Another of my articles was published. The talk was called “Why Liberal Churches are Growing” but I like my title better. The characteristics apply to almost any congregation whether liberal or conservative.

We can learn a great deal from conservative churches. Please abandon your stereotype that they are mindless automatons who just attend and throw money at their congregation. It’s insulting and ignorant on our part.

Like any organization, they are doing something right when that many people feel that they are being ministered to effectively. Read the article.

Through the vagaries of chance, I got the opportunity to present at one of the workshops on organizing newsworthy justice events. One of the other speakers talked about social justice while I talked about PR. We each gave a short talk and then followed up with about 30 minutes of questions. The following is from my notes.

My name is Dean Goddette and I am chair of Outreach at Chalice Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Escondido, California. Just north of San Diego, Escondido is one of the most conservative cities in the state with a record of making it illegal for landlords to rent to illegal immigrants, to force the closure of emergency homeless shelters because they attact drug addicts, thieves and illegal immigrants. And besides, as one city councilor put it, “The bible says that the poor will always be with us. ”

In the midst of this, in fact, probably because of this, we have doubled in size from about 90 members to 193 members in about 5 years.  We are one of the fastest growing congregations in California.

And it’s not by advertising. If you leave here with one message it is that it is what you do as individuals that drives inreach and outreach and congregational growth.

For you outreach and PR people, a few questions:

• How many have a listing in your local paper’s church directory?
• How many of you know who the religion editor or writer at your local paper?
• How many have written up a news story with pictures and provided it to the religion writer?

Newspaper reporters are almost always starved for copy. They have careers and they want to move up the ladder. Several stories that we started with a local paper “graduated” to the larger regional paper. The local reporters become a resource for you as to what is newsworthy. As you develop a relationship, you don’t have to write everything up, you can pitch them a story on the phone and they will say yea or nay.

My Outreach co-chair has focussed on PR and has a list of all the papers and newspaper reporters. He contacts them on a regular basis. But be aware that reporters have a nose for BS. You need to actually be presenting them with news.

For those of you in social action or justice, you are the ones who can lead your congregation and provide newsworthy events for outreach. They can’t make stuff up. So the more authentic the event the better.

Goooooood morning. It’s 7:30AM on Thursday. It is the calm before the storm. As I was sitting in the war room / web center / communications center at GA, I felt the strong urge that I should be smoking a cigarette along with my coffee, diet Coke and cold pizza.

People have been drifting in and I am only starting to remember their names. The two Lances (Lance 1 and Lance 2, also known as Thing1 and Thing2 or T1 and T2) have been getting things ready for streaming video. they’ve been working on it all week so right now it seems to involve sitting at a computer and working very very intently.  

We started the coffee going and soon after the hotel staff came by with buckets of coffee. We were chatting and Janet says, “Oh! You’re Dean Goddette!” Not quite sure how to take that but it turns out that Janet is Janet Hayes teh UUA Public Relations Director. She had seen one of my posts on PR-L.  “I wanted to ask you to tell that story at my workshop but I thought it was rude to ask someone only a week before the session.” After more coffee, she reminded me of what I had posted (ok, it was early) and I said I would be glad to do it. When is the session? “Oh, it’s at 10:30, so now I feel really bad asking you to do it two hours before the workshop.”

I’m glad to do it. As a matter of fact, I have to head out now to get ready. I probably should have eaten something…

Hi folks –

KPOJ POJ-cast 7-8 am 6-20-07 (Bill’s 15-minute interview starts just after 7:30 AM).

I’ve been running a survey on the front page of the website and here are some of the preliminary results from the last 15 days.  The survey consisted of 10 questions, 8 about the website and 2 demographic questions. We got 10 responses to the survey and about 1000 unique visitors over the same time for a response rate of 1% which is pretty reasonable. Overall the impression of the website is fairly good and I have already implemented some changes to address some of the issues.

