Chat with Cat: Surprise Swag, the Unexpected Gift

(Photo courtesy of TheSeafarer.)

Everyone likes getting promotional products--they're fun; they're functional; and they mean that you never have to buy yourself a pen ever again. And businesses like giving them as a way to get their name out there.

Sometimes swag (or merch) is anticipated or even expected--on the table at a trade show or resource fair, or in the registration packet for a conference, or even for a 5k run. In these cases, when there's no swag, people are disappointed. But what about surprise swag?

I was in New York City this past weekend for a bit of vacation, and on Saturday night I attended a film screening as part of the Friars Club Comedy Film Festival. Due to my own lack of ability in navigating the underground maze of Rockefeller Center, I arrived a little late. As my friend and I were searching for seats in the already crowded theater, I noticed several seats with reserved signs and swag bags on them. Isn't that nice, I thought, to give all the special guests (I was thinking filmmakers and media) a little gift.

But when we reached our seats I saw that everyone received a bag. The bag itself was simple: white paper with the film's title stamped on the sides. Inside was a T-shirt, three promotional postcards, and a set of plastic vampire fangs. (The film was about Hamlet, the Holy Grail, and vampires--of course.) The neat thing about the fangs is that the stapled cardboard label that sealed the bag had been branded with the film's information. The promoters hadn't just chosen an item that complemented the film, they made it into their own product.

When I was looking for an image to accompany this post, I simply did a Flickr search for "swag." The image above is of another surprise swag story, this time from the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. A couple of bloggers were hosting a panel discussion, and they decided to provide swag bags to the attendees. I have no doubt that SXSWi had plenty of it's own swag, but this was an extra step to generate some buzz and excitement around this particular panel.

I don't imagine that surprise swag is necessary or even appropriate for every event or in every situation. And it doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive. Just think about the last time someone gave you an unexpected gift, and think about what that could do for your customers or your guests. And you won't have to worry about anyone who forgot their pen.

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Have you seen the new "I Heart Montreat" badge? (It's in the upper left-hand corning of this page.) We would love for your to share Montreat with all your friends and followers, so check out how to post your own badge over on our Media Resources page.

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Cat is the Sales Associate at Montreat Conference Center. She loves helping people plan the perfect Montreat Experience and would love to hear from you about how this blog can help you.

Cat can be reached at catw@montreat.org.

Archbishop Chacour Talk: Now Online

Archbishop Elias Chacour spoke to the public here in Montreat last week in Anderson Auditorium. The event was very well attended by members of the surrounding community, college students, and local leaders. His comments were very well received, and called for those in attendance to reflect upon the need for peace in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, as well as for peace in the abstract.

“Peace needs a proactive people who get up, who move, who go ahead, who do something, who get their hands dirty to build peace," he said.

Father Chacour spoke for roughly an hour and took questions from the audience afterward. His talk is posted below. If you would prefer a DVD of the Archbishop's talk, they are available in the General Store at Montreat.

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Josh Richard is the Video Marketing Associate at Montreat. He creates promotional videos for Montreat and helps manage the website, blog(s), Facebook and Twitter.

Josh can be reached at joshr@montreat.org

Reflections of a Ranger

Yesterday was the first day of autumn. It was also the first day Montreat has had in about a week without rain. The mountains were saturated and the sky still threatened rain but I went out anyway.

In the mists that followed the rain, it seemed later than it was. The crickets had begun their nightly serenade, despite the fact that it was only 4:30. However, in this artificial twilight I ran across a rare treasure: a chestnut.

For those who don't know, the American Chestnut used to be prevalent in our area. In fact, some claim that a squirrel used to be able to travel from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic touching nothing but Chestnut branches. About a century ago a blight was introduced that devastated the population. Now, while their skeletal boles still dot the forest, it is very rare to run across a live chestnut tree.

Laying on the forest floor were several of the spiny husks that protect the actual chestnut. Amidst the litter of its brothers was a single green spiny sphere. I took my knife and gently cut into it, and there inside the husk was a flawless chestnut. Despite over a century of blight, there are still remnants of the species here in the sheltered valley of Montreat.

The Montreat Wilderness is more than just a series of trails and a few good views. It is a vibrant area that is a host to all kinds of wonders. Next time you are in the woods, slow down, and look at the world around you. All too often people dash up to the overlooks and ignore their surrounding. So slow down, drink in, and rediscover the Montreat Wilderness. around you.

