Inside Nspire » Brandon Gross

Help Haiti Earthquake Victims – We’ll Show you how

Brandon Gross — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:37:26 +0000

Most of you have heard by now about the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday. Our hearts and prayers are with the Haitian people during this difficult time. But as a company we believe very much in action.

James tells us,

¹⁵ If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.

(HCSB courtesy www.biblegateway.com)

That’s why we have teamed up with Living Water International and Mercy Water to help the people of Haiti. Watch to following video to learn more:

According to LWI,

“The most urgent need during the coming days and weeks will be water. Homes can take months to re-build, electricity can take weeks to restore, but people can’t last long without water.

Earthquakes destroy water systems. Pipelines break, electrical distribution systems fail, and hand-dug wells–—already questionable water sources–—are rendered useless or become contaminated with cholera, typhoid, and other waterborne diseases.”

“In Haiti, clean water is a terrible problem even at the best of times,” said LWI Executive Director Gary Evans. “After a quake like this, it’s a crisis of epic proportions.”

How you can help:

Get the Word Out - Nspire and our Partners are providing resources to help you raise support for the Haitian people. Feel free to use and distribute these resources to your youth groups, congregations and friends & families. We only ask you do not modify the resources without first requesting permission. You can download the following resources:

- Haiti Awareness Video – Use the following Code Snippet to place the “Help Haiti” video on your website. You can also download the video to show in group settings by clicking here (the download link is on the bottom right of the Vimeo page)

Embed from Vimeo:

Help Haiti Earthquake Victims - We'll Show You How from Brandon Gross on Vimeo.

Embed from Youtube:

- Facebook, Myspace & Website Banners – Use the following code snippets to place the following banners on your websites and social networks:

728 x 90

468 x 60

200 x 200

125 x 125

- Blogs & Twitter – Put your social networking skills into action. We encourage you to blog, tweet and update your status’ to raise support for Haiti. If you are a youth minister, this is a great way for your kids to help out. Feel free to use any of the links above in your posts. You can also link directly to the Living Water International donation page with this link : http://www.water.cc/initiatives/haiti/

Most of all help us raise support for Haiti by donating and encouraging others to do the same.

At Nspire, we have chosen water as a way to help because it is the most basic and essential of human needs. Water is something most of us never have to worry about going without and with the Haiti people already having a terrible problem accessing clean water… An earthquake just makes finding clean water all the more difficult.

But it doesn’t have to be that way… We can make a difference. Our donations, no matter how small or large to us, mean life to the people of Haiti. Help us make a difference… today.

Together we can reach out with the love of Christ to the people of Haiti… thank you for being a part of making a difference.

You can Donate to the Haiti Relief Fund by clicking below

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Strike a Pose… We need your Photo!

Brandon Gross — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:59:01 +0000

Want to be in the new upcoming Youth Assistant website? Are you a Youth Worker?

If you answered Yes, then strike your best pose and tell us how you use Youth Assistant. Then send your photo and quote to strikeapose@nspiresoftware.com . We will select the best poses and use them on the new Youth Assistant website… So Be Creative!

Here are a few guidelines for the photos:

1. Make it easy on Brandon (our graphic designer) and take the picture in front of a blank or solid background (AKA wall, green screen, solid… anything)

2. If possibly give us a full body shot (basically we want to see your entire body in the shot)… Otherwise waist up will work.

3. Forget About that old formal shot you have hanging above the dinning room table… Congregational directory day photos are right out

4. HAVE FUN! Be Creative.

If you have questions you can also send them to strikeapose@nspiresoftware.com

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New Office Hours

Brandon Gross — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:00:40 +0000

We have been making a lot of changes at Nspire over the last month. A couple of those changes have been in our address and office hours.

Our new office hours have been designed around the times the average church organization is available to contact us. The most notable change in our business hours occurs on Mondays. Starting July 6th our offices will open at 1:00pm instead of 8:00am (CST). During this time our staff will be coming together to share ideas and continue to create the best experience available for our customers.

We have many development plans to be implemented over the few quarters and we are excited about what the next few months hold; we believe our customers will be as well.

