Christians 20/30

In 2013, via Christians friends in the workplace, I was introduced to a new organisation known as Christians 20/30, primarily existing at the time as a Facebook network. The first event I attended was Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and it was through the new relationships formed that my involvement grew.

Christians 20/30 began in WA/Perth, and VIC/Melbourne has been our second plant, beginning in 2013. 2014 has seen both QLD/Brisbane and SA/Adelaide grow their respective networks and hold launch events.

For 2014, I joined the group of volunteer coordinators in helping to plan and manage the events being held throughout the year. In our planning session, it was agreed that we would only pursue 3-4 big events a year, since our audience of Christian young adults across Melbourne meant busy calendar of events planned already. In addition to specific event support, I established an online presence for the group and created the organisation’s website. The online strategy envisaged was to slowly evolve/migrate away from the initial high dependency on the Facebook group.

For the Gatsby Ball, held on Saturday 26 July 2014, I not only volunteered XBOP services as an auction item, but also initially used XBOP to help deliver and manage the charity auction before the operation migrated to the official Christians2030.org.au domain.

In 2015, my involvement with Christians 20/30 saw me attend all events for the year:

1. Bringing Back Lazy Saturday – this event was a lunch equivalent of the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner event from previous years
2. Amazing Race – an out-sourced event organised with a relaxing afternoon hangout after; experience impacted by a torn ligament in my lower left leg
3. Operation Christmas Child / Charity Program – a series of three events made up of an initial packing party followed by two warehouse processing opportunities spread over two weekends.

This last event was a combined effort which I spearheaded as my final act of service to Christians 20/30. As part of delivering the last event I took steps to further enforce the migration away from Facebook and promote a greater visibility of the website as the controlling point. The linkage of the website to channels such as the Facebook page and twitter accounts were moderately successful, but the final analysis and post event review indicates that these steps will only truly prove successful as part of the longer term commitment to a cohesive strategy where Christians 20/30 commits fully to their website. In a lot of ways, my involvement in this space created synergies for both XBOP and the organisation in terms of a shared and common technological infrastructure and marketing channel approach.

The two year journey with Christians 20/30 has been a time of fun and growth for me and XBOP. From 2016, a new generation of leaders and organisers have the opportunity to build upon the foundations I helped to introduce. Whilst I step back from the team of volunteer event coordinators and the core team, I continue to support the group and be a visible presence attending the events of 2016.