Local preachers,
dates given once
Each Methodist local preacher signs in and leaves their own dates. The plan-makers see everyone’s availability in one place, and nobody types up the replies.
Your dates, given once
If you are a Methodist local preacher, you will know the quarterly request. Please let us know which Sundays you can take, which you can’t, and how often you are happy to lead. It usually arrives on paper or by email, gets answered in the margin, and then has to be typed up by somebody else. In a large circuit, that somebody has several long evenings ahead of them.
Planmaker changes the order of things. Each local preacher signs in and leaves their own dates online. The people making the plan can then see everyone’s availability in one place, at whatever time suits them, without retyping a single reply. That was the idea from the very beginning: preachers would sign in and leave their dates, and plan-makers would sign in and make the Plan.
What local preacher availability includes
Availability in Planmaker is a little more than a list of free Sundays. It covers:
- the days you are away, or already committed elsewhere
- the times you are able to lead worship
- the places you can get to, so you aren’t offered a service you can’t reach
- how often you are willing to lead
When a plan-maker fills a service, Planmaker only offers preachers who are free on that day, at that time and in that place, and who haven’t already reached their limit for the day or the quarter. Your local preacher availability is respected without anybody having to remember it, and the Sunday you asked to keep free stays free.
How it works in a circuit with Mission Areas
Planmaker was first built for a circuit that planned in two stages: within Mission Areas, then across the Circuit. Availability is gathered once by the circuit. A preacher’s own Mission Area can then have first pick, and whatever availability is left returns to the circuit for wider planning. Nobody fills in a second form, and the people planning each Mission Area see only their own section. Visiting preachers can be marked as such, so they sit in the plan alongside everyone else.
For the people who collect the dates
If you are the one who sends out the request each quarter, Planmaker is mostly about what you no longer have to do. There are no replies to chase into a spreadsheet and no handwriting to puzzle over. Once the dates are in, plan-making itself can begin, and our page on preaching rota software covers how a team builds it together.
When the quarter is planned, preachers can see it on the circuit’s Chrestos website, with services shown beside each church, and subscribe so the services land in their phone calendar. The plan also exports to PDF, Excel or an iCalendar file for anyone who would rather have paper. Planmaker is the tool behind the Methodist preaching plan in close to 100 circuits, and it can be leased on its own through the Chrestos Planmaker package.
What Planmaker remembers for you
The details that used to live in the margin of the quarterly form.
Dates away
Mark the Sundays you are away or already committed elsewhere, and Planmaker simply won’t offer you a service on any of them.
Times and places
Availability is held by day, time and place, so you are only offered services you can actually reach, at times you can actually take.
How often
Say how often you are willing to lead. Once you have reached your limit for the day or the quarter, the grid stops offering your name.
First pick,
then the circuit
Planmaker began in a circuit that planned in two stages: within Mission Areas, then across the Circuit. Availability is gathered once; a preacher’s own Mission Area has first pick, and whatever is left returns to the circuit for wider planning.
Nobody has to send their dates twice, and nobody needs a second form.
Your services,
in your calendar
When the quarter is planned, it can appear on your circuit’s Chrestos website, with services shown beside each church. Preachers and congregations can subscribe so services land in their phone calendar.
Those who prefer paper can still have it: the plan exports to PDF, Excel or an iCalendar file.
See how dates
are gathered
Tell us a little about your circuit and we’ll show you how preachers leave their dates and how the plan is built from them, with no obligation.
"...We highly recommend ThenMedia Chrestos who have designed, hosted and supported our church website since 2015. They listened to our needs, exceeded expectations in design and ensured smooth content transfer from our previous site. Andrew, Toby and John have given us patient and effective telephone support..."
Still collecting dates on paper?
Tell us how your circuit gathers availability now, and we’ll show you another way.
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