As always, our commitment to our customers and FullAccess Support Members is unwavering. We appreciate your support and feel privileged to be a part of the ministry God has placed each of you into.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us by calling 1-888-297-6495 or submitting your request through our online contact form at www.nspiresoftware.com/contact

Please take note of our new office hours and address below:

Office Hours:

Monday: 1:00pm – 5:00pm CST
Tuesday thru Friday: 8:00am – 5:00pm (closed 12pm – 1pm) CST

*Please be sure your business office is notified of this change.

New Address:

Nspire Software, LLC
#264
2020 Fieldstone Pkwy, Suite 900
Franklin, TN 37069

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Resource Store Now Available in Version 4.41!

Brandon Gross — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:00:26 +0000

We have been excited to bring you this release since the beginning of this year. Our friends over at Simply Youth Ministry have made their resources available for you to access directly from Nspire, Youth Assistant and Children’s Assistant software.

In version 4.41 you will see a new icon in the left menu called “Store”. Simply click on this icon to access the Simply Youth Ministry Resource store. Here you will find the latest and greatest from Simply Youth Ministry.

Now for all our customers who are not youth ministers, don’t worry. We will be adding new resources in the coming months that will meet a wide range of your ministry needs.

As always, if you have any questions call us at 1-888-297-6495 or email us through our contact form at www.nspiresoftware.com/contact

If you are into twitter you can also shoot us a tweet: @nspiresoftware or go to our direct twitter page at www.twitter.com/nspiresoftware

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Assignable Barcodes Just Released! Watch the Video

Brandon Gross — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:16:06 +0000

Take a look at how you can now assign your own bar-codes for tracking attendance.

Benefits of Assignable Barcodes:

1. No hassle about lost key tags or id cards since you can simply assign a new one
2. You can have key tags and id cards printed in bulk
3. Increase speed of registering new individuals

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Backing up before you hear the “click of death”

Brandon Gross — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:46:55 +0000

Hard drives… we all use them every day and we all expect them to just work. But, as I recently have been reminded of, they can fail… sometimes more than once.

In the last three weeks I’ve gone through 3 hard drives. It all started when I heard “the click of death”. I had just upgraded my laptop hard drive to a new 500GB drive, since the previous drive was showing signs of imminent failure.

I was so excited I went out and purchased a couple precision multi tools to get the job done. I even purchase some kind of precision tool that looks like the equivalent of a miniature ice pick with a handle… why? I don’t know, but you never know when you might need a precision ice pick tool; I might have to fend off some hard drive demon or computer bug. Being the boy scout I am I had to live up to the motto of “be prepared”.

With the help of my precision tools and the assurance of my precision wanna be ice pick I was able to tackle the task of replacing my hard drive and installing the greatest operating system known to man… OS X Leopard.

Then it happened. I heard it as clear as day… it was the “click of death”.

Now the click of death is the tale-tell sign that your new hard drive is about to kick the bucket. It happens when your computer tries to write to the hard drive (example: saving a document) but then freezes and you can hear a faint but repetitive click. Sometimes it only lasts for a minute and then goes away, other times it clicks until you have no choice other than to force the computer to shut down and hope it starts again.

Being the geek I am I knew what was about to happen. So I quickly had a replacement drive shipped to me, backed up my clicking drive one last time and installed the new one. Problem solved. At least I thought so.

It wasn’t but about a week after installing my 2nd drive that it crashed completely. No clicking, no faint coughs, fever… nothing… it just skipped all that and went straight to the “kicking the bucket” part of it’s life cycle. Maybe it was afraid I would go and buy more tools and try to “fix” it and it just couldn’t bear the thought of going through all that. I guess I’ll never know.

Moving on, I ordered my 3rd replacement drive and going through all the same processes as before I reinstalled all my information from a backup I had made earlier. I’m happy to say that I’m using that very drive now to type this blog post. Hopefully it will stick around.

What can you learn from my hard drive saga? Backing up needs to be a habit. Most people would think they could easily get a few years out of a new hard drive before experiencing any problems. In my case, I only got a few days each time. The point, 100% of all hard drives will fail at some point… it’s just a matter of when.

So what can you do?

Start backing up. I recommend a 2 stage backup plan.

1. Backup to an external hard drive or server drive on the network. (This drive should be off-site or remotely backed up)

2. Use an Online Backup solution that implements daily backups with version control for files.

If you are looking for a good Online Backup tool I recommend taking a look at our Nspire Online Backup (NOB) software. You will get the best security in the business, version controlled backups, error prevention monitoring, and much more. You can sign up or learn more by going to www.nspiresoftware.com/onlinebackup

We offer plans for just backing up your Nspire Software product up to backing up your entire computer. Check it out. Let us know if you have questions 1-888-297-6495

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New Small Ministry Pricing Available!

