Starting Your Club
Now that you are considering starting a Keepers Club ministry, it is important to consider laying some groundwork to ensure that your program gets off to a good start. The following are some helpful suggestions to make getting started a little easier.
- Read through the Essential Guide as it contains helpful information about the program, its objectives, and its basic operation. It will form a basis for the administrative information about operating larger clubs, which is contained in the Essential Guide.
- If you have the responsibility of organizing a large club, read through the Essential Guide so you will have an understanding of the extra administrative steps involved in operating large clubs. Create a three-ringed notebook in which to keep any notes that you take, the forms and record-keeping information that will be needed, project plans, required material lists, etc. Keep all notes and plans organized in one book.
- Decide when and where to hold your club meetings.
- Decide exactly who can join your club.
- Decide whether your local group will receive a registration fee from its members. If so, how much it will be, and how it will be used.
- Determine how many adult leaders you will need as help, and enlist them.
- Have a planning meeting.
- Decide which skills the children will work on, and choose which crafts and projects will be taught at meetings during the first few months.
- Decide on how you will promote your new program: verbal announcements, printed flyers, etc.
- Reproduce the necessary number of Registration forms, Questionnaires, and Personal Record-keeping forms.
- Sign up the children!
- Order the handbooks needed.
- Set a date for your first meeting.
A number of these items, and suggestions for them, will be discussed in greater detail in the Essential Guide.
Essential Guide for Parents and Leaders
If you desire to make maximum use of the handbooks and help your children achieve their highest potential, you will find this Guide essential. The Guide contains pertinent information on each and every skill in the handbooks, how to teach the skill, ideas for accomplishing the skill, plus a reservoir of creative tips to help you teach and mentor your own children. Each parent and every leader, whether a club is small or large, will find the Guide helpful. There are ideas for lessons, character training, choosing reading material, and more included. Is your club growing? Learn how to organize and operate a very large club. There are reproducible forms for all club needs included. This Guide covers it all! Don’t be without it!