Element Church Insider » Egg Drop

Cheyenne Egg Drop

jeffmaness — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:24:18 +0000

The 3rd…(can’t be 3rd annual because we didn’t do it last year)…EVER Cheyenne Egg Drop is just THREE DAYS AWAY. That’s right, THREE DAYS! Right now the forecast is calling for “mostly sunny and breezy”, which I gotta admit, I’m WAY MORE pumped about than SNOW and FREEZING COLD. I am SO EXCITED about this upcoming community event. In 2008 & 2009 we saw THOUSANDS of people come out, even in the SNOW, to participate in this one of a kind Easter celebration. This Saturday, April 16 at the Johnson Junior High soccer fields, we’ll be dropping 50,000 eggs from a helicopter, giving away AWESOME prizes, providing fun inflatable games, activities and MUCH more.

To participate in the Egg Drop you must be between the ages of 3 – 12. Anyone over 12 that is not a parent/guardian will be asked not to participate in the hunt or the games. However, you are more than welcome to come and watch with your family. (a separate and secure area will be provided for children 1 – 3 yrs of age to participate) Prizes will include a Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, helicopter rides and MORE. The cost is FREE but we are asking that families bring a canned good(s) or non-perishable food for Needs Inc. food bank as the price of admission.

Don’t miss this AWESOME opportunity. Check out the web-site HERE for all the details.

Cheyenne Egg Drop

jeffmaness — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:00:53 +0000

That’s right, it’s here again, the 3rd ever Element Church Cheyenne Egg Drop. I am SO EXCITED about this upcoming community event. In 2008 & 2009 we saw THOUSANDS of people come out, even in the SNOW, to participate in this one of a kind Easter celebration. Well, we’re at it again this year. On Saturday, April 16 at the Johnson Junior High soccer fields, we’ll be dropping 50,000 eggs from a helicopter, giving away AWESOME prizes, providing fun inflatable games, activities and MUCH more.

To participate in the egg drop you must be between the ages of 3 – 12. Anyone over 12 that is not a parent/guardian will be asked not to participate in the hunt or the games. However, you are more than welcome to come and watch with your family. (a separate and secure area will be provided for children 1 – 3 yrs of age to participate) Prizes will include a Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, helicopter rides and MORE. The cost is FREE but we are asking that families bring a canned good(s) or non-perishable food for Needs Inc. food bank as the price of admission.

Don’t miss this AWESOME opportunity. Keep watching for more information.

Egg Drop Recap

jeffmaness — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 23:33:52 +0000

HOLY COW! I think I’ve said that 100 times today. HOLY COW! First off, I’m exhausted, as is the rest of the team, including volunteers. Here are my thoughts on today.

— Words can’t express the thanks to the Elemenet volunteers. Un-STINKIN’-Believable. There were ugly flourescant green (or were they yellow) shirts EVERYWHERE! It was GREAT! Our volunteers showed up at 7 and just rocked da hizzy!

— My first thought was “Well, better than last year. No snow!” That was a plus. Last year we shoveled the snow off the field for the drop.

— It was cold! COLD! When I got up it looked great outside. I think it was warmer at 6 AM when I got up than it was at 11 when we dropped the eggs. Kept praying for the weather to clear and the sun to poke out. But the wind increased and the cold continued…but it didn’t stop the drop!

— The 6th grade boys group from Fusion @ Element came out and made breakfast for all the volunteers. SWEET! Thanks guys!

— By 9AM a line began to form. We actually decided to open 15 minutes early since a line was beginning to form.

— One thing I’m learning. We roll VERY different in Wyoming. Who comes to an egg hunt when it’s windy and 30 degrees? All of Wyoming yells “WE DO!” So cool!

— By 10:30, 10 minutes from gathering for the drop, there were still 300 -400 people in line waiting to register for the drawings. We actually had to hold off the drop to get everyone through the line.

— Last year we had one registration table and were backed up. This year we had FOUR and were backed up. HOLY COW!

— By 10:50 the chopper lifted and both sides of the football field were SLAMMED with people. I have no idea how to estimate numbers and there is no possible way to count everyone, but there were THOUSANDS of people. We guessed around 4,000 – 5,000. I have no idea. It was a LOT of people.

— The egg drop itself was sweet. They hovered over the field for a couple minutes and dropped 14 bags of eggs. I was so jealous of Curtis.

