RCMA 2009 Annual Convention: Video Day 3

Here's Day 2 video highlights from the 2009 Religious Conference Management Association, as produced by Larry Keltto and myself.

Day 3

Day 2

Day 1


Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!
Some stories may appear in unedited versions that are different from their print counterparts.

RCMA 2009 Annual Convention: Video Day 1

Something different: every year since 2002, I've been part of a team with Larry Keltto and Kristen Payson that produces a daily newspaper for attendees at the Religious Conference Management Association's annual convention.

This year, Larry and I added a new wrinkle to our RCMA coverage: daily video highlights. We literally learned how to do it on the fly using my daughter's new video camera and figuring out iMovie as needed. It was a blast and I'm hoping it leads to new opportunities.

Check out Day 1's video highlights here!

Copyright 2008 Bob Andelman. Click here for copyright permissions!
Some stories may appear in unedited versions that are different from their print counterparts.

RCMA Profile: Heidi Jo Hagstrom (Religious Conference Manager)

By Bob Andelman
Religious Conference Manager Magazine
Jun 1, 2008 12:00 PM

Heidi Jo Hagstrom needed to postpone being interviewed for RCM magazine. She was recuperating from a flare-up of multiple sclerosis, but to see her, you'd probably never know.

“It depends on how [MS] presents; it's different for all people,” Hagstrom says when she is up for our inquisition. “Usually, for me, some part of my body goes numb. This time I had trouble with my eyes. I couldn't focus well and was sensitive to light.”

Other times, the MS makes Hagstrom dog-tired. Still other times, one of her legs will drag or she will start stumbling. Mostly, the disease presents in numbness overtaking some part of her body. She can usually carry on at the time, but she looks for the first opportunity for relief, either with a course of steroids and/or rest.

But don't pity Hagstrom. She is doing pretty well for herself despite having lived with MS for more than 20 years. In fact, you might think that she's an over-achiever, holding the position of director of the ELCA Youth Gathering for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

“It has not really affected my life or my job,” she says. “I give myself daily shots, so when I travel, I have to haul them with me. I'm grateful that I do respond to medicine.”

But things are changing.

“I don't know if I'm entering a new phase,” Hagstrom says, “but my neurologist has told me to figure out a different pace for my life. This job is stressful. Being responsible for 36,000 people at an event is stressful. Being in hot climates is always dangerous for people with MS, and our events are always in hot climates.”

It does, naturally, make an outsider wonder why she keeps doing it.

“For me, it's about a sense of call,” she says. “I believe that I am called to serve in this way. It is my God-given vocation. And I love what I do.”

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Atypical: Laabs Brings Varied Experiences to Meeting Planning (Religious Conference Manager; August 2007)

By Bob Andelman
Religious Conference Manager Magazine
Aug 1, 2007 12:00 PM

Profile of Jonathan Laabs

Jonathan Laabs can't understand why Religious Conference Manager would want to profile him.

“I'm not a typical planner,” he says in that gentle, unassuming Laabs manner.

While that may be true, Laabs — as anyone who has met and spent time with him at the annual RCMA convention or other events over the past decade will attest — is not a typical anything. He is the quiet voice in the room, unintentionally commanding respect with a calm, friendly demeanor and well-considered comments and opinions.

He may not be a “typical” religious meeting planner — but who is?

Tailor-Made Job

Laabs — pronounced “Lobbs” — just finished his 10th year as executive director of the Lutheran Education Association, which is headquartered in River Forest, Ill. He spent 20 years as a teacher, administrator, principal, and college professor before taking over LEA, the professional organization for educators in Lutheran ministries.

If the job seems tailor-made for him, that's because it barely existed before him; he is only the second person to have the job, and the first professional to have the post lasted less than a year.

Before that, the now 65-year-old organization was run by a series of volunteer leaders.

“It was just a real neat opportunity for me,” Laabs says. “I felt the call was well-suited. It helped me to move to another level to support the people with whom I had already been working. It meant looking at the organization and its future through new eyes.”

Laabs tailored LEA to his strengths, reorganizing its structure and how it was funded, and rewriting its mission statement — all by the end of his second year. The new mission statement supports linking, equipping, and affirming LEA educators in Lutheran ministries.

“The span of people whom we serve starts with professionals working with children at the youngest ages and continues all the way through higher education,” he says.

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Elnora Hamb, Member Profile (Religious Conference Manager, October 2007)

By Bob Andelman
Religious Conference Manager Magazine
Oct 1, 2007 12:00 PM

Don't Make the Mistake of thinking that Elnora P. Hamb, president of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church's Women's Missionary Council, is retired, just because hers is a volunteer job.

“How many hours a week do I spend as president? Sunup to sundown!” she says, chuckling, as if it were the most obvious bit of information she could ever impart. “I don't have paid staff; we're just constantly working!”

In fact, the rules that she and her predecessors work under are clear: The national president cannot be gainfully employed.

So this 67-year-old retired media specialist with the Chicago Board of Education and spouse of a retired Chicago bus driver must be independently wealthy, right?

Here comes that laughter again.

“No, I wasn't born into money,” Hamb says, “but it's working out OK. We're humble folks.”

That's a great attitude to have in her job, considering that the Women's Missionary Council ministers to 380,000 women around the globe, with followers in Africa, Haiti, and Jamaica, in addition to the United States.

“I supervise, in the U.S., 32 regions and 32 region presidents. And we have many, many districts within those regions,” she says.

The Women's Missionary Council is one of 10 general programmatic departments within the church, which dates to 1780 in Jackson, Tenn. “Our mission is that we will share the good news — salvation through Jesus — with men, women, and children at home and abroad,” Hamb explains.

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