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Jason Nanz comes to Montreat from Roanoke, VA. He is a 2006 graduate of Roanoke College, an Eagle Scout, long-time Montreat Ranger and a highly experienced outdoorsman.

Jason can be reached at montreatwilderness@gmail.com

Chat with Cat: 4 Tips for a Budget-Friendly Retreat

(Photo courtesy of Michael Poulos.)

This past weekend I had an opportunity to do something I don't believe I've done in more than five years--attend a weekend retreat at Montreat. And it was fantastic.

I've recently joined a Presbyterian congregation here in Asheville, and this retreat gave me the first real chance to interact with new people, to learn names and faces, and to begin to feel like a part of my new church family. Congregational retreats are an important part of the life of many churches because they allow time for spiritual renewal, intentional conversation, and intergenerational fellowship.

But many churches (and other groups to which retreats are important) have had to cut back this year. My church's retreat budget was wiped out almost entirely, but the organizers were still able to put together a wonderful event. Here are some ideas I gleaned from the weekend:

1. Forget the speaker, or go local. Many groups spend a few thousand dollars to bring in a high-profile speaker or leader. It can be very meaningful to introduce some new ideas and practices to your group. But don't think the retreat is off just because there's no speaker--ask someone in your group to take over the big speaking roles (like keynotes or sermons) or split up the roles among several people. You should also ask your venue for a a list of local experts. You will have the value of an outside speaker without the added cost of travel expenses.
2. Go potluck. The first night of our retreat this past weekend featured a cookout. A church member brought his large grill for hot dogs, salmon and pork loin, and there were trays of coleslaw and green beans provided. All of the snacks and desserts for the whole weekend were brought by the participants, and we had plenty of food. The retreat organizers saved the price of one meal for the weekend, and none of us went hungry. (Be sure to check with your venue's policies on outside food.)
3. Tap into your group's talents. One of the best aspects of our retreat was the variety of "playshops" available. (Our retreat's theme was about play, so they repurposed the workshop idea.) There must have been 15 or more options to choose from, including everything from baking to knitting, feminist theology to humor, puzzles to stream ecology, and a whole lot more. A lot of people can do a lot of different things, and asking them to lead two workshops is much easier than asking them to teach Sunday School for a whole year or to lead a weekly Bible study.
4. Don't forget free time. If you've chosen a good place for your retreat, then built-in opportunities for recreation and free time are often endless. Sometimes when groups bring in outside speakers they feel that they must get "their money's worth" by filling every minute with information. But if you're cutting back, then having some space in your schedule is good to your budget and to your participants' energy levels. A retreat is supposed to be about rest, too, right?

As always, the main message is: Be creative! As a retreat organizer you are surrounded with people who have great ideas and invaluable skills. Use them all, and keep the retreat as part of your group's annual activities--it's worth it.

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Cat is the Sales Associate at Montreat Conference Center. She loves helping people plan the perfect Montreat Experience and would love to hear from you about how this blog can help you.

Cat can be reached at catw@montreat.org.

On the Trail: The End of Summer + NEW! Montreat Wilderness School

Jason is the Wilderness Coordinator and instructor for the new Montreat Wilderness School program. This program offers day-long or overnight classes for school groups or youth groups interested in learning more about the environment, outdoor skills, or leadership. Check out the class options and rates on our site.

Jason will also be posting regular updates of what's happening in the Montreat wilderness. Let us know what you think!

The woods are quieter now; the bustle and excitement of the conference season is behind us. Summer is beginning to wane here in the mountains of Montreat. The squirrels haven’t yet begun their frenzied winter gathering and water snakes still sun themselves on rocks by the stream. While the hills retain their verdant hue, the nights have begun to cool and the violent thunderstorms of summer have given way to the steady drizzles of autumn.

This transitory period makes for great morning and evening hikes. The woods still retain all the vibrancy of summer but the heat of July and August has moved past. It is a time of anticipation and reflection. So take a walk up to Rattlesnake Rock, or just walk along the stream below Potts Cove Gap. Soak in the final days of summer in Montreat and prepare for the majestic colors of autumn.

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Jason Nanz comes to Montreat from Roanoke, VA. He is a 2006 graduate of Roanoke College, an Eagle Scout, long-time Montreat Ranger and a highly experienced outdoorsman.

