The Church organizes its congregations by geographic areas. A member living in a certain area is assigned to attend a specific congregation. Congregations consist of wards (large number of members) or branches (small number of members). A cluster of wards and branches make up a stake (consisting of wards and possibly branches) or a district (consisting of just branches). The ecclesiastical leader is the stake president or district president, accordingly. Finally there are CCMs. A CCM is a cluster of stakes and/or districts. In the Europe area, most of the CCMs are geographic areas that have a common language.
Now, let us explain what a technology specialist (TS) is. Each stake and district should have one or more TS. Unfortunately, some don't have any. There are even some CCMs that have only one or two TS. A TS is responsible for all the technology in each of the meetinghouses. This includes maintaining the computers, printers, phones, and firewalls. It also includes setting up and managing a webcast from one building to several, preparing things for video conferencing of meetings, training all the members to use online media tools.
You now have enough information so that we can explain the program that we are rolling out.
When we first arrived, we decided to personally call each TS when they were newly called to the position. Listening to them talk about their situations, we realized that many felt alone and isolated. Their responsibilities are unique in that not many members understand what they do, so there is no one with previous experience. There might be no one local to help the TS with questions or challenges. In addition, some leaders don't understand the importance of what the TS does and, therefore, does not fully support the TS. We also noticed that in Europe very few people are without several callings.
If a TS had to get help, their only support was us or calling Salt Lake City. In either case, English was the predominant language.
So, here is what we did -- and are doing. We organized groups of TS within CCM areas. This means that there could be as many as 12 TS in one group. Speaking in their own language, they can support each other. The group is designed to operate as a single unit with a facilitator role that is periodically rotated to another member of the group.
In the pilot, we had three video conference meetings with each group. They got to meet each other and talk about issues. During the pilot, we made sure that they set up a texting group and a document storage site to share documents in their own language. It is wonderful how they are sharing ideas and helping each other. One pilot group has weekly conversations on WhatsApp. We are part of that group and see the texts come in. It is a little hard to follow because we don't know the German technical terms.
We are busy rolling this out to all of Europe, so from now to the end of our mission we will be extremely busy. We had three technology groups in the pilot. We have 23 more to set up.
Still, we are having fun on our days off. Last week we went to Wetzlar. The Altstadt was beautiful. Here are some pictures.
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| Wetzlar altstadt |
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| Lahn River |
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| more ofaltstadt in Wetzlar |
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| Cathedral in Wetzlar |
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| Inside cathedral (See Elder Skoubye on the left.) |
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| Even that guy on the right noticed that a cute couple were in town. |
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