As we recognized the need to expand further to meet growing interest nation-wide, and yet having few financial resources to do so, we stumbled on the organizational model that Peter Drucker calls the "blueberry pancake". The best way to span this huge nation coast to coast was through electronic media. So CTS became Canadian Tentmaker Network, a "virtual" national organization that met only through the internet, e-mail and telephone. But people still need face-to-face meetings to learn, grow and establish relationships, so we established in each urban centre across Canada, a CTN committee, which planned and ran annual conferences on tentmaking for people in their geographical area.

The national organization (the pancake) was virtual, the local chapters (blueberries) were "real". Thus we had effective national organization, fellowship and mutual sharing, but only local costs. CTN, like all tentmaking associations, runs out of people's back pockets and spare time. In other words, there is never a lot of money or full-time staff, to keep partnership activities going. What is needed as a minimum is one person (what we call a National Coordinator), whose primary focus is maintaining the network even though their main assignment may be something else.

In the '90's we held regular tentmaker conferences in 7 urban centres across Canada. The network itself is made up
of individual tentmakers and mission agencies or professional associations committed to marketplace ministries in cross-cultural settings.

There are membership fees that pay for joint publications such as Tentmaker FAQ's and communications costs, but otherwise, each event run is financially self-sufficient (paid for by participants). If CTN did not exist, we would have to invent it! There remains much interest in tentmaking in Canada and elsewhere.

The challenge is to find the minimum financial and human resources to keep it growing.

Bob Morris

Chairman

Canadian Tentmaker Network