This is Joy (http://www.k4t.com/joy.htm). I'd kind of like to hear from current users about EquipU and its relevance to you as you train in on K4T materials and get the hang of what's available through this venue.

My own church (http://www.wordcentered.org) is using K4T now (with an active club as of April), but I know that a lot of our workers are not registered EquipU users, and I am trying to think of ways K4T could make EquipU less "scary" for newbies and more "addictive" (in the good sense). We really are preparing tremendous resources here for recruiting and training workers. I'd like to know what it would take to encourage and aid directors and already-familiar workers in promoting EquipU and introducing new workers to its benefits.

How can we make EquipU more accessible and attractive to workers, especially those who are newest to the program? It seems like it's the newest workers who could benefit most from the materials available on EquipU, but it seems as though they are also the most likely to shy away from the idea of a website of this magnitude.

If you are directing a K4T club, how are you using EquipU in relation to your workers? Have the materials on EquipU served to help you recruit and train in new workers? How do you make new lesson plans, etc., available to your workers?

Are you encouraging your club's new workers to set up individual user accounts on EquipU? Are you finding that they seem interested in and helped by EquipU features, like the forums and the blogs? Do they interact much with workers from other clubs?

Have there been major hindrances to your workers getting the maximum benefit from EquipU's offerings? What kind of obstacles do you think might be deterring them from using the site? What deters YOU from using this site more often? What would you like to see on EquipU that isn't here yet, but that would help you recruit and train new workers?

Getting your feedback on these questions won't solve anything overnight, but it will help us as we seek to make the most out of this site.
 

Hi Joy,

 We are in a rural town where about a fourth to half of our workers either have no internet access or are inexperienced at navigating the web. I've told them about the website in meetings, but I think only one person has actually logged in.

 I noticed in the member list that some people have their whole ministry as a single username and login. I can see how that would be helpful to our group, since I can give them the login information and take away the fear of the registration process. I know that eliminates some individuality, although I wonder if you could have a prompt after the login that asks for a name (I'd want to see if that defeated the purpose of making it simpler, though).

 
I think I might like to email all of my workers that have email and give them the link. That way it's actually on their computer. I wonder if that might make a difference.

I noticed this post on the "tech blog" and I think it has potential to send out via email to my workers. This would be more helpful than simply sending them to a single page (like kids4truth.com or equipuclubs.kids4truth.com, where they might not know about the other components, or might not understand the relationship among the websites)

 What do you think?
 

 This reply is a bit late in coming, but I thought I would thank you here. I've been working through some of these suggestions and implementing them in different ways. Still working toward improving the text on the websites and do plan to sit down for a walk-through session with a couple local K4T workers so I can see more immediately what problem areas are. It is so nice to have the feedback and further direction for how to clarify these things and make this a more and more efficient resource.