Seedling to a Mature Tree

Have you ever planted a small seedling and stayed around long enough to see it develop into a mature tree?  When my four children were small we let them pick out “their” tree to plant.  Unfortunately we have moved to a different home and now can only get a glimpse of “their” tree when we drive past our old house.
This week I was in a product release meeting for upcoming enhancements to the event registration software in Access ACS.  As I sat in that meeting along with 50 fellow coworkers, I thought back to the origination of our event management software. I remember the time when ACS did not have a method to record events. We were busy tracking essential data like people, contributions, and financial transactions.  However there was a particular client that kept calling and asking for a way to track events held at the church. So we finally saw the need and developed the Reservations Module.  We released the new module at an annual conference in Orlando and I remember being shocked when we had 75 orders the first day of the conference. The need was certainly there.
As a young tree will grow over time, our event software has matured since that first release. While we started with the basics like setting up events and signing up people, the enhancements to the current software are many.  Some of the latest changes include improvements to online registration and payments, automated email notifications to the event coordinator, tracking and reporting of event financial information, guest registrations, and even an option to promote the event on Facebook.
It was exciting seeing the new enhancements and to reflect back on the software’s beginning.  We all owe some gratitude to that persistent client from years ago.
(Thanks Linda from Wieuca Road Baptist Church!)