Because ours is a small church and we only had 25 kids (it grew to 28 by the end), we did not use adult crew leaders. We actually used 6th-8th graders, which the manual doesn't recommend, but it worked out well because there were adults around to help out when they needed it.  Those middle school age crew leaders were really important to our success.

We also had people double up on stations, which the manual does suggest for small churches. Although I had one leader for each station due to the amount of planning involved, the helpers all did more than one job. For example, I had the crafts helper also serve in the snack area. The teens who did Spotlight Drama also helped in Cinema Science and Hyperspeed Games, and with decorating and set-up. In the end, I found that we could have done it with fewer volunteers, since many people had a lot of down time. We also had more teens and middle schoolers show up later in the week because they'd heard it was fun, so you will need to plan to manage them in case this happens to you.

I ordered all the cinema science supplies from Steve Spangler, bought balloons at a party store (we filled our beaker with all different colors, not just blue), and used a Diaper Genie refill for the out of stock tube-a-loons.

I found that the effort was worth it. Although this was my first year as director, it was my 10th as a VBS worker and this blows all the other ones away.

It does seem overwhelming--a month ago, I was ready to quit!--but it will come together.

We ordered from Steve Spangler and got our stuff in 3 days.

Group should definitely have included this stuff in the Starter Kit and I'm sure they will next year.

Hey Linda!

I was looking at your first post -- the one where you mentioned the light and dark blue balloons.  I don't know if I would worry about the color of the balloons -- we didn't.  I'm the Sing and Play director as well as the director, and I kept calling the balloons molecules -- I don't know why -- but anyway, the kids didn't know they were supposed to be anything else!  As far as the Power Lab stickers are concerned -- I bought the large mailing labels and printed pictures of the Bible buddies on them.  My Bible Blast leader said that was better anyway because there was more room to write on. 

Don't get discouraged -- it'll all work out!  We didn't get the giant test tube, so we ended up putting shiny paper on a tall trash can -- it worked fine!  We've done other VBS's before, but we've done Group for the past 4 years, and we really do love it!

I found the expando powder at Five Below in the $1 tricks section.

I think one of the reasons that Group VBS has so much "stuff" is that it is so much more hands on for the kids.  Yes, more work on our part but also much better for the kids.  It's not merely entertaining...it has the power to change their lives.