A Message From the Director

We just completed our Fall 2021 Term and it was a smashing success for restarting after a nineteen month layoff between terms.  I want to thank the pastors and staff at Eastminster Presbyterian and Ascension Lutheran churches for hosting us this term.  In my former career as a contracting analyst, statistics or metrics played an important role in my success as an individual and the organization's growth and success.  You need metrics to measure where you are and how you're doing and to project those numbers for future growth.  That being said, this past term we registered approximately 170 enrollees for 20 classes over two days.  Some of our anchor classes had robust and consistent attendance, while other classes had a very small turnout.  That's ok for a restart.  The upcoming winter term will offer a whopping 35 classes.  We're calling this a Grand Re-opening because of our long layoff.  As always, we attempt to keep refreshing our classes to renew interest of the enrollees.  Read about the new class offerings further down on this webpage.  To cover this many classes we are expanding to four hours at each location.  This expansion also allows us to effectively utilize our limited audio-visual equipment.  Also, we are bringing back snacks in packages along with our water and coffee offerings.

How can we do better?  I've heard you and will act accordingly.  Many of you are still having difficulty in registering and paying online.  One of the biggest obstacles is reading the website and completing the forms on your smart phones. You've heard the saying, "ten pounds of potatoes in a five pound bag?"  I cannot make your phone screens bigger but I can switch on a tool on the webpage to allow web pages to be more readable.  If at all possible, register and pay online using an iPad, tablet, or desktop computer.  An area that is giving me the most problems is when you keep hitting the "SEND" button on the registration and/or payment page.  You don't think your device is responding the first time you hit the send button, but it is.  I'm getting multiple registrations from you and multiple payments.  Also, you often keep changing your mind and registering multiple times.  There is a means to edit your original registration form if you look for it.  This coming term I'm going to let most classes overfill because after a couple of weeks many classes' attendance drops drastically. This is not fair to our teachers who put a lot of time into preparing for these classes.  If you are looking at this website right now then I know you can follow the guidelines to successfully register for your classes and pay online.  We have totally eliminated paper. It keeps our costs down and staff minimal (just me!).  Once we were (snail) mailing over a thousand paper class description brochures a term.  The biggest problem with that was a class became full during registration and registration forms kept coming in via mail for that class which was closed.  Online eliminates that duplicity.

Thank you for abiding by the mask policy this past term.  We cannot predict what's in store for us after the holidays - but stay tuned for that.  If you haven't done so, please get vaccinated!

Good luck with registering on 26 December.  See you in class.

-- Tony    Registration begins 26 December

Our morning setup staff

​OUR MISSION:

The purpose of Shepherd's Center-Beachside is to offer older adults a wide variety of seminars based on the peer-learning concept and designed to be intellectually stimulating in an informal and noncompetitive environment.