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Benefit Auction 2013 Gross Totals

Greetings Friends! Here’s a message I wrote internally just now (to board, staff and auction committee). It’s so exciting I just HAD to share it with everyone!

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I just did the math and here’s what it seems we’ll receive (gross) when all payments are made. This of course does not include any further rounding up people may do ( or any mistakes I’ve made!). I’ll publish the net when we finalize that and receive outstanding payments.

Source	Amount
Cashier including (live and silent bidding and raffle tix paid cash/check)	24500
Bidding (live and silent NOT paid to date)	3830
Bidding (live and silent paid by Credit Card)	9146
Snowmobile Raffle sold BEFORE auction	980
Cash Box From food/beverage	540

TOTAL = $38,996.

When we add the match to that we’ll be pushing $60K raised from the day!!! As a German-speaking friend of mine says: “awe inspiring”

Thanks to each of you for your part in making the day a success and for your commitment to helping young people develop their relationship with God!

Brandon

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To God be all praise, honor and thanks! And to many who gave items to be sold and who bid on those items. As the saying goes, “it takes a village.” Here at camp, we say it takes a community of love. And how fun to be part of that community!

In case you missed out on the fun, you can do three exciting things from this post:

[button-medium color=”green” link=”eepurl.com/puW8r”]Get Camp Emails[/button-medium] [button-medium color=”green” link=”bethanybirches.org/wp-content/media/2013/09/2013-auction-lot-list-w_.pdf”]View Winning Bids[/button-medium] [button-medium color=”green” link=”bethanybirches.org/donate/”]Make A Donation[/button-medium]

Online Auction Bidding Form

Place your online auction bids from the item of the day email below. You can also visit the total listing here.

The form has been taken down for this year’s auction. We hope you can make it out to the event Saturday! If not, plan to join us September 27, 2014 for next year’s event!

Greetings friends! I’m pasting the Annual Benefit Auction Online Bidding Form here so that those who are receiving the item of the day email can come straight here and place bids. Not receiving the item of the day emails?

[button-medium color=”green” link=”eepurl.com/puW8r”]Sign up for emails[/button-medium]

Bethany Birches in The News for Mission Possible: The Pavilion Project

Greetings friends. The below blog post was written by a friend and consultant, Mark Vincent. He has been working closely with me (Tuna) on our campaign to rebuild the pavilion. This summer we are entering the “Public Phase” of this effort and so I thought I’d share it with you this “Tuna Tuesday”.

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Capital campaign communication: 2 awesome examples

We learn so much from our clients. Occasionally we can pass the benefits along.

I have been privileged to work with Bethany Birches Camp as they ready themselves for their first big capital campaign. Their Executive Director, still in the early stages of his career, is an outstanding example of someone who knows he doesn’t know and is therefore able to learn and grow and put a lot of long-timers to shame at the excellence he is already achieving.

Most noticeable is the way he, the board and volunteers have been able to inject the organizational culture of the camp into all their campaign communication. Whenever the constituency interacts with them they are having a camp experience, not just a communication from the camp. Here are two awesome examples:

1. Their video that introduces the campaign and makes the case provides an excellent standard other organizations can aspire to reach:

2. A recent update on an unanticipated project that could have harmed momentum conveys a non-anxious, thankful, yet light-heartedly determined way forward. Anyone who participated can find themselves in the blogs/photos etc. that are linked in the note. It provides a great personal touch mixed with the benefits of social media and web. Here is the text:

Greetings friends. I’m writing with deep joy in my heart for each of you. As you probably remember about a year ago we received some tough news from the fire marshal: that the Bethany Birches Cabin would be shut down April 1, 2012 until we complied with numerous requirements.

One of my biggest concerns was how we’d pay for the upgrades to the building. My second concern related to how to get the work done. Because of you, the work was finished and paid for! THANK YOU!

Some goodies for you:

Here are pictures from the beginning of the project.
Here are some pictures from the second stage of the project.
Here’s a link to a blog post reviewing the project.
Here are all the blog posts on the topic.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support of this effort and for your ongoing help in Bethany Birches’ mission to help young people develop their relationship with God. Without you we would still be without the use of the cabin!

