephone, online meetings

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

I figured the role of the inexpensive long-distance telephone and Internet connectivity has changed what it means to attend a leadership meeting. And if those technologies didn’t then expensive fuel will.

So I Googled meeting telephone members bylaws to see what I would come up with. Little wonder but some of the same phrases kept […]

Cheatsheets?

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

I’m trying to learn some new software and have been downloading cheatsheats or, as they’re also known, reference cards.

But then I was thinking, “what reference cards would be useful in church life and administration?”

Ideas?

Online community of interest: Progressive Exchange

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

I’m a member of the online Progressive Exchange community, and thought some of my more tech-oriented nonprofit-type readers might like it.

It is a

way to share information among people doing online organizing, advocacy, marketing and fundraising on behalf of the public interest. The goal of the Progressive Exchange is to aid the online efforts of progressive […]

NYT: Lessig on orphan works copyright

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Stanford Law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig had an opinion piece in the New York Times today worth reading, even if copyright issues aren’t your first concern. (”Little Orphan Artworks“)

The problem is that there quite a few mature works that are not old enough to be in the public domain but where the […]

Embed a Google document as form in site or blog

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Thanks to J.W. for pointing out a Google Docs new tool that allows forms to be embedded in sites. Comments at the official Google Docs blog suggest not all is well, but it should be useful for adding — at the very least — a straw poll capacity to blogs or an initial level of […]

For a new church, get EIN online

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

In my mind’s eye, I imagine a new congregation organizing team having working meeting with a laptop and an Internet connection knocking out all manner of little tasks that once took more time and effort.

A new church in the United States is going to need an Employee Identification Number to hire anyone or open a […]

Offering a free subdomain for emerging congregations

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

To be listed as an emerging congregation at UUA.org, “the group should have either a meeting address or working website or both.”

Hmm. One can be almost free of charge, with community support to develop and maintain and is an important communications and resources channel; the other is costly, difficult to acquire and maintain and might […]

Helping Lower Walnut: office suite

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

It’s no secret I love OpenOffice.org. It’s no secret that there’s a new 2.4 release and a beta for the 3.0 release out. Perhaps less well known is that you can run Windows and use OpenOffice.org. (The 3.0 version, with full release due in September, should benefit long-suffering Mac users.)

The Rev. Angela Mather knew her […]

Helping Lower Walnut: a free antivirus

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

You’ll recall the Rev. Angela Mather and her cash-strapped parish in Lower Walnut, Maine: a use case for free and open source software and other solutions for congregations.

One of the problems she had was an old Windows computer that was sluggish and temperamental. A friend from seminary thought it might be infected with viruses.

But anti-virus […]