Section 1:
Preparing for your Awana year

There's a lot to do before club begins in August (or whenever your club begins).  To allow your club to function smoothly (and to insure that the kids show up!) there are some topics that need to be addressed beforehand.  

Some of these things may not be your job.  None of these things may be your job, and that's fine.  Most secretaries are involved in many of these things to one extent or another, along with various church and club leadership. 

If you are a new secretary, you'll probably need to have a simple, five minute conversation with your commander.  Just ask, "Who is responsible for this in our club?  Do I need to do anything?   Okay, and who is responsible for this one?" etc.  

Unless you really like volunteering and are also the commander and the church treasurer or something, most of these can't be decided by a single person.  So don't try.  One of the most important things I can share with you today is that I can't do this by myself - and neither can you.  ​

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Prayer warriors

This ministry needs to be bathed in prayer to see fruit.   So, one of the first things you need to encourage your leadership to do is to recruit prayer warriors - people who will pray throughout the year for your leadership and your kids.  

Some of the best prayer warriors are those elderly and shut-ins who are no longer able to attend church regularly.  They've been a vital part of your church body for many years, and still have much to give.  

Give them lists of workers and their positions.  Tell them when your clubs will meet.  But don't stop there.  Plan to update them regularly.  Periodically share concerns and victories with them - perhaps through a newsletter or email.  

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Scheduling

• Publicity
  • Several things need to be scheduled as your church prepares for its Awana year.  The first of which is publicity.  Unfortunately, it is NOT "if you build it, they will come."  You could have the greatest club year ever planned, but if nobody knows, nobody will come.  
  • Let the community know what you're doing.  Include the day, times, and ages.  Think about putting fliers up in the local schools, barber shops, restaurants, libraries, etc.  Take out a newspaper ad.  Get a banner to put up outside your building.  Put it on the church website or facebook page.
  • Consider mailing registration forms to kids on your Sunday School roll and (if you've had club before) to those who attended at least once last year.
  • Remember - it is not automatically your job to decide how this all gets done.  It is your job to bring it to the attention of your leadership in order to make sure that it's done.  You are the keeper of the to do list, not the one who has to check off all the boxes.  

Sample:  Registration Forms

• Pre-registration event 
  • Have a pre-registration event.  It can be a potluck or a free hotdog supper (or lots of other things).  The idea is to be able to collect a lot of registration forms before the first night of club.   Once the forms are collected, the secretary has time to get them entered into whatever record keeping system is being used. 

• Club year calendar
  • Set up your club year calendar by choosing club night dates.  An Awana year is designed to run about 32 weeks long.   Those weeks are split into quarters that run 8 weeks in duration . The quarters are important as they relate to the Sunday School attendance awards.  
  • To decide when your club will meet, it is helpful to consult the calendar of the local school district(s).  Try not to meet before school starts or after it ends, as your clubbers and leaders will be less likely to come.   It is also helpful to have your club's Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring Breaks coincide with the local school(s).   
  • The club year does not have to be exactly 32 weeks.  It can be more or less.  Quarters do not have to all be exactly 8 weeks.  Sometimes it's easier to make your quarters end with breaks in club - like Christmas vacation.   If your quarter ending at Christmas only has 7 weeks, then that missing week could be added on to another quarter.  Your quarter beginning in January would then have 9 weeks.  

Sample:  Club Year Calendars

• Theme nights
  • After you calendar year is defined, schedule any theme nights.  
    
  • Theme nights give kids something to look forward to, and provide another way to give them points.  They are opportunities for the kids to dress up, bring certain items, or have contests around a central theme.   These should be scheduled before the club year begins, so that parents have advanced warning about what to plan for.  
  • Don't plan a theme night for every night of club - especially not ones that ask for costumes or donations.  You'll overwhelm parents.  Many churches pick one night a month to be a theme night (like the 2nd Wednesday).  
  • For theme night ideas, see the Incentives section a little farther down. 

Sample:  Theme Night Fliers

• Club Night Schedule
  • Your church needs to schedule who gets what rooms when.   This is especially important if you only have one game circle.  
  • Make a schedule and then post it in every room that will have Awana (in a consistent location - like above the light switch). 
  • Some churches make miniature versions of the schedule and place it on the back of the name tags, so that leaders always have it with them. 
  • The goal is for everyone involved with Awana to know where every child is supposed to be at any given point, even the person who only serves as a listener once a month (which is why you should post them in every room in a consistent location).  

