PC Workshop – Followup
Posted on May 14, 2007
Things went well, we only had a few people show up, but it was a good time to get to know some people and help them out. I took 3 monitors that I had sitting around, and a couple of keyboards and mice, USB cable, printer cable and a screwdriver. Bryson brought keyboards, mice, air compressor and some Mac adaptors. We set up in the kitchen just behind the sanctuary on a counter top that had plenty of outlets running along the wall. We ended up having about 4 of us available to look at the computers, but mainly Bryson and I. It was a very laid back morning.West Side Christian Church runs about 45 people on Sunday morning and 3 of the 4 people who brought PC’s in were from the church and the 4th one was a friend of mine who lives close by that was having some computer issues. We were e-mailing last week back and forth and in the end I suggested she bring it in and let us look at it.
We only asked people to bring their towers in, no power cables, keyboards, mice, monitors etc, just the box. One person brought a desktop and a laptop, so, in the end, we got our hands on 5 different computers. There was no guarantee that we would fix anything, the main issues are spyware and viruses. One person had a PC given to him by a local college and it wouldn’t turn on. Upon opening it up, we quickly found the problem, no hard drive. One of the guys helping us out has an old 8gb hard drive he offered to give to this person and install for him, so they are doing that later, both of them attend that church. The other 3 were spyware and general cleanup issues and the 4th one was an SBC DSL issue.
We were able to help improve everyone’s situations and according to Pastor John, there was a lot of talk of what we did on Sunday morning, rave reviews, according to his e-mail. We plan to do this again at West Side sometime in the future maybe blanket the neighborhood with flyers next time. That was the plan this time but it just didn’t come together.
I would consider this event a success. Numbers don’t make an event like this successful or unsuccessful, the success is in the relationships and in equipping people to use their computers effectively.
One thing that caught me off guard is one person asked about any expenses we had and I told her none, which is the truth, and went on to explain that this is a ministry and a service that we offer at no charge. In the end, her power cable that she brought in was split, like a desk chair rolled over it. I didn’t think it looked good, so I gave her one of mine, those things are a dime a dozen and I have many extras. As a result, she said, well I’m going to pay you for that. Again, I said no. She threw 20 bucks on the counter and left. Bryson and I discussed it, and concluded the money should go to the church. I gave it to John and he said he would put it towards buying blank CD’s maybe or towards buying a new mic. That’s a great use of the money.
That was a lesson learned, I never anticipated money would be given but from now on, we’ll make it clear that any money donated goes to the host church to help with any technology purchases.
We had a form that we asked people to fill out with their name, address, phone numbers, email address and what they brought in. Then we were able to fill out what was wrong and what our diagnosis was and what we actually did to fix the problem. I’ll probably create a way to archive this information and keep track of who we help. Our goal is to do this kind of thing on a monthly basis at different area churches. What this means is if we can’t get to someone or if there is follow up work, like installing a new hard drive that they need to go buy, we can refer them to the next workshop and even call them or email them the details if they are yet to be determined.
I think the only thing I would change is to be more deliberate about the form, we treated it more like an afterthought. I would like to have it filled out first thing and use it more as a guide but we did fine. I’m glad it was slow this first time out, we had a lot of time just hanging out and chatting. We were slammed right at 9 and one person even showed up before 9, and we spent probably an hour working on them. Considering the size of the church, it went well.
I’m already working on the next one, it should be in Carthage, at a much larger church, now that we’ve got our feet wet. Of course, Bryson has done this kind of thing several times, so it wasn’t new to him and I’m glad he’s involved. I expect once our local Church Tech Roundtable gets started, we might have some more volunteers to travel around with us, but we’ll see. As I’ve mentioned, this has been a dream of mine for several years and it’s awesome to see it come together.
I think I’ll write something up, pulling all the important details together to have some definite guidelines and I’ll publish that here soon. Sorry for the length, but I know several of you were curious to know how it went and expressed interest in duplicating this kind of thing. That’s awesome, I would love to see other churches do this kind of outreach. It’s fairly simple and doesn’t require a lot of ultra geeks, although it’s always good to have one or two around. 
Thank you for your prayers, as well. More pics here, check ‘em out!
Let me know if there are any lingering questions about how things went down.
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Thanks for the detailed follow-up. It looks like yours will be a model for others.
Amen & Praise God.
I think after our building renovation project gets completed, I’ll follow-up with something like this in our area.