Brandon

And here is one more idea. Why not take these examples to your development and/or communications team to view and then ask what is one step we might take to better inject our organization’s culture into our communication–especially in a capital campaign? How might our constituency have an ongoing experience and not just another communications piece?

-mark l vincent

Originally posted at Design Group’s blog

Newsletter 2013: BBC TV

For years the wonderful staff and campers at camp have been creating many videos (hundreds!). A lot of those (less than two hundred) made their way to Youtube. It was such a shame to let them sit there, lonely and unwatched so we decided to create BBC TV. There are currently four channels: Summer, Winter, Staff and Everything (clever title, we know). You’ll find them here: BBC TV

Newsletter 2013: Snow Camp!

A lot of snow + campers + BBC= SNOW CAMP!! Undoubtedly campers love going to camp: to see friends, to see the staff, and at BBC- to learn more about God. We (a group of volunteers) had a great time with the campers in a non-stop action packed weekend, but the focus wasn’t necessarily on snow – It was on God.

Something that stands out in my mind from the weekend was a conversation that a couple of us (volunteers and campers) were having. I remembered one of the campers – he has a brilliant mind but had a hard time processing the existence of one almighty God. He and his family tended to be polytheistic and as we talked about the story of Elijah found in 1 Kings in the Bible, he asked some really good questions – like, “Why did Elijah call upon Baal to bring fire down when that wasn’t Baals ‘gift’ or ‘power’? He wasn’t the god of fire so of course he won’t be able to send fire down on the altar.” Hmm, good point. We continued to go deeper, yet at some point he seemed to reach an impasse, to which he said, “I’m a skeptic…” as if he thought that by saying that I would stop asking questions. We pressed on. He said that it would take a REALLY BIG miracle to prove to him that the God of Abraham is real.

It was a blessing to be a part of that discussion. He was processing the Christian story. He was asking good questions. He has a deeper knowledge now than he had before – whether that translates into a trust in Jesus and eventual service of God’s Kingdom is yet to be seen. At least a weekend at camp filled his heart and mind with knowledge of the truth. Sometimes these conversations can be a challenge, but they’re the ones that can also bring about the most change and can give us the most encouragement to keep going, to keep proclaiming the message of the gospel to a world that so desperately needs to hear it, see it, feel it, experience it – and Bethany Birches IS all of those things to EVERY camper!

Scott Kratz, Volunteer

Goodro Lumber’s excellent customer service

Why I love Goodro Lumber:
Today, I called and got Steve. I asked him if he could pick out a grout that was the same color as the tile I bought from them but slightly lighter in shade/color. He said, “yup, no problem.” He called me back a little later and said that he thinks he found the right one. On top of that, he called the manufacturer to clarify a detail to be sure he gave me the right one.

Now, get this. Cheeks drives by Goodro some days when she teaches class. I asked Steve if he could have the grout ready for her to pick up. She stopped in and picked it up. She said she was in there for about 2.5 minutes. Talk about convenience!

Thanks guys for your excellent customer service.

Tuna

Volunteers and Video Conference

Last night I had a very fun experience. I had a 3 hour meeting with a bunch of cool people. Here’s the thing – it was all via Google Hangout (a free video conferencing tool). There were 7 of us on the conference in 4 locations. What makes this more interesting to me is that the meeting was about and for Bethany Birches – a wilderness camp in a rural location. On top of that, the age range of people in the conference was 25-50. I was surprised that it felt relatively easy to engage with each other and in the content of the meeting.

While this is a non-traditional way for a Christian, wilderness camp to operate, let’s think about some benefits:

7 people representing 3 different states would have to travel a LOT to get together physically
That travel costs:
- A lot of money (auto or plane expenses plus lost time at work)
- A lot time (1 day instead of only 3 hours)
- A lot of carbon (we still haven’t main-streamed travel without fossil fuel)
Everyone got to finish out the evening in a way they chose rather than driving home.

In short, I’d say it was a worth while way to have this meeting, even for a camp!

I love when an organization invites me to volunteer in a way that maximizes my time and includes me in the right part of a process. I have a hard time when an organization invites me to give my time before there is an effective way to use it or before there is clarity around the objective.

Our hope here at BBC is that everyone will consider volunteering here in some capacity and that we will find meaningful ways to plug you in. It’s not too late to make plans to volunteer this summer!

Tuna