At the Children’s Pastors Conference (CPC), Awana had a breakout session to preview the Club Technology Initiative which has yet to be named.
It was well attended with some Awana State Directors and some of those serving in a local Awana club that were seeking information about what Awana was working on.
The preview went over how Awana got to the realization that they had to embrace technology more to help the local Awana club, as well as help the entire organization. As I mentioned before, all companies and ministries need to be in the technology business, especially if you’re going to reach today’s population.
The technology suite of tools will be released in phases over the next three years:
- Summer of 2015: Phase 1 for leaders
- Summer of 2016: Phase 2 for parents
- Summer of 2017: Phase 3 for children
I am only going to focus on what is proposed in Phase 1 as the other phases are early in development and are ideas and conceptions which may change over the course of development and feedback of churches.
Phase 1 will encompass three areas:
- Digital Publishing/learning: This will include content from Awana, and some that can be submitted by churches, that can be used for large group time lessons, etc. A resource area to help your club. Another function will be a training segment that can be assessed anytime to help you train your leadership to be the best they can be. This will be included for ALL clubs as part of the annual registration fee.
- Collaboration: This portion will include a calendar function and a messaging tool. This will help commanders and directors to be in contact with leaders and parents.
- Ministry Management: This is the record keeping function, tracking attendance, awards, and handbook progression for all Awana and AwanaYM programs.
We did see a short demonstration of the technology’s ministry management feature. Awana requested that we not take a picture/video of the interface since it was still in development, and I honored that request. I can tell you that it did appear to be an easy to use interface in the current configuration. We did not see much, just a very short demonstration of recording a clubber’s attendance and handbook status/completion.
Here are some basics about the technology being developed:
- It is web-based. You need an internet connection to use it.
- Pricing for the collaboration and ministry management portions of the technology suite will start at $299/year which includes the annual registration fee. So to break it out, the annual registration fee is $99/year, the collaboration and ministry management portions will be an additional $200. There will be at least 2 other pricing levels, to be determined, based on club size, users, etc.
- Personnel involved in the development of the technology initiative met personally with the developers of the Approved Workman and A.R.K. record keeping databases, currently used by many Awana Clubs, earlier this month.
- Awana will not be replacing the current record keeping items. You will not be forced to embrace this technology, but Awana will be making it available.
If you have any questions about the technology, then please feel free to comment below and I will do my best to answer it, find the answer for you, or have someone from Awana respond to your question.
I am excited that Awana is taking this step in technology and I look forward to seeing the released product.
I am just wondering how this new technology will affect those of us who already use the Approved Workman software or if it will just merge in with the technology package?
It will not affect you if you use other software products available like Approved Workman. You can continue to use the Approved Workman software. You will not be required to use the Awana technology software unless you choose to do so.
You would still have access to the content available with the Awana technology if you choose not to use their club management portions.
The Approved Workman will not merge with the Awana technology package, but if you choose to use the Awana technology recordkeeping, then the discussion is taking place about having a way to transfer data from Approved Workman to the Awana technology package to assist clubs with the transition.