If you’re passionate about starting this in your parish, below is a templated letter to help explain the course and its benefits to the parish. This letter is written to a pastor but can also be used to help onboard other team members. 

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For dates & times, we recommend running the Marriage Course in the fall or spring when more people are around. Your course will run for seven weeks so look for time slots where you can run the course without it being interrupted by holidays or long weekends. It would be good to align with the pastor and/or parish admin to make sure there aren’t conflicting events during the time of your course. 

For location, look for a space that can align with Environment Guidlines–somewhere that can accommodate space for each couple and feel more intimate and comfortable.

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Register your course to access it.

If you haven’t run Alpha before, we would highly recommend viewing some of Alpha’s training videos in your Dashboard. Each one will help explain key parts of running the course and help you be prepared for the next steps. You can find all these training videos in the links below or in the “Learning Center” of your Dashboard when you log into run.usa.themarriagecourse.org.

Ask couples to join your volunteer team. Your checklist will cover all the roles you'll need, but you may find some couples can cover multiple roles.

Create a place to keep track of registrations. We recommend using whatever tool you're most familiar with, but we’ve also built an excel spreadsheet to give you a framework if needed. You can also use the registration forms from the Archdiocese of Vancouver if needed.

Promotion should be an ongoing thing as often it takes people a few weeks to think it over and decide to register. Often, couples will only decide a day or two before! This ongoing promotion will help be reminders to them as you lead up to the beginning of the course. 

Every attendee will need a journal during the course - which means 2 per couple. We recommend ordering journals a good amount of time prior to the course starting, although it’s okay for last-minute registrants to still order. Below are the recommended links for ordering journals in your designated country.

A few days before the course started is a great time to invite couples to join. For those who have been debating on joining the course, this can be a last chance for them to sign up.

Schedule emails to go out each week of the course to provide registrants videos if they miss a week, and reminders of the upcoming date + time.

All your episode videos can be found on your dashboard. We’ve also included a script for your hosts (if they desire one). The last thing we recommend is a post-course survey that will help you track effectiveness of the program & what to improve the next time around. There is one below or found on the Alpha Marriage Course Dashboard.

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