— Then the chaos. THREE…TWO…ONE…and they were off. The field was covered in kids getting eggs. That scene amazes me.

— I hate to give special thanks out, but I think a HUGE thank you goes out to Ryan Scheer for heading up the event. He took a VERY large burden off of me by taking this on. Jay Gohldberg and Bob Gudhal also did a TON of pre-work for the event. You guys ROCK! Thank you so much!

— My staff team was amazing. Grant, Adam, Curtis and Andy are studs (and I mean that in the most spiritual and manly way possible). Terri, Katie and Pam, thanks for all the help in the office leading up to this too. Amazing!

— Volunteers UNREAL! You guys made that event happen. I LOVED seeing you serve, greet, welcome, direct, care for, lift, move, haul. Crazy! I love all of you guys!

— SO STOKED for Easter services tomorrow. Can’t wait to see you all there. Check out pictures below, or click the link HERE to look at them online.

Following Christ,

Jeff

Egg Drop Update

jeffmaness — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:10:54 +0000

I think the weather worsens every time I check it. (Maybe I should stop checking it) At this point the forecast is calling for 8 inches of accumulation over the weekend. Saturday’s high is 23 and wind gusts of up to 45 mph. We called the inflatable game company and they need to know by noon tomorrow if we are having the event. SO, we are going to make the call by noon tomorrow. We may try and re-schedule to NEXT Saturday since the weather for all of next week is much more favorable. We’re praying for the forecast to change over night. If not, we’ll make a decision and trust God! We want the event to happen and if there is ANY possibility we’ll go ahead and hold it!

Praying,

Jeff

Egg Drop Update

jeffmaness — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:23:48 +0000

Yes, we have seen the forecast! But our God made the sun stand still and the shadow to change on a sun dial in the Bible. He CAN change the weather, but even if He doesn’t…! Sound familiar. We are watching the weather closely. It stinkin’ snowed ON the day of egg drop last year and we still had it. We aren’t going to cancel until the MORNING of. We are praying and trusting that if God wants this event to happen, He will open up a window of opportunity. We’ll post on the church and egg drop website the details regarding any cancellation, AND we’ll put it on the church voice mail. Regardless on whether the event goes on, we WILL be collecting food for Needs Inc. and the Comea House. Check out the pictures below of food that has already come in. We had one little girl from Element who spent her WHOLE allowance on food to bring in. That is stinkin’ AWESOME! PRAY PRAY PRAY! We showed up last year with a field covered in snow and managed to have an awesome event. We’ll decide late Friday night or Saturday morning what we’re doing this year.

2nd Annual Easter Egg Drop

jeffmaness — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:04:34 +0000

WOO HOO! We were STOKED to announce yesterday at church the 2nd Annual Cheyenne Egg Drop. It IS ON! Once again, we’ll be doing it ALL FREE. It was SUPER fun last year and we love offering this event for the city of Cheyenne. We are going to be dropping MORE eggs this year. That’s right, this year we are doing about 40,000 eggs. We pre-place several thousand on the ground and then drop several thsouand from the sky. Here are some of the particulars. Check out www.cheyenneeggdrop.com

First off, we are partnering with Needs Inc. and the Comea Shelter this year to try and stock up their food pantry and provide food for those who are in need. Last year we had between 2500 – 3000 people come to the event. With that many people, we can do a TON of good and so while the event is FREE, we are asking everyone to bring a non-perishable food item for those two organizations. We actually have a list from Needs Inc. and will be posting that on our site. We should be able to fill a STINKIN’ UHAUL for the.

When: Saturday, April 4th Gates open at 9:45 AM and the drop is at 11 AM

Where: Miller Field on the corner of Pershing and Evans

What: HUGE inflatable games; prizes including a Nintendo Wii and a Video iPod; Face Painting; Baloons; Egg Drop

Who: All kids ages 3 – 12. Anyone older or younger are allowed to come to the event but will not be able to participate in the egg drop

Why: Because we LOVE Cheyenne! We want to offer this free fun event, and hopefully make a GIANT impact on Needs and Comea.

Can’t wait,

Jeff

Egg Drop Video

jeffmaness — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:22:00 +0000

Here is the highlight video that Adam put together. I apologize for the quality. We had to reduce it quite a bit to get it uploaded. I’ll try to get a better quality sometime this week. ENJOY!

