Southern Baptist Educational Center Schedules Events with Ease
Southern Baptist Educational Center (SBEC), located on 61 spacious acres it shares with Broadway Baptist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, has grown in size and scope and serves an average of 1,100 students in grades K-12, and employs more than 150 on its staff. While continuing to grow, SBEC remains true to its mission, which is to equip the next generation by assisting the home and church in pursuit of a Christ-centered world and life view, achieved through the highest quality, Biblical-based academic and co-academic instruction – and ServiceU has been there to help with all their event scheduling needs.
Continuing Expansion, Growing Scheduling Needs
Since 2004, the campus has continued to expand, adding lighted tennis courts, a band suite, and an academic facility with 12 classrooms. The latest building project, a new high school gymnasium, was officially dedicated in early 2008. As SBEC has grown, so has its scheduling needs.
Patty Weaver is the director of operations for both SBEC and Broadway Baptist Church. She says in order to keep the scheduling straight for the elementary, middle and high school, as well as the church and daycare, a strong system needed to be in place.
“Not too long ago, everything was scheduled via paper,” says Weaver. “If a teacher wanted to schedule the church sanctuary, they would walk over a request to me or the principal and then it would usually be a couple of days before they would know if their approval was granted or denied. In addition, if there were questions, those too could take days to answer. All in all it was a very tedious system. Those days are long gone now thanks to ServiceU.”
Weaver, who has worked for the school and church since 1996 and through most of its growth, says ServiceU has streamlined the entire campus.
More Efficiency
“What ServiceU through EventU has done is make our entire process more efficient,” she says. “Our department heads now have immediate access to planning and changes that before would take days. EventU has expedited our entire calendar process.”
One example Weaver noted was the scheduling of the gymnasium for practices and events.
“We have four elementary teams and four high school teams all using the same gym,” she notes. “With EventU, our coaches can simply pull up the calendar and see exactly what is available. If the date or time they want is taken, they know right away they need to find an alternate. If it is not taken, they can book their event immediately on their own computer, without delays. In addition, our high school or elementary athletic director can OK the process very quickly.”
In the same way, Weaver uses EventU to schedule all of the campus’ transportation needs. “What used to take days now can take literally minutes or seconds,” she says. “A teacher or coach can request a vehicle and the response can be sent back to them at their computer terminal or Blackberry. It has been a huge benefit to our entire staff to be able to do everything electronically.”
Weaver adds that ServiceU staff was very helpful with the initial set up; however, the process is so easy to use, she hasn’t needed much help.
“I am by no means a computer guru,” she notes. “However, EventU is so easy to learn and use, if you have a very basic computer background, it will come very easily to you. Additionally, if you are church or school looking for a way to expedite all your calendar and approval processes, while still keeping control of the scheduling process—EventU will not disappoint. And, because it is web-based, it can be accessed from any computer, whether you are at home or on vacation, you will always be able to access exactly what you need. I would never want to go back to the days before EventU.”