Sample:  Club Night Schedule

• End of the year events
  • Before the year starts, plan end-of-the-year events that will keep your clubbers motivated.  For instance, if T&T kids complete a book, take them bowling.  The idea is to tell them on the first night of club what it will take to earn this special treat.  When the way gets rocky, the end-of-the-year events may just serve as sufficient motivation to spur them on.  
  • Other ideas:  movie night, ice cream sundays, baseball game.  

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Financial questions

While discussing things with your leadership, there are some financial topics to decide on. ​

• Pricing
  • Make decisions on how your club will price books, uniforms, and other paraphernalia.  
    • Some clubs charge the list price from the catalog. 
    • Some clubs add a bit to the list price to cover the cost of shipping. 
    • Some clubs are financially able to discount everything with the church picking up part or all of the price. 
  • However your club decides to handle pricing, you should create a price list reflecting those decisions.   We have a draft price list for you.   Please note that this is an old price list and does not reflect current pricing from the Awana catalog.   Prices should be updated before you modify them for how your church has chosen to handle pricing.  It might be a good idea to take an updated draft price sheet with you when you talk to the financial powers that be.  
  • A price list is a good thing to have printed and available.  You may even like to send a price list with the registration form so that parents will be prepared for the cost of handbooks and uniforms.

Sample:  Price List

• Dues
  • While discussing finances with your leadership, it would be wise to decide how dues will be handles in your club.  Will you ask for dues or will everything be covered by your church?  Will you ask for dues weekly or just let people know at the beginning of the year and if they pay, they pay, and they can't, it doesn't matter?

• Scholarships
  • The final financial matter to discuss with your leadership is whether or not your church will use scholarships.  And, if so, how they will be used. 
  • Scholarships are an easy way for your congregation to provide funds for families who are unable (or unwilling) to purchase a handbook and/or uniform.  
  • One way that they can be used is to place a notice on the bottom of the uniform order envelope (or whatever system you use for book and uniform ordering).  The notice on our sample order envelope says, "If a scholarship is needed, please circle the desired item below and return this envelope.  Scholarships can only be given if requested by the parent and this envelope is returned with the items circled."  Parents must return the envelope requesting a scholarship and must complete the enclosed uniform order form.  
  • Now that's all fine and good, but scholarships are money.  And money doesn't grow on trees.  So how do you find scholarship money?  It's actually very easy.  Someone from your club (probably your commander) should go up in front of your church, and they do three things:  quote some numbers, read a scripture verse, and pass the plate. 
    • What numbers do you need?  You need some numbers from an end of the year summary for the previous year.  If you're using a program like ARK, this is an easy thing to get to.   If you have a new club or don't have access to software, you're welcome to use some old EMBC numbers. 
    • And it goes something like this:  In the 2015-2016 school year alone, EMBC saw 3794 scriptures memorized - and over 142 children TOTAL.  Many of these only attended once or twice as visitors.  Average attendance was 90.  That's a lot of scripture hidden in the hearts of children.  God says that his Word never returns void - and it will accomplish his will.  "..So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."  (Isaiah 55:11).  
    • So, when raising money for your Awana club, quote the numbers, read the Word, and pass the plate.  

Sample:  Order envelopes

Sample:  Year-end Summary

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Incentives

The final area that needs to be decided ahead of time with your leadership is what your club is going to use to motivate clubbers.   Incentives are important!  Getting kids to come the first time is pretty easy.  Getting them to come back takes some work. 

​Incentives don't have to be tangible.  Many children today need things as basic to survival as love, attention, recognition, and encouragement.  Just forming a relationship with their listener may be quite an incentive to keep coming back.

