Tune In, the North Island student conference begins today! I’m really looking forward to this week (yes, it runs for an entire week!), which will be full of both fun and learning. Personally, I’m in charge of the Day of Outreach (we talk to residents of Matamata about spiritual things, and get to share the gospel with them!), as well as photography. I’m also giving two talks, one on sharing the gospel, and one on living in the grace of God. I look forward to sharing with you how the conference goes upon my return!

With this in mind, I won’t be blogging for the next week. I do intend to continue my series about online support presentations when I come back.

Have a great week!

The reason that an online support presentation would include the ability to make a payment immediately is two-fold:

1. You can receive donations quickly.
2. Some people may only give a one-off donation, at least to begin with, and even then they may only do so if they can do it immediately.

What ways can the online support presentation help in this? So far the suggested method has been to link to the online giving system — which, once I have obtained a US account — I will do, because I think this is a good idea. (I’ll keep people up to date on the progress of this). There are some drawbacks however. This system works in US dollars and would mean a delay between donation and the money getting to me in NZ. The US system also means NZ donors cannot receive a tax-refund on their donation.

But there are also some other ways making a donation could be made easier:

• Paymate is a service which allows the collection of credit-card payments, in New Zealand Dollars. There would be a cost to me of 3% of the donated amount, plus 50c. Perhaps if I could prove that I was part of a registered charity, I could get a discount on these fees. (I’ve contacted Paymate regarding this, I’ll let you know the outcome). This option would require an extra step for me – moving the money from my account to the CCC account.
• Pago is a service which would allow me to receive donations by text-message. The person donating needs to be a Pago member (It appears that I do not!). There is a fee of 30c to the person donating to me. This option would also require the extra step for me as mentioned above.
• CCC NZ can accept credit card payments – just not online (yet). Some of the donation is lost in fees – I’m not sure of the amount. I could provide details to contact the office by phone and make a payment this way.
• Automatic Payment. Most of my regular financial supporters have an AP set up. I know that the office is looking at having a form set up online enabling a person to enter their details, and the form will give back the information needed (reference column etc) to set up the AP. The person can set this up from their online banking.
• Cheque. Most people don’t use these any more. But I probably should put the details for this on the site, so people can send one in if they wish.

Are there any other ways people know of to allow for easy giving?

In coming up with my own online support presentation, I had several goals.

The main idea was that people who live too far away for me to visit can find out more information about what I do online.

The presentation should also be:

• Simple, not overwhelming with information.
• Quick to load (not everyone has a broadband connection).
• Easy for me to update.
• Provide a way to contact me for more information.
• Appear credible.

In order for the presentation to be as simple as possible, I’ve tried to give only as little text as is needed to explain each point. This also helps ensure that each page the presentation is quick to load. I have also optimized the pictures for the web (they’re a fairly small size). While my presentation could be a lot more flashy-looking, I decided that simpler was better. This also means that it is not hard for me to update. Because I want the maximum number of people possible to be able to view my presentation, I’ve avoided using technologies such as Flash or Java.

At the end of the presentation, I have provided a way for someone to contact me. This section could do with a little upgrading – I plan to add a contact form in here somewhere so a visitor can type their message in and hit ’send’ straight away.

It has been suggested at this point that I link my presentation to the CCC online giving page, so that people can make donations right then and there. Unfortunately, this requires a US staff account, which I do not have as I’m not a US staff member. One possibility would be to set up an account with a website which allows anyone to accept credit-card payments. I am planning to investigate this option further; it does however mean more steps would be involved (I would then have to transfer the money from my account to the CCC account), and it would likely cost more in fees.

Finally, I have set up my online support presentation on the Student Life website, as opposed to my own. (Student Life being the CCC ministry that I work for). I have done this so that a sense of credibility will given when the user sees the studentlife.co.nz domain.

In the next part of this series I’ll take a look at some other ideas that both others and I have had for online support presentations.

Part of working for CCC involves having a support presentation (more formally “MPD“). As I’ve been contacting people who live a fair way away from me, I also have an online version of this presentation. It’s not perfect, but I think it’s a useful thing to have.

Over the next little while, I’d like to take a look at how I’ve built my online presentation — the reasons I’ve built it like it is — but also other ways of doing things (and in doing so I might modify mine somewhat). The reason for this is that I think this is a tool that other CCC staff members could use for their own MPD. With this in mind, you can expect a series (I don’t know how many) of posts about this in the not-too-distant future. I’d also like to take a look at some point at other online methods for MPD.

Stolen without shame from the blog “Office Space” by some guy called John (which I stumbled upon from a link from Karin’s blog), here are some excerpts from a 1970s Campus Crusade for Christ staff manual. Apparently the manual was known as “The Golden Calf”, relating to it’s mustard-yellow colour. Here are the excerpts:

Stand gracefully:

1. Have no more than six inches between feet.
2. Stand so that the toe joint of the back foot is even with the heel of the front foot.
3. Put more body weight on the back foot than the front foot.
4. Place the back foot at an angle — heel in, toe out. Place the front foot so that it faces straight ahead.
5. If your legs are heavy, put your front leg directly in front of your back leg. Turn the toe of the front leg slightly — about an inch–away from the center of the body.

Excess body hair should be removed regularly. For men, hairs in the nose and ears, and extremely heavy eyebrows which cross the nose, should be taken care of by their barbers. Girls should avoid artificial looking eyebrows, but should regularly pull strays. Underarm and leg hair should be removed weekly. Women sometimes have a mustache which can be removed by cream.

A woman in a place of leadership should not try to compete with the men of the organization on a man-to-man basis. In attempting to do so, she may antagonize the man and trample his pride, and even appear to threaten his position. She may tend to become dictatorial and irritating. Such a situation will lead to inevitable defeat of the whole ministry or program. A woman must remember that she is a woman and do all that she can to keep every attribute that is associated with womanhood.

Eye shadow is perilous stuff. It must be applied with a light touch, if at all.

If your knees and thighs are fat, never cross your legs where they will be seen by others.