1. Is this the first time you have visited our website?

Yes - 33.3%
No - 66.7%

2. What is the primary reason you came to the site?

•  ref from UUA emailing
• get minutes for Board meeting
• For more info
• to see how the password protected system worked
• edit page
• to look for recent music
• a member of Chalice
• to check on data
• see what the upcoming sermon are
• tom chapin

3. Did you find what you needed?

Yes - 50%
Yes, some of it - 50%
No, none of it - 0%

4. If you did not find any or all of what you wanted, please tell us what information you were looking for.

• Looking to see if I could do on line membership here. Also looking to get involved.  
• I have a wiki system for UUism.net but don’t know if there is a password aspect to it. I really need to take a few hours and work with it for a while.  
• I was looking for music performed recently at Chalice.
• am just now exploring the site–am not familiar enough to say if all I want is here

5. Please tell us how easy it is to find information on the site.

Very easy - 50%
Easy - 40%
Average - 10%
Difficult
Very Difficult

6. What’s your overall impression of the site?

7. What is the likelihood that you will visit the site again?

Very likely - 60%
Likely - 20%
Unsure - 20%

8. Please add any comments…

There were a few comments.

9. What is your age?

10.  Where are you from?

Dean

May 10, 2007

Patty Carlisle

The Religious Education Committee reported that attendance at the first service has been zero, with second service maintaining a solid average of 13 children.  Stuart Holmes is organizing a work crew for a June push to complete the yurt deck improvements. 

The Technology Committee will have set up a computer in the Common Room with lock, child security software, and MS Office read-only application by the time this newsletter is mailed. Dean Goddette and Wayne Schroeder have been constructing a new members section on the Chalice web site that will allow users to contribute to content and discussion on topics of interest.  Adam Stout has been working on the new design for the web site.  David O’Gwynn continues to work on the ailing remote hearing-impaired system. 

The Outreach Committee reported that Tom Carlstrom, Patty Carlisle, and Grunion Run will be performing at the Rancho Bernardo Fair (RB Alive) on June 3 representing Chalice UU Congregation.  The committee is seeking members to man the CUUC booth and is designing palm cards for distribution at the Fair. 

The Music Committee is planning Cabaret Night 2007  logistics, with performances scheduled October 18-21. The results of Tim McKnight’s evaluation were reported.  He “once again had a stellar evaluation….  We are thrilled to have him as our Director of Music.”

Suzette Southfox, Inreach representative from First Church, was invited to speak before the Membership Committee, sharing First Church’s new member packets and describing how their group handles new members (orientation, canvassing, and their Partner Program).  Our committee continues work focusing on new member packets, methods of tracking visitors, and processing in new members.  A New Member Recognition Dinner is set for May 12.  

David Miller was ratified as our Student Minister for the summer, taking over sabbatical ministerial duties from Carol Hilton. 

Maude Ann Petzoldt, Al Weiss, Sali Weiss, and Colleen Wells have been appointed and ratified as our Delegates to General Assembly. 

The agenda for the June 10th Congregational Meeting was set and includes the election of new officers and trustees.  Informational packets will be distributed to voting members before the end of May.

A new infestation of termites was found in Margo’s office.  It will be treated under the warranty given by the company that treated the crawl space infestation (which is still free of termites.)

The Chalice outreach effort during the RB Alive! Expo this past Sunday was a huge success. In addition to a booth, the Chalice-based Grunion Run band (left to right above: John Schulz, Deb Coon, Dean Goddette and Paul Dulany) shared the stage at the food court with Chalice member Tom Carlstrom. They sang a number of UU songs as well as other blues, folk and rock favorites. Behind the musicians hung a banner reading, Unitarian Universalists of San Diego County. Chalice volunteers handed out more than 200 bookmarks to people they spoke with, as well as brochures about the congregation. The booth was well organized and festive, with materials about UUs and Chalice, a banner, and folding chairs decorated with the American flag. Volunteers also sold Grunion Run CDs. More than 40,000 visitors attended the day-long event in Rancho Bernardo, which featured 300 booths and plenty of entertainment. Fifteen members of the Chalice Outreach Committee worked on the project.Events of this sort are held in areas where our congregations are located, and the Chalice outreach effort shows just how successful they can be in reaching out to potential UUs. Chalice prepared for the expo with a training session for the volunteers, and plenty of attractive and informative materials. “The day was very successful,” said Rob Molek of the Outreach Committee.Photo by Jan Waugh, article cribbed by Dean from San Diego Cluster Newsletter

If you have news that you want to share such as how a recent event went such as the booth at RB Alive last week, you can do it here! This will not only allow you to update the congregation but it will keep an archive of Chalice activities over time. You can also post pictures, etc.

 Dean