1/20/2010
tracking health kits for haiti
Those who know me know my fanaticism dealing with the notion of social networking and disaster response. As a result, I've been tracking the global Haiti relief effort. Partially as an experiment, but mostly as a legitimate request I created a facebook event yesterday to get people to put together UMCOR health kits for Haiti. They're inexpensive and easy to put together. I sent the request to several hundred people consisting of my local congregation, United Methodists all over the country of varying ages and people of varying faiths all over the country.
The request was simple...put together a kit and invite others to do so as well.
24 hours later:
51 people responded with "attending"
25 people responded with "maybe attending"
66 people responded with "not attending"
484 people have not replied
Interesting note...of those "attending" it appears to be a mixed bag of varying faith and ages. Many are from my own congregation. Just from what I'm able to track, it also appears that more of those who are forwarding and and inviting others to join are NOT United Methodist.
Of the 66 people who responded with "not attending", many are well connected, established and at times very vocal United Methodists
The "maybe" group was largely younger, Christian of mixed denominational background
Of the group that has not replied (Primarily United Methodist), it would be safe to assume that the vast majority will not respond and thus be added to the "not attending" group.
This comes on the same day I read a commentary about how the UMC is spiraling to it's demise. Draw your own conclusions.
1. Angel Pike wrote on 1/20/2010 3:53:39 PM
You did not invite me BUT.....we are putting together Health kits at Primrose UMC in Little Rock. They are easy and relatively inexpensive (as kits go) and the kit pieces are easy to find at most Dollar Stores.
2. Andy B. wrote on 1/20/2010 3:57:26 PM
I'm one that did not respond. To be fair, Billy, how many of those 484 non respondents don't live close enough to attend? I actually struggled mightily about how to respond because 1) I feel passionately and want to participate,but 2) live too far away to show up at your event. 3) I know your passion for social networking and disaster relief and wanted to be supportive, 4) was toying with the idea of mimicking it here for people who live nearby. All of this led me to "How am I supposed to respond to this!?!!?" So I didn't, hoping a better answer would come to me.
There are lots of reasons why 484 people may not have responded. Your allusion to the downturn of the UM church based on the lack of response you received is less than fair and may reflect more of your bias than ours (those who did not respond). I love you brother, but fear you are over-reaching here.
3. Billy wrote on 1/20/2010 7:02:42 PM
Angel are you on Facebook? Look me up.
Well...the idea was for it not to be a location specific event (FB just required one)The idea was for this event to spawn a second event that spawns a third and so on... I guess it really wasn't that clear since one of the UMCOR guys declined too...sigh...
4. Andy B. wrote on 1/21/2010 3:59:23 PM
Thanks Billy. Done deal:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#/event.php?eid=266101946757&index=1
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