YWAM Networks

From February 2nd until the 6th, 75 YWAM leaders from all four regions in Europe–Northern, Central, Eastern and Western–convened on the Eastern Comfort houseboat hostel on the River Spree, moored alongside the East- Side gallery, part of the Berlin Wall that is still standing, for the bi-annual European Leadership Forum.  EuroCom was privileged to have the opportunity of leading one of the sessions.

EuroCom (Kevin Colyer, Priscilla Frommann, Bec Gibbons and Rodney Blevins) first shared a snapshot of the present state of communication within YWAM Europe using the statistics from their recent e-mail survey.  The survey was conducted by e-mailing more than 130 YWAM locations around Europe, posing as an interested person wanting to know more about their base.  The locations were given 3 weeks time to respond, and were given a final score based on four factors: how visible the contact info was on their website, how quickly they responded, how personal the response was, and how well the questions were answered.

Around 50% of the answers were either very well done or moderately well done, which means their contact details were easy to find and they answered quickly, in an informative and personal way. Another 10% of the responses were not so well done but still ok. This last 10% is, of course, somewhat subjective since it depends greatly on how the individual receiving the email would perceive it. The last ~40% did not respond at all in the given time of three weeks (not counting the ones with technical problems).

Kevin Colyer then preceded to share a vision for what YWAM would look like if the “nervous system” were healed in Europe.  We then broke into small groups to discuss practical ways of getting there and also what the needs were.  After the groups began reporting back, it was clear that the discussion had centered mainly on what their current needs are.  One of the things that stood out the most, was the need for training.  A suggestion was made to send a team out to visit the bases and spend a few days with them offering training specific to their needs and helping them to develop newsletter and website templates.

EuroCom then offered suggestions for the leaders for how to continue on from here.  We urged them to take this information back to their areas of influence and to go through the W5H ComTool.  We also asked them to identify communication people within their areas and have them contact us at eurocom [at] ywam [dot] eu so we can start networking with them.  If they don’t have a communication person working with them, we suggested they appoint one.

We also made several short video clips of leaders telling their stories about something exciting happening in their region/nation/base, etc.  You can check those out on the ywameurocom page on youtube: youtube.com/user/ywameurocom.  We also made a promtional video for the YWAM Knowledge Base (ywamkb.net), so check that one out, too while you’re at it.