[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1567359998063{padding-right: 20px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”3847″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1567360486287{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]My name is Emily Betts and I am the Social Media and Marketing Specialist for the Youth Department at the Territorial Headquarters for The Salvation Army.

Within the youth department, we are responsible for conducting the childcare meetings at two of the territory’s biggest events: 1) Commissioning (essentially the graduation weekend for our newly ordained ministers), and 2) the Old Orchard Beach Camp Meetings.

Depending on the year, our childcare meetings can reach between 70-150 kids. Over the years, we’ve continued to use the old-fashioned route of pen and paper when it came to our registration process – it wasn’t incredibly time efficient. A few weeks prior to our first event this year, I made it a point to seek out other registration routes.

It was then that a friend of mine told me about Kidmin App. As she was telling me about it, I was sure that this was the program for us! As I started to get used to the software and how the program worked as a whole, I was able to come up with a plan that was helpful to us.

Getting started tips

When I first got started with the program, I was relieved to see that it was pretty self-explanatory! It was simple enough that I didn’t need an instruction manual to figure out how it worked.

Why I love using KMA

I really enjoyed using Kidmin because it simply made the checking in and checking out process much quicker. Having the ability to have all of the information in one place for each child/family was not only helpful for the specific events, but it was helpful as we were preparing for the following event. Once I entered in a child’s information, it was nice to not have to do it again for other events.

Without KMA I would…

I would have had to create excel sheets with all of the preregistered kid’s information, and then continue to add to that list as more people arrived. When we had used the excel sheet route, our main issue was that it was incredibly slow. Typically we would have parents line up, and then one by one we would manually write down all of their information. If we had any issues with a child during one of the meetings, we’d have to go back to our binder of information in order to get the parent’s contact information.

Logistics: What our events looked like

For our first weekend event, we had 48 children. We set up two desk check-in stations and one “fast pass” station.

For our second weekend event there were four check-in occasions and we had 151, 315, 134, and 119 children respectively. We set up two desk check-in stations and one “fast pass” station. As the weekend went on, we found we didn’t need both desk check-in stations, so we cut it to one towards the third meeting.

Preregistration: We tried really hard to push the parents to preregister their children.  We had a separate form we created and posted on our social media and website to allow parents to do this. If parents preregistered their children, I would input them into the Kidmin App database. After that, I would then “check in” all of the new kids that I had preregistered for that day and simply print out the child’s sticker. Once each sticker was printed, I would put it on a bracelet and then place the bracelet into an envelope with the parent’s last name on it. On the actual day of the event, I printed out all of the parents stickers and placed them onto a personalized bookmark that we printed out for each parent. Then I put the bookmarks in the envelope that already had their name on it. Once registration was open for the event, if a family was preregistered, all I’d have to do is give them the envelope, and they’d be ready to go. I made sure to have a tablet with me so I could physically check in the children, but no printing was necessary (only if preregistered).[/vc_column_text][vc_separator border_width=”3″][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″ css=”.vc_custom_1567363884555{margin-top: 160px !important;padding-top: 40px !important;padding-right: 40px !important;padding-bottom: 40px !important;padding-left: 40px !important;background-color: #d1e6fc !important;}”][vc_empty_space height=”10px”][vc_single_image image=”3851″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1567364024435{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column_text align=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1567364148605{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]Request a free demo to see how Kidmin App can help your ministry![/vc_column_text][mk_button dimension=”two” corner_style=”rounded” size=”large” icon=”mk-moon-lightning” url=”/demo/” fullwidth=”true” bg_color=”#3660ea”]See Demo[/mk_button][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1567364217054{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #f2f2f2 !important;}”][vc_column css=”.vc_custom_1567364236816{margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}”][vc_column_text align=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1567364148605{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]Request a free demo to see how Kidmin App can help your ministry![/vc_column_text][mk_button dimension=”two” corner_style=”rounded” size=”large” icon=”mk-moon-lightning” url=”/demo/” align=”center” margin_bottom=”0″ margin_right=”0″ bg_color=”#3660ea”]See Demo[/mk_button][/vc_column][/vc_row]