It’s a kids ministry Revolution baby!

This is the first time that we’ve run an Easter Egg Hunt. I got the idea from Andy Kirk, (kids pastor at Metro Church Gold Coast). It was an absolute sucess, we even got into the local new paper!  A few peeps want to know how we ran it, so here is the run down and what we will do differently next year…

Advertising

Simple really, we made a cool poster and emailed it to all our local primary schools to put in their news letter.  Most of them did.  We also got 10,000 A6 printed and got a bunch of volunteers to do a letter box drop.  We focused on the areas we specifically want to work in.  This was incredibly effective.  I also took some poster around a few shops to put up in their window.  I’m not convinced this was worth it.

Next Year

Same as this year but perhaps double the number of flyers to go into peoples letter boxes.  We ran out!  We will also contct the Dunedin Events Centre who get the word out for us and if we can get the space in our local papers we’ll get it in there too.  I’m anticipating that word of mouth from this year will also be effective.

The Event

Along with the hunt itself we had bouncy castles, face painting, games and my little bro came along and played his guitar.  (Everything except the hunt was free).  The park that we held it at had loads of cool park things that also kept the kids busy.

Next Year

All of that plus maybe a skate comp and more noice.  We’ll get a sound system and have more live music.  It would be great to get a radio station to come and hang out too.

The Hunt

• Parents had to register their children for the hunt, it cost them $2.  We had tables set up with an incredible team handled regos.
• When each child registered they were assigned to a hunt (max 50 children per slot).  We divided them according to age (3-5, 6- 8 and 9-12 year olds).  Each child recieved a sticker with a letter that told them what hunt they would be in (hunt A, B, C…) and were told what time their hnt would be.
• 2 min before their hunt time, the kids reported to the leader holding their card at the hunting area, then they started hunting!
• The eggs were hidden in straw.
• Along with eggs, there were several ice cream sticks hidden in the straw.  These sticks had numbers on them.  After the hunt they took the stick to the prize table and swapped the stick for a prize.
• When they finished hunting, they chose popcorn or candy floss.  They handed over their sticker so they couldn’t go back for seconds!

Next Year

Just one hunt per year (ie 3 year olds, 4 year olds…), rather then repeating samaller hunts over and over.  We’ll need to advertise this along with the times so that no one misses out.  We’ll organises a parents hunt too!

Follow Up

When parnets registerd their kids we required them to fill in a form with their children’s names, ages and a family email address.  We also had a tick box for those who would prefer to not be contacted about future events.  Very few ticked the box and a hand full left the email empty.  Some wrote a phone number or postal address instead.

With these email addresses we’ll send a “Thank You for coming” email, and then 5 or 6 through out the year with specific events that these families might be interested in.  The last thing we want to do is hound them.  We do however want to raise awareness of what our church does and open the door as wide as we can!

Next Year

We’ll ask for either email or postal address to allow for those who don’t use email.

Other

For some families $2 for a hunt actually is a big deal and others didn’t know it was on and came unprepared but came and did all the free stuff which meant that they didn’t have to register.  Since our main objective is to build relationships with families in our city and to keep them in the loop with what we’re doing we want to get everyone to register.  Next year we’ll make the hunt free (but still have to register) and charge a minimal fee for the bouncy castles etc.  That way the one thing that every can do they have to register for.

Since this is the first ever time we’ve done this we’re still newbys!  If you’ve go some great ideas from you Easter Egg Hunts I would love to know, so make sure you leave a comment.