Other tangible incentives are listed below.  
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• ​Patches and awards that are earned from passing sections. ​

• Awana stores with bucks or shares.
  • An Awana store is when your church sets up a room full of things that clubbers can buy with shares or bucks, which are basically church monopoly money that they earn by saying sections or doing other things in your club.  Bucks and shares are arbitrary and their value is decided by your church.  We have a sample points/shares guide for you, but they are only suggestions. 
  • If you're doing a store, values for sections and attendance and whatnot need to be decided BEFORE the club year starts, so that they can be tracked reliably by the secretary.  
  • Stores can be held as often as your church wants to - whether it's once a month, once a quarter, or once a semester.  
  • If items are donated, make sure that they are checked for appropriateness before being put out for clubbers.
  • Can spend bucks on:
    • toys
    • Christmas store to buy gifts for their families (with leaders helping wrap the gifts before they take them home)
    • supporting missionaries (your church would have to set an exchange rate)
    • food or other items for to donate to shelters
    • special club privileges (choosing songs for the night, being a line leader, picking out games for the night, etc.)
• Team Points
  • Also arbitrary and addressed by the sample points guide.
  • A training video from Awana on how to use positive points can be found here.

Sample:  Points Guide

• Ticket drawings
  • Instead of having an Awana store, clubbers can earn tickets to be used in a drawing once a month. 
  • Ticket values, like points and shares, are completely arbitrary.  One possible way of doing this would be:
    • 1 ticket for being present
    • 1 ticket for having your handbook
    • 1 ticket for wearing your uniform
    • 1 ticket for bringing your Bible
    • 5 tickets for bringing a guest
    • 5 tickets for each section passed
  • Write names on the back of each ticket.
  • Place tickets in buckets by age group (Cubbies, Sparks, T&T Ultimate Adventure, T&T Ultimate Challenge) and have a drawing at the end of each month.  Prizes can be as simple as a $10 Walmart gift card or duct tape for crafts or whatever motivates your kids.   Depending on the size of your club, you may want to draw more than one ticket from each bucket.  
  • After the drawing, dump the tickets out and start over.

• Birthday nights:
  • Designate four nights during your club year to celebrate clubbers' birthdays (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer).  Can be as simple as having them all stand up and everyone singing to them.  

• Theme nights
  • Discussed scheduling theme nights earlier in this section.  
  • Give prizes to the best dressed or whatever is appropriate.  Consider giving separate prizes for each age group.  
  • Possible theme nights:
    • Crazy hair night
    • Great affliction night
      
      • Kids cover themselves with dots or bandaids, wrap themselves up like mummies, bring crutches, borrow grandma's walker, etc.
    • Can-it night
      
      • canned food drive
    • Camo night
    • Favorite job night
      
      • come dressed as what you want to be when you grow up
    • Silly feet night
    • Boot night
    • Crown night
    • Hilarious Hat Night
    • Tropical night
    • Christmas night
    • Goofy glasses night
    • School spirit night
    • Inside out night
    • Backwards night
    • Measles night
      • On Measles night, clubbers go around and say verses to any leader they see.  It can be the same verse over and over or different verses.  When they say a verse, they can take a dot sticker and put it on the leader they said the verse to.  At the end of the night, leaders look like they have the measles. 

Sample:  Theme Night Fliers

• Pie in the Sky month long event
  • For every 5 sections passed, clubbers earn a whipped cream pie to smash in the face of a leader of their choice on the final Pie in the Sky night.  Give them up to a month to accumulate sections.  
• Some churches have bus ministries that could count as incentives.  With parental permission, they pick kids up from their school at the end of the day and bring them to church.  When they arrive, they are given a snack.  People are there to help them with their homework.  They also have some kind of craft or game planned for after their homework is finished.  Before club starts, the church will feed the kids supper.  
• End of the year events
  • Before the year starts, plan end-of-the-year events that will keep your clubbers motivated.  For instance, if T&T kids complete a book, take them bowling.  The idea is to tell them on the first night of club what it will take to earn this special treat.  When the way gets rocky, the end-of-the-year events may just serve as sufficient motivation to spur them on.  
  • Other ideas:  movie night, ice cream sundays, baseball game.  
• Scholarship camp
  • A end of the year event that is not planned by the church.
  • It's a little different for every location.  Usually week long overnight camps for kids T&T age and older who passed at least one book during the club year.  
  • Usually not run by a single church.  Includes clubbers from across a wide area.  
• Prize ideas
  • Small gift cards
  • Duct tape for crafts
  • Manicure/pedicures for T&T girls
  • Food with sugar is not usually recommended.  

If your church has a great idea that you'd like to share, email Liz at AwanaSecretaryResources@gmail.com.   ​

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Secretary Training Menu

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Club Prep

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Self Prep

2

Stuff Prep

3

Club Night

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