Jason can be reached at montreatwilderness@gmail.com

Summer Staffer Gives Back to Montreat

Hello, my name is Emily and I am not a blogger. Until today. There, I said it. I’m a Gen-Xer caught between tradition and the millennial mindset and striving for success in my career in development, so admittedly “blogging” makes me a little uncomfortable. But in our last promotions meeting my young(er) colleagues, Josh and Cat, encouraged the rest of the staff to consider writing a blog. So in my attempt to act a little hipper than I truly am and to reach a new audience, I took their challenge. Thanks for indulging me.

Since I work in Development, envelopes with checks enclosed cross my desk regularly. Every check I see represents not only a gift of money but a gift of heart – seeing the commitment from those who love Montreat Conference Center is what makes my work most meaningful. Last week, a check crossed my desk that I won’t soon forget.

Eric Nanz was the A/V co-director on the Montreat Summer Staff this summer. He’s just returned to his home in Harrisonburg, VA after 10 weeks of serving the conferences in Anderson Auditorium – making sure the lights and sound were working well for the conferences and keeping his team on task. A/V crews work long and irregular hours but they get to see the ministry at Montreat first-hand every day.

So I open this envelope and read the note enclosed. Eric has been so affected by “what Montreat does for the youth” that he’s decided to make a generous donation to the Morgan Endowment for Youth which provides scholarships and programming resources for Montreat’s Youth and College conferences.

I am blown away by his gesture. I was a summer staffer “back in the day” (as my 6-year-olds remind me) and I know college students don’t work in Montreat for the money. In 1993, I left my summer in Montreat with lots of great new friends and memories and just enough saved up to buy gas and a hamburger on my drive back to school. Yet, somehow Eric has left this place and found it in his heart (and his wallet) to give back to the ministry he’s come to know so well.

In my opinion, it is that kind of generosity that sustains a place like Montreat. So Eric has once again reminded me of how grateful I am to those who support the ministry here. I have a copy of his letter hanging in my cubicle now and I look at it each day as a reminder of how Montreat makes a difference in people’s lives and how people, like Eric, make a difference in Montreat.

If you want to see what inspired Eric to give, take 5 and watch the video below.

Emily Johnson Lindsay is the Director of Major Gifts at Montreat Conference Center. Seeing the commitment from those who love Montreat is what makes her work most meaningful.

Emily can be reached at emilyl@montreat.org.

Chat with Cat: N.C. Nonprofits Have Strength in Numbers

(Photo courtesy of @tlkativ)

I was ready. I had my black mug of tea in one hand, and my black screen-printed tote bag in the other. My nametag was hanging from my neck, and I had even remembered to bring a sweater--a thin defense against the polar hotel air-conditioning.

I entered the room appointed for our opening plenary session and was greeted by an overwhelming sight: more than one hundred round banquet tables in an enormous room. As the room filled up, I looked around thinking, all these people are trying to make the world a better place, and Montreat is part of that.

Last week I attended the N.C. Center for Nonprofits' annual conference in Concord, N.C. and it was wonderful. More than 600 executive directors, fundraisers, marketers, and board members filled about half of the Embassy Suites Concord conference area. For a day and a half we networked, learned and questioned together. Amazing.

I learned some great things, but one thing that was really interesting was what I learned about the nonprofit sector in North Carolina. Did you know that one in every 18 people in this state is employed by a nonprofit? This is more than the banking, finance, real estate and insurance industries combined.

These nonprofits have a great impact on the lives of people in this state, but also on the economy. The 9,300+ nonprofit organizations in North Carolina employ somewhere around 212,814 people and contribute more than $25 billion to the economy each year. In Western North Carolina, the sector accounts for almost nine percent of private employment, giving it the largest share of all the industries in the region. Wow.

The really amazing thing is the breadth of services and opportunities all these nonprofits provide. They feed and house the homeless; they enrich the impoverished; they advocate for the otherwise voiceless; they keep kids in school; they keep teens off the streets; they teach dance; they teach reading; they teach healthy living; they pray; they comfort; they heal. Just meeting these people and hearing their common questions and concerns was a huge inspiration to me.

November is Nonprofit Awareness Month, so be on the lookout for some other great nonprofit stories in Chat with Cat then. In the meantime, take a moment to thank or help a local nonprofit. There are some wonderful things happening out there, and the strength of these organizations comes from all of our helping hands.

