June Edition

Welcome to the SOW Monthly: June Edition!


In this month's edition, we will be sharing reports from all the different SOW HQ departments:

  • Campus

  • Events

  • Finance and IT

  • HRMD

  • Management

  • Marketing

Please do join us in praying for our campus ministry and that God may continue to grow and use these staff members for His kingdom, especially as we look ahead for the 2022-2023 recruitment cycle.

If you are still curious for more updates, head over to our Instagram page @studentoutreachtotheworld, where the Marketing team is now posting a series on the Staff teams!

Campus Department

Staff: Joshua Kim, Sarah Kim, Amy Zhu, Faith Teo and Daniel (Donghee) Lee


Campus P/VP Follow Ups
One of our aims as campus staff is to follow up and meet up with our existing P/VPs at least once a month. Through these meet ups, we strive to provide any necessary support emotionally, mentally, and physically (if needed) because we believe that even though they are in the position of leading a team to serve the campus they are in, they are also members of SOW that needs accountability and support from SOW. Hence, we as campus staff acknowledges and pursues to build rapport and relationship beyond ministry work and keep our P/VPs accountable in their ministry as a staff member but also as an older brother or sister in Christ.

TWIG (Training and Worshipping in Godliness)

We have continuously focused on providing trainings and supports to our leaders (both executive teams and student leaders) at least twice a month on a Friday night through series of topics that are directly in relation to their ministry contexts. Through TWIG, our purpose is to provide a platform where leaders can gather, discuss, and train to equip our leaders and assist them in their serving. Executive teams and Student Leaders are trained separately one week and gather for a combined training or praise and prayer night for the other.

Campus Prayer Points
UNSW: Pray that members will see the value of building the community and invite their Christian and non-Christian friends
ACU: Pray for utter reliance and dependence on God and to be reminded that ministry success is not dictated by us, but by God. Also pray that our members may continue to be grown by the Spirit, and depend on God even throughout finals
USYD: For the ministry of SOW USYD to continuously grow as brothers and sisters who glorify God, no matter what shape or form it takes
UTS: Praise God that someone has been plugged into a local church via our members. Also pray for our hearts and why we serve, that we are intentional in our interactions, and we do trust and wait on God’s timing
MQ: Pray for members to deeply reflect on their faith and the idolatry in their lives (Road Trip theme). Pray also that it will also be a time for leaders to serve well but to also to rest well

Upcoming Events

  • September: Campus Leaders' Retreat

  • December: SOWcial

  • December: Year 12 Welcome Night

Events Department

Staff: Mai Hiidome, Monica Park, Steven Jo and Rachel Jin

The Events department have been working through 3 flagship events throughout our term. We started with working on SOWcial 2021 and soon after SOW Camp 2022. At SOWcial we celebrated the leaders who had been serving on campus throughout another year of lockdown and we also welcomed the new team of leaders. There is a change to SOWcial from what we had known it to be before. This event will now be under the Campus Department and will be more directed and catered to campus leaders and the oncoming members.

The SOW Camp 2022 theme was ‘Alpha and Omega’ and we spent a week diving into the Word with our wonderful key note speaker David Burke. Even amid many uncertainties we praise God for His faithfulness and the opportunities that were provided.

Now that we have (somewhat) come out of a pandemic we hope to reach more and do more with our upcoming events. Our next project is working to pull together our first everexternal fundraiser. This has been on our drawing board for many years but had to be cancelled or postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. We hope that our plans can come into fruition as we gear up to launch SAT22 in the coming months.