Brandon Gross — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:27:45 +0000

Times are tough and that means budgets are tight. We have talked to countless ministries over the past few months who tell us about their budget cuts, staff layoffs, salary reductions, and the pressures they face in this tough economic time.

The economy has in some form affected almost all of us. Unfortunately some more than others. It is in times like these that the church body is looked to more than ever for assistance and help to those who are in need.

We have been talking around the office about what we can do to help relieve some of the pressure ministries are facing so they can put more effort into effectively meeting the needs of the people in their communities. We specialize in management software. We know the importance of keeping accurate information on those the church body ministers to. But we also understand in an economy like this affording quality management software may be a great desire but not something that is possible in the middle of all the budget cuts surrounding ministries.

We see the opportunities surrounding the church body in this economic situation. The large portion of church congregations in the US are under 100 in size. The opportunities for small ministries to expand their influence and meet needs in their communities are abundant but managing the information and correspondence done can be difficult without software designed for this task. Yet, at the same time affording software that is more than $1,000, or even less than $500, can be a strain on small ministries. So where does this leave these ministries? The need for quality management software is there but the resources to afford it may not be.

We want to help.

Starting immediately we will be offering special discounted pricing for small ministries. We want to make ministry management software available to any ministry that shows a need for it. Pricing will be based on the current ministry size among other conditions. To see if your ministry qualifies please call 1-888-297-6495 to talk with one of our representatives.

Also, if you know a small ministry who could benefit from one of our software products but just does not have the resources to pay retail price, please have them contact us to discuss how we can help them.

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Effective follow-up in your next VBS

Brandon Gross — Tue, 26 May 2009 22:17:19 +0000

VBS is right around the corner. For many of you it has already come running around the corner, tackled you head on and made it’s stamp on your Google Calendar (or in other words, you are in the middle of it).

Vacation Bible School is one of the best times of the year. Kids come from all over and as much work as it is I think most VBS workers would agree the work is worth the reward.

This week I wanted to take the opportunity to share a few ideas on making the most out of your VBS by focusing on Post-VBS follow-up.

Now it is easy to get consumed with the preparation of VBS and completion of your VBS program and miss the giant opportunity laid before you. I’ve seen so many church organizations spend large amounts of money, resources, and volunteer time into the VBS program, year after year, but never actively pursue participant follow-up.

Each year, during VBS, you are given an opportunity to minister into the lives of children of various ages. The opportunity to teach and show these children the love of Christ is a rewarding and encouraging experience. What is even more rewarding is to take the opportunity to teach and show the love of Christ to the children attending and go one step further and do the same for the child’s family. What if your 1 week, 1 weekend or 1 day VBS looked further down the road and became a ministry tool to affect the families of each one of the children attending? What if VBS took the form of a children’s and family ministry opportunity?

I’m sure many of you reading are already doing this, if so, leave a comment below with your tips and advise.

Now, no matter how small or how big your annual VBS is, one thing is for certain if you want to follow-up effectively; you will need very good records of the children attending and their parents names and contact information. Most of you already gather this information but I would also venture to guess that many of you have it stored on paper sheets or in excel. Both work, but effective correspondence is about consistency and timeliness.

So, leads Nspire’s List of VBS follow-up ideas:

1. Plan your registration ahead of time.

Registration planning can be one of the toughest jobs to plan and get volunteers for. But, don’t skimp on this one, especially if you are a small organization and feel you already know who is attending. Accurate registration will not only give you contact details to use for later ministry opportunities but it will also be worth it’s weight in gold if an emergency arises where the parents need to be contacted.

You have put a lot of work into planning and preparing this years VBS so plan for new visitors and parents. Make sure that when they arrive they feel like they are leaving their children in a safe place that takes the necessary procedures to ensure, as a parent, they can be contacted if needed.

