Guidelines for Announcements

Every Sunday we have time to share information, activities, community events, and other matters with our church community.  This is a very important part of our life together, for what we announce reveals our passions, interests and concerns, and in return we are asking for the community to support us, join us or be aware of what we are doing.

However, sometimes we get a bit long-winded, or the announcements are made so often that they lose their effectiveness.  We hope that the following guidelines will help us all remember the most effective ways to make announcements and ensure that our audience will be receptive to what we want to share.

DO make your announcement as an invitation, rather than an obligation or duty.

DO be short and to the point. Let people know they can talk with you later if they have questions or want to learn more about the event or activity.

DO give all the pertinent details that people will need to participate.  Give the “who, what, where and when” succinctly and precisely.  Do not use this time to give details like address, link, or phone number that are hard for people to remember.  Instead, send details out by email or ask people to talk with you afterwards to get additional details.

DO try to limit the number of announcements you make each Sunday. We suggest a maximum of two announcements per Sunday, not as a hard and fast rule but so that different voices may be heard.  If you have an activity in which other Seekers participate, rotate that announcement so that many voices are heard and given a chance to invite others to share in the activity.

DO keep a positive tone.  If you are not seeing as much participation as you expected or need, state your need in a factual, straightforward way rather than scolding or guilt-tripping people into participating.  Remember, we are a small community whose members are very active and have many other obligations.  We need to trust that those who can will participate, and those who don’t have a good reason for not doing so.

DO try to alternate an oral announcement about an event one Sunday with an email to All Seekers the following week so that you are not making the same announcement every Sunday for a prolonged period.  This allows space for other announcements and reduces the amount of listener’s fatigue that might occur.

DO remember that at Seekers we limit solicitations for money.  Although there are many good causes that we may personally support, at Seekers we believe that part of our commitment to being in community is the discipline of pooling our money together and deciding, in a yearly meeting open to all, what domestic and international recipients we as Seekers will support.  We have also found that for many of us who have limited income, constant solicitations for money for worthy causes can create feelings of unworthiness or guilt.

Thanks for your attention to these suggestions.
Please provide any thoughts or feedback to Celebration Circle.

May 27, 2018

A pdf copy of these guidelines may be found at 2018_05_26 Guidelines for Announcements