(Statistics from the N.C. Center for Nonprofits' paper "Nonprofit Sector Creates 213,000 Jobs and Common Good Economy in North Carolina." (c) 2008)

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Cat is the Sales Associate at Montreat Conference Center. She loves helping people plan the perfect Montreat Experience and would love to hear from you about how this blog can help you.

Cat can be reached at catw@montreat.org.

A Vision for Ministry: Nurturing the Pastor's Spirit

A Cross Cultural Conference for Taiwanese Pastors
A report by John McCall, former PCUSA mission co-worker in Taiwan

Twenty-one Taiwanese pastors (eleven women and ten men, one third aboriginal) arrived at Montreat Conference Center on August 24. They were in Western, NC to participate in a conference sponsored by the Outreach Foundation, Montreat Conference Center, Taiwan Theological Seminary, and Western North Carolina Presbytery. The purpose of the conference was to give these pastors a “place apart” away from cell phones and the demands of daily life and ministry. Most pastors who attend conferences in Taiwan arrive late and leave early, and are constantly answering calls on their cell phones. The participants attended a preparation retreat at Taiwan Seminary before leaving for the U.S. They will continue to have bi-annual retreats upon their return. Continue reading...

Chat with Cat: The Importance of Ideas

Part of what I get to do here at the Conference Center is take people on tours of the campus, showing them our meeting spaces and the Assembly Inn, as well as the special place that is Montreat. This helps visitors to better understand our ministry, and it opens their eyes to the numerous possibilities of what this place can be for them.

I recently invited someone here for lunch and for a brief tour. I had met this woman at a community event a couple of weeks before, and we only talked enough for me to be really interested in her work and in the ways that we might be able to work together.

During our lunch, we talked a little about the projects she had on her plate, including a large fundraiser, a smaller meeting and an educational retreat. She was still very much in the early planning stages for all of these, so we tossed some ideas around. She had some ideas for the events that I would not have imagined, and I shared some ideas with her that she had not considered.

As we walked around Montreat, more ideas continued to pop up. What if we did this? Or I'm also considering finding a location for that. It was clear to me that this woman is good at what she does because her mind is always creating new ideas for every project. Some of those ideas will succeed, some will be considered then brushed aside for something better.

Planning any kind of event or project requires this sort of constant creation. And the people who are the best at this surround themsevles with other idea people. Places like Montreat are meaningful exactly because they are places where this creation and collaboration can happen uniterrupted. What ideas have you created today? What could a place like Montreat do for your creative process?

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Cat is the Sales Associate at Montreat Conference Center. She loves helping people plan the perfect Montreat Experience and would love to hear from you about how this blog can help you.

Cat can be reached at catw@montreat.org.

Chat with Cat: Where's your autumn place?

I know it is not autumn yet--all the leaves on the trees are still green. But the cool weather hit us this week. I love sweatshirt weather--days when you go home and curl up with a cup of tea, or mornings when you see your breath on the way out to get the newspaper. I was not at all prepared for the fall weather this week, but it has made me think about the season that is on its way.

For me, Montreat has always been two places--a summer place and a fall place. I first came to Montreat during the Worship & Music Conference, right before the Fourth of July and right in the middle of the summer. The mornings are still cool that time of year, and it would rain (a lot) almost every afternoon. During worship in Anderson Auditorium the breeze would gently blow the curtains, always a reminder (to me at least) of the constant presence of the spirit. I ate ice cream at the Huckleberry and froze my toes in the creek. And I thought it was perfect.

Then a few months after my first-ever Montreat experience, I came back for a youth group retreat. We stayed in Sylvan lodge and hiked Lookout dressed in coats and hats. We went through boxes of Swiss Miss, and I listened to my first David Lamotte song (New Lullaby). And I thought that was perfect too.

I got to college and applied for Summer Staff, and then I spent my days playing around Lake Susan and my evenings staying cool on the porch of the Velvet Moose. (One more vote for summer place.) Then I attended the College Conference, and I spent my days in sweatshirts and my evenings around the Assembly Inn fireplace. (One more vote for fall/winter place.)

Now Montreat is a year-round place for me, but I believe I will always think of it as a summer place and a fall place. And I will always think that both are perfect.

What are you seasonal spaces? And what makes them perfect?

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Cat is the Sales Associate at Montreat Conference Center. She loves helping people plan the perfect Montreat Experience and would love to hear from you about how this blog can help you.

Cat can be reached at catw@montreat.org.