You also might want to consider making Pre-registration available. Many VBS curriculum’s now make online registration sites available for a small fee or for FREE! Here are a few options:

If you are using Group VBS Curriculum, they have a free resource for making online registration available along with a free promotion website. You can register and setup you website by clicking on the following link:

https://www.groupvbs.com/webtoybox/director/login.aspx?partner=auto

If you are using another VBS Curriculum that does not provide online registration you could consider making your own online registration form using one of the many services available. I personally like Wufoo.com. They will allow you to create a online form that will have up to 10 fields store 100 users per month for FREE. If you need more than that you can go one step up and pay $9.95 per month for Unlimited Fields and up to 500 stored users.

The benefit of a service like this is you can export your registrants out and import them into a ministry database like Nspire or Children’s Assistant… wink, wink. Here is the link:

http://wufoo.com/

2. Plan your Correspondence

After you gather your registration information either from an online form or paper form in the back. Make sure to enter this information into your church/ministry management database under a group/event of your VBS. Don’t have a ministry management software? Take a look at Children’s Assistant or Nspire (We offer non-advertised special pricing for small ministries and church organizations, call 1-888-297-6495 to see if you qualify).

At this point you are ready to develop your correspondence plan. This is your opportunity to thank the parents for bringing their children to your VBS and invite them to join you again. Consider the following (in no particular order):

A thank you email sent to all parents and attendees sent the day of registration or after the event is over. If you are using a program like Children’s Assistant or Nspire you can personalize the email by mail-merging the parents names into each one automatically.
Send a post-card to all the children who attended inviting them to attend your weekly children’s meeting (with parent’s permission). Postcards can be printed directly out of your management software or you can have them pre-printed from a place like www.gotprint.com (they have a online postcard software which will guide you through making your own custom postcard for this event).
Make a phone call. The power of a simple phone call is often under-appreciated. It only takes a minute and gives you an opportunity to make a one-to-one connection with the parents who brought their children. This is something you just can’t accomplish with emails and postcards.
Consider holding another event to meet and greet with the parents and families who attended. This could be done after VBS is over or even on the last day of VBS. Think cook-out. Just something to give you and the families an opportunity to get to know one another and share all the great stories from VBS.

3. Be Creative!

I know the very mentioning of the “C” word sends shivers down many of your spines. But no matter how uncreative you think you are I bet digging down you have an untapped well of creativity; you just need to unlock it. Try thinking like your kids think. What would they like… how do they want to learn… what are other people and organizations doing… Yes, look at what others are doing. Remember that old saying in Ecclesiastes “there is nothing new under the sun”, well it’s true. Much of the most creative stuff we see is just a rehash of something someone else did just with a new twist.

If your still having problems get a group of your friends and volunteers together for a creativity round-table. Give everyone a pack of post-it notes and for 10 min have everyone write down any ideas they have. Not idea is too small or too big. Anything goes, even the silly ideas. Have them centered around a question like, “How do we minister to the kids better than we have before” or “What would make this years VBS the best and most influential in a child’s life than any VBS before”. For that matter you can even make it more specific like, “How do we make (this point, lesson, illustration) better than ever before”.

Everyone writes for 10 min, one idea per note. After the 10 min have everyone stick their ideas in the center of the table or on a nearby wall speaking them as they go through each one. Next, start discussing the ideas and watch the magic happen. Remember, no idea is too off-the-wall, what you might find is the off-the-wall ideas are the ones that spark the very best and most creative ideas you get. Try it out.

Well, I hope this article has been helpful. I’m sure many of you have a slew of other great ideas. Let me urge you to share them. Post a comment below and tell us what you think.

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Why Biometric Fingerprint Attendance

Brandon Gross — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:30:58 +0000

It was back in late October that we first announced the release of Biometric Fingerprint Scanning. Since then we have had many churches take advantage of this new technology. With VBS and Spring/Summer Camps just around the corner we thought it would be good to highlight a few of the key benefits of Biometric Fingerprint Attendance and how it could help you.

The List:

1. Accuracy

Tracking Attendance can be tough sometimes. Depending on your method of capturing attendance information it could potentially run into many different problems. What we have seen in the past with many churches and organizations who first come to us with their attendance woe’s is that most of them had stopped tracking attendance due to the difficulty of getting the information easily and accurately.

Biometric Fingerprint Scanning tracking lends itself to being a quick easy solution to tracking attendance. By tracking attendance using a simple fingerprint you eliminate the need to keep up with any type of card, list or the such. Fingerprint scanning is also very accurate and quick. The fingerprint system we sell actually has artificial inteligence built in that allows for it to learn from bad scans so it does not repeat the same mistake the next week.

