After listening to “Designing a Sizzling Point of Entry Event (POEE)”, I came away with the following thoughts:

1- We do this now but not according to an established routine – This is encouraging!! When Allie and I were investigating MHA some 6 years ago, I can remember the one of the vision banquets that we attended. Many of the elements of that meeting should be components of our POEE: 1) the visionary leader talk, 2) the gap that needs to be filled, 3) the vision for MHA’s future. A fourth component was added to last year’s vision banquet – the testimonial from Ben Cox which gave us a very hopeful vision of the possibilities that exist for our MHA students.

And while we practice many of the essential elements of a POEE, we need to incorporate these into a routine of some frequency (i.e. monthly?). This leads to my second thought …

2 – The POEE is much like a college tour – I was a tour guide while an undergrad at Miami. After about 5-7 tours, I had my routine down pat. The path we walked throughout the college rarely changed. However, I was also able to customize several parts of my talk including the places to visit after the tour, the personal stories to share, the advice, the recommendations for a satisfying lunch or dinner, etc. What made my job easy as a tour guide was that it became a routine; what made it fun was that it could be customized to fit the unique needs of each group.

I think this applies to the POEE. Our POEE is our chance to give people a tour of MHA which includes an explanation of our vision and needs as well as a chance to observe how we operate. This should be relatively standardized. As Terry said, this is also our opportunity to “get the MHA story in the heads and hearts” of the attendee and influence them to join our mission. These stories, places to visit and testimonials can be customized in order to address the differing needs of the audience.

Overall, the development, execution and maintenance of a POEE need to become a system, a process or, put another way, a ministry within MHA.

3 – We need to identify the target audience for a POEE – My impression was that Terry assumed the POEE attendees were not “consumers” of the services offered by the non-profit organization. Rather, the attendees were individuals who seemed to support the cause of the non-profit.

In our case, I think we have two groups to target with a POEE and the POEE message should be tailored to each group. The first group includes people who are NOT part of the MHA community but who would likely support our vision of classical Christian education. As Tom described in our first meeting, these are probably older individuals with the money and resources to give. The second group includes members of the MHA community who have the potential to give more or more often.

While we can tailor a message to each group, the challenge for us will be to get them to attend!!

4 – Our current community can drive POEE attendance – To build attendance at our POEE, we want to equip our MHA community with the tools to spread the word. This should include encouragement (and incentives?? i.e. discounts??) to buy and wear MHA spirit wear and providing people with the “30-second description of MHA and classical Christian education”. With these tools, there is an improved chance that people will ask about Mars Hill and people will have the clear, concise answers to give. Word of mouth works as long as we have a reason to open our mouths (I don’t always practice this, especially at home!!).

Thoughts?? Hope all is well with everyone!

Well, had my alarm gone off this morning at the appointed time, I would not have had the pleasure of encountering Mrs. Daphne Chaney as she and I were both leaving the school this a.m. (Had things gone according to plan, I would have been in my office).

We were both in tears (3xs, I believe that was the number that Benevon requires), as she recounted her STORY about her son, where he's come from (another Christian school), and the love and nurturing he is receiving at Mars Hill. Just one example...Alvin is no longer bullied and is able to shift his attention to learning while he is at school. She believes that Roger is annointed...she is an EXCELLENT speaker and said over and over and over that she will do ANYTHING for the school. I told her that sharing her testimony would bless the school very much and that I would talk with Susan about opportunities.

I think we have a story here...I think we need to have a collection of stories in our pockets, laminated of course....

Very random thoughts with little editing...hope you can follow...

After the meeting today I was thinking about how important it will be to stress the importance of that this is not just about Mars Hill Academy, or maybe it is?, but about classical and Christian education, and ensuring that there is a generation(s) that understands the importance of Christianity and America from a global perspective. Perhaps this is "out of bounds" because it is not part of our school Mission/Vision statement??? Although it is apparent if you read the web site and foundational documents, dig just a little...This is what set Mars Hill apart for Derek and I...the history, the heritage, the influence of Christianity, giving Christianity context and teaching us and our kids what a distinctly Christian culture looks like (as best as we humans can figure out). Could go on and on here...

Hillsdale has a definite "political" agenda and from what I can see, they promote that unabashedly and succeed. Could we take the same "much bigger picture" approach? Or, are we going to really boil it down to - Mars Hill Academy is doing great things and we need a gym...?

What are we asking people to support? What is our group trying to accomplish?

The name of the campaign I think would be affected by the answers to these questions.

So, we probably need to establish a mission/vision statement for our group? We are not the school.

Tom is in

and out

Help, where am I (Roger)??

Roger is the mystery guest who said he is finally a blogger.

I'm finally a blogger!!