Events Prayer Points

  • Prayer for guidance as we prepare for our big fundraiser SAT22

  • Prayer for wisdom as we prepare for upcoming SOW Camp 2023


Finance and IT

Staff: Isac Kim, Daniel Kim, Will Roh, Ian Chung, Dominic Tjong, Max Yoon, Brandon Teng and Lucas Foo

Goals Achieved in 2021-22

  • Thanks to the continuous support of Alumni and community, we achieved a 400% increase in profits compared to last financial year, providing opportunities to further our objectives in ministry growth and making it possible to fund more events and services

  • Deploy an intranet site (SHED) for staff members to access resources and allowing efficient submission to various claims (reimbursement requests etc)

  • Deploy MS Teams (and environment) as main communications platform

Objectives Moving Forward

  • Continue to provide financial services to fund all events and services

  • Explore/enhance financial avenues to support growth/improvements of ministry goals by

    • Introducing a new revenue stream to improve finances (Q2 FY22-23)

    • Improving methods/systems in regards to budget management and data analysis

HRMD

Staff: Jess Choi, Saya Hiidome, Abigail Jin, Sunny Cho and Christina Lee

Since the last HR update, so much has happened both internally and externally. Externally, we were still not rid of COVID-19 and coming out of lockdown meant a lot of uncertainty around things like our annual, end-of-year staff retreat. However, we were extremely blessed and were able to go forward with it! It was such an encouraging time to finally be able to enjoy in-person fellowship after months and months of zoom meetings and also fruitful for us to be reminded of the ‘why’ we serve and our overall role as staff in our respective departments.


Upon reflection, I am so grateful for how the Lord has worked despite the challenges we faced as a staff team. It’s hard to think we were exclusively online now that a lot of things have returned to ‘normal’, but since then we’ve been able to organise staff events and move back to having meetings in person. I am also so grateful for our staff team who work so tirelessly and faithfully behind the scenes.

We are currently in the process of our recruitment phase for both the staff and campus teams! It is exciting but requires a lot of trust in the Lord as there are many moving parts and some that are out of our control. Thankfully, our staff team has been growing over the years (praise God!) and God-willing we hope that our numbers will continue to increase to help support the ministry of SOW.

Please continue to pray for our staff team and for the recruitment drive which is in-flight!


Management

Staff: Esther Ahn, Natalie Chua, Michelle Lee and Johanna Au

The scope of the Management Team’s work in the financial year ending in 2022 was to ensure that SOW became registered as a Charity under ACNC, fundamental policies (Privacy and Reimbursement etc) had been drafted, and external partnerships and affiliations were enhanced.

On 8 April, SOW was officially registered with the ACNC. This ultimately allowed the organisation to be legally recognised as an entity promoting the Christian faith within the university campus setting. This is practically beneficial for the organisation as it reduces the various reporting obligations required under ASIC. We are now only required to provide an Annual Information Statement with the option to submit an Annual Financial Report. Moreover, we have now entered into six external partnerships: Christ College; Harbour City Church; Cornerstone Presbyterian Church; Gracepoint Presbyterian Church; Captivate Presbyterian Church and Missions Interlink. To continue enhancing our external management, the team is still in the process of affiliating our university campuses- namely, University of Sydney and Macquarie University.

In 2023, the Management team will be rebranded as the Risk team as it will better encompass the nature of the team moving forward. The team plans to focus on internal policy drafting, staff training and compliance of legal requirements.


Marketing

Staff: Joanne Byun, Michelle Chen, Ara Kim, April Jiang and Caitlin Su

The Marketing team has been working alongside the Events Department in creating promotional material, designs and marketing strategy for each of the events. Since January we have worked on creating visuals and promoting for SOW Camp, Alumni Relaunch and Mission Rally and currently the team is working on the SAT event. The SAT event is a sporting fundraising event which will help increase awareness of ministry. The main task for the marketing team is to be able to create creative content that engages and reaches out to the University students, churches, partners and the general public. 

The Marketing Department ensures that each event is being reached out to the appropriate audiences through different platforms such as Instagram, facebook, newsletter, website and emails. The following data presents the interactions of our social platforms for the past events. Data from our social media platforms ensures that posts are being viewed and helps the marketing team understand what types of content engages with our audience. 

The Rebranding of Student Outreach to the World has been in the works since late last year and has now been completed and in use. The purpose of rebranding SOW is to show who we are and who we want to be, ultimately reflecting our strengths and goals as a ministry. SOW’s current website is now live with the new branding and will be used in all departments including Campus and Events. For more information about SOW’s Branding please check out our website here.

studentoutreachtotheworld