June 2016 Report

 

 

When In Doubt, do nothing. Over the years, I have found this advice to be helpful more than once.

 

I mentioned in my last letters that I was seeking the Lord's leadership on what to do with some of our older equipment. Since I couldn't get peace either way, I decided to just wait. A few weeks went by and the salesman from the company stopped by with his sales manager to see how things were going. I expressed my frustration with the price increase in spite of the decrease in our usage of that machine.

 

The sales manager basically told me (a little more polite but the same meaning) to just accept it because he was not going to lower our rates. At that point, my mind was made up to trade the machine in and go with another company.

 

About a week later, the salesman stopped by and had gone over his manager's head to the district manager. The salesman explained our situation and the district manager agreed to lowered our service contract significantly-which we accepted. The salesman had a lot of courage to go over his boss's head but he felt it was worth it to keep a long time customer.

 

 

Debbie (one of our volunteer) had to have surgery and so was out for several weeks. When she was somewhat recovered, she and her husband went on vacation.

 

Michelle (our other volunteer) was on vacation for two weeks, During that time, I decided to scrub, strip, and re-wax our floors. They hadn't been cleaned since we moved in two years ago. I figured it would take two or three days. I'm glad I don't make a living giving estimates. I got some help moving as much of the equipment as I could and did one section at a time. The floors where black so it took a LOT of scrubbing just to get the dirt up. It took almost two weeks but the floors look almost new. Now the trick is to see how long they stay that way.

 

Everybody is back to work and we are back in full printing mode.

 

I have been checking several other churches who do printing to see how they manage books, brochures, etc. Some of the churches do almost nothing but books so I was especially interested how they received their books and how they set their prices for books. Some of them print books as part of their ministry but some are in it to make a profit. All we have asked is the past is to cover cost on books and I don't plan to change that part- yet.

 

However, it was very interesting to see what they require of books that are sent to them to be printed.

They have very strict guidelines for any book that they receive for printing. If the books are not ready to print, they charge for any changes or anything else that is not truly ready to print. They do not make corrections. They don't even format. They give you the format they use and it is up to you to make sure it is formatted correctly.

 

I'm not ready to go that far but, in some cases, it would sure save a lot of time and effort.

We have already gotten some requests for banners. I am still learning how to use it to its fullest but for a beginner, I think they look quite well.

 

Until next time, may God bless each of you as you labor for Him.

 

Yours in Christ,

Wilbert L. Ellis

Grace Baptist Church Printing Outreach