Wind Chill = 9; Snow = 1/2 to 1 inch; Egg Drop? AMAZING

jeffmaness — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:34:00 +0000

YO YO YO Element Church! Amazing what went down today. Absolutely amazing! That’s Curtis (youth pastor) hangin‘ out of the chopper droppin‘ eggs. HOW COOL IS THAT? No one else but God deserves credit for what was pulled off this morning at Miller Field. Absolutely amazed. Here is what went down today. I need to be careful or I’ll type WAY too long.

6 AM got up and went right to the window. Much to my chagrin, there was a coating of snow on the ground, weather channel said 22 degrees with a wind chill of 9. I filled my coffee cup and headed down to the office to make some final preparations for today. (I fully expected to cancel the event at this time)

7 AM picked up Adam and drove trailer over to the field. It was VERY cold and everything was covered in snow. Within minutes volunteers were showing up. I looked at Adam and said “I don’t think we can do this.” Adam said “Bro, we’ve got to do it!” The volunteers said “What can we do to pull this off?” …I paused and said “Shovels…LOTS AND LOTS OF SHOVELS”. People made phones calls for shovels, others went home for shovels. Our thoughts were on shovels. The Sun wasn’t even up at this point. I’m thinking “Will anyone show up?” HA, wow. What small thinking I have sometimes.

Our volunteers absolutely ROCKED IT OUT today. AMAZING! Seriously they did an unbelievable job pulling this off. We had 20 people shoveling a stinking football field. We shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. People received their assignments for game areas, cleared it with a shovel and set up their games. At 9 o’clock a line started forming. Gates didn’t open until 9:45 AM.

The Sun was up, wind was down and it turned into a BEAUTIFUL day. By the time we dropped the eggs it was sunny and in the 40′s. The line of people waiting to get in seemed to go on forever. Folks, over 2000 people came to the egg drop today. 1000 kids received a ticket and we know that many families bypassed the tickets and just came in. There may have been 3000 there. IT WAS PACKED!

The helicopter came roaring in and did an amazing job hovering and dropping the eggs. They flew over several times and the crowd screamed and yelled. So cool! The amount of people was overwhelming. We weren’t prepared for that many. I’m so glad we ordered the extra 10,000 eggs to make it 25,000 total. After we cleared the field of snow we covered it with about 10,000 eggs.

After the chopper dropped the eggs the kids were chompin‘ at the bit to hit that field. When we did the countdown it was CHAOS! 1000 kids going nuts over Easter eggs. Some kids got WAAY to much while others who weren’t as aggressive were short changed.

We gave away 4 Easter baskets, tons of candy, a video ipod, and a Nintendo Wii with a video chair. While we were standing there the YMCA director said “I’ll throw in two 6 month memberships to give away.” HA, that was crazy.

We’re already talking about changes to make. No event is perfect by any means. There are MANY things we can do better. Now that we’ve done it once, we kinda know what to expect. We seriously may need 50,000 eggs next year. LOTS of people asked if we were doing this again. LOTS of people were VERY interested in Element Church. Our goal was not to get people to church, it was simply to serve the city and say “This is for YOU!” If no one comes to church because of it we’ll STILL do it again next year, BIGGER AND BETTER!

If you were a volunteer today and have any suggestions for us as far as logistics, traffic flow, personnel, please email me and let me know. We need to start compiling a list of how to improve the event. I think the advertising worked. LOL

Two weeks ago we started planning this thing. TWO WEEKS! In two weeks God pulled a LOT together. WOW! I think for two weeks of planning it went pretty well. I felt bad for the pre-school area. They were overflowing. Also, I apologize for any families who were jipped on candy and eggs. I trust that the majority of the people had a GREAT experience today. In any event this big there are bound to be people who don’t get a good experience. Our goal next year will be to make it smoother, more enjoyable and more successful.

If adding our third service tomorrow goes this well, I’ll be a happy man. I was more nervous for this event today than any other event I’ve done EVER in church. I did not feel ready yesterday. Element E:Team, you guys ROCK! Thank you to all who helped out. Watch tonight on the 10 o’clock news for a report on the day. They were out there and interviewed me following the event.

Told ya I’d type too long. Praise the Lord for safety, good weather, amazing people and out of this world volunteers. We’ll post pictures and video tomorrow! Adam is working on a vid for church in the morning.

Following Christ,

Jeff