Event Planning

You're probably here because you're planning an event at or for Tenth.  That's great!  The administrative staff have compiled this guide to make clear at the outset what information is needed, and when and how that information is needed.  You may think this feels like excessive bureaucracy, but when we count all of the classes, small groups, and committees, Tenth has more than 8,000 events per year, and coordinating them all with whatever resources they need is quite an undertaking. Standardizing the expectations helps make this process smoother for everyone involved. 

Published events are listed on the website's Events Calendar, but there are a number of other events in-process that may not be published yet. Send the Admin Staff a brief email with information about what you want to do, and when and where you want to do it. They will help navigate scheduling conflicts both for resources and for people attending.

Once you have a date selected, you'll need to provide the information listed below. If you're running an event with many different components (e.g. a multi-day conference), you will need to provide some of this information for each component.

• Event Title: Titles must be 80 characters or less and should be 30 characters or less. 

• Date/Time: Provide the start and end date and time of your event.  If the event is recurring, we will need the end date of the recurrence and any exceptions.  Generally, events cannot be planned more than a year in the future. 

• Sponsoring Ministry

• Budget Line: (If there are promotional costs, such as printing or equipment rentals) The line from the church budget to use for expenses.

• Event Owner(s): One must be a Tenth employee.  These people will be the primary points of contact for the administrative staff and will also be listed as the leaders on the website. 

• Description: A written description to be used on the website.  This can be as long as you like but must convey a compelling reason why someone should come to your event. 

• Call To Action / Registration Method: How do you want people to respond to your advertisements? Three registration methods are allowed:

  • "None" – There is no registration or RSVP in place at all. 

  • "Simple RSVP" - There is an "RSVP" button on the website, through which people can indicate that they and other members of their family are coming.  This is great for events where you only need to know who is coming, and don't need to charge a fee or ask other questions.

  • "Registration" - There is a registration form which can collect answers to questions and can also collect payment. This is the most capable option, but also the most intensive from a user standpoint. If you need to ask questions or charge fees, please indicate those at this stage.

  • We do not allow other external registration forms (e.g. Google Forms) because we require that personal data be owned and controlled by Tenth to protect our people's privacy.

  • We do not allow "Personal RSVPs" where someone should contact the host for a few reasons: (1) posting personal contact info publicly has sometimes resulted in sketchy stuff that we would all prefer to avoid. (2) You will be expected to submit attendance through MyTenth, and having everyone already on the roster will make that easier for you. 

• Resources Needed: If you need rooms, AV, staffing or other resources, indicate those needs.

  • Access & Security: For on-campus events, you will need a plan for access and security.

    • Door codes can be scheduled for events that have "known" attenders. These codes are reset a few times per year.

    • Any exterior doors MUST have a person monitoring them if they are going to be kept open. For worship services and church conferences, the Security Team may be able to provide someone, but this needs to be coordinated at least a month in advance.

    • Events with more than 50 people in the sanctuary are required to have the Spruce Street doors and gates open, and therefore are required to have a person in the Narthex.

  • Kitchens: If you are using a kitchen space, you will need a kitchen-trained point-person.

• Conflict Resolution: If any scheduling conflicts were raised during step 1, describe how you plan to address them.

• Artwork Plan: Artwork is not required for events but can help to distinguish events from each other. You can either provide suggestions to the staff on what you think stylistically makes sense for artwork, or you can provide the artwork itself. Artwork is subject to approval, and needs to match the specifications at the bottom of this article.

This step is mostly handled by the administrative staff, but here's what's happening behind the scenes:

• Registration Creation: The administrative staff will create the registration or RSVP as specified.

• Artwork Creation & Approval: The administrative staff will either create themselves or work with known graphic designers to create artwork for the event.

• Resource Reservations: The administrative staff will confirm that the needed resources are reserved.

• Editing: The administrative staff will edit descriptions and other content to be consistent with Tenth's branding and voice.

Once all of the steps above are complete, we're finally ready to publish the event to Tenth's media, including the Website, Midweek email, Bulletin, and more.

• File format can be png or jpeg.  (jpegs are preferable when the image is photo-like and there is no text.)

• Dimensions: 750px h x 1500px w

• Text: the image should have little or no text.  Do not include date, time, location or any other logistics within the image. 

• Permissions: Any source material you use (background photos, clip art, vectors) must be licensed in a way that allows Tenth's use ("commercial use without attribution" is generally safe).  If you're not sure about the licensing of a work, you should assume that you cannot use it.  

• Branding: Any artwork needs to be consistent with Tenth's "look and feel" and branding guidelines, especially any use of the Tenth logo.