2. Speed

Since fingerprint attendance tracking doesn’t require anyone to keep up with anything other than their thumb, it makes the attendance entry quicker than ever. With a simple touch of a finger the individual will be logged into the attendance event and be on their way.

3. On the fly visitor tracking

When new visitors show up for your events, biometric attendance scanning makes it easy to gather their information and mark them as present.

Taking their core information (name, phone, etc) and capturing their fingerprint can all be done from the scanning console. Making it easy to track visitors on their first visit and any visit after.

For more information about fingerprint attendance tracking or for a quote, contact us at 1-888-297-6495 or email information@tcshome.com

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New live online training classes now available

Brandon Gross — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:30:49 +0000

We are excited about the release of our new live online training events. Live online training is a great way to polish your skills on Nspire, Youth Assistant or Children’s Assistant. Not to mention we allow you to train your entire staff for the price of only ONE ticket for the training event you choose.

Now we are sure you have plenty of questions. To help, we have included a list of FAQ’s below:

1. How much do training events cost?

Each training event has it’s own cost which is based on the length of the event. A ticket for a training event can range from $175.00 to $250.00 (not including a small processing fee). One ticket CAN be used for an unlimited number of attendees for the date and time of the training event ticket purchased.

We also offer a FREE Orientation training event that is scheduled for each Monday morning 8:30am to 9:15am CST.

To see the cost for each event ticket, click on the “Register Now” link. This will open a registration window that shows the ticket price and the registration fee for the event. The registration fee is a small amount added to the ticket price to cover the cost to process each ticket. To sign up for training go to http://www.nspiresoftware.com/training

2. How many people from my church can attend a training with ONE ticket?

Each ticket seat is good for 1 workstation and phone connection to the conferencing center. Now we know you are already thinking:

“Is there a way we can use one ticket for more than one user?”

The answer is “YES”, you can use one ticket for an unlimited number of simultaneous users, in a single training event, who access the training from 1 workstation. A good example would be you and 5 or 10 other software users who gather around a single computer with a speaker phone to watch the training.

A ticket is good only for the scheduled date and time the ticket was purchased for.

3. Is there a limit to the number of tickets sold for each event date?

Yes, in order to maximize the effectiveness of our training events we limit the number of tickets sold per event to 15. Which means there will be no more than 15 churches in any one training event.

4. How does live training work and what are the requirements to attend an event?

Live online training is a service that offers software training through the use of a web conferencing center. You will need a computer with a high speed internet connection as well as a phone connection. Before your training event you will be emailed the conferencing center phone number and a web link. The web link will take you to the online conferencing center, which will allow you to view the trainers computer screen on your computer, on the day of the event.

On the day of training you will simply click the web link from your email and call the conferencing center phone number. Keep in mind if you have multiple individuals using the same computer you will need a speaker phone to ensure everyone can participate.

Once you are logged in you will be able to view the trainers computer screen and software. At that time the trainer will give the class any instructions necessary and then proceed with the training.

5. Will I be able to ask questions during a live online training?

Yes, even though the phone lines will be muted (only person anyone will hear talking will be the trainer), you will be able to ask questions during the event using a chat client in the conferencing center. Periodically throughout the training the trainer will do their best to answer everyone’s questions that relate to the material covered in the event. There will also be a Question and Answer time at the end of each training to review material covered.

On the training website you will find a link to view the topics covered for each training event. The trainer will follow this list closely to ensure that all attendees receive a well rounded training experience.

If you have questions or needs outside or above the topics covered in a training event, you might want to consider purchasing Customized Online Training just for your church. Customized online training runs $150 per hour, has no limit on the number of attendees from one church, and is customized around your specific needs and questions.

To learn more about Customized Online Training or to reserve a time call 1-888-297-6495 or email training@tcshome.com

6. Can I use a dial-up internet connection to attend a training event?

No, dial-up internet connections are not supported for live online training. An alternative would be to find an individual in the church with a high speed internet connection and access the conferencing center from there.

7. How do I sign up?

Go to http://www.nspiresoftware.com/training and click on “Register Now” for the training event you would like to attend. From there you will be able to choose from the available training dates and purchase your ticket.

If you have any questions that were not answered here about training, please feel free to contact us at 1-888-297-6495

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