Build Status

Deliverable	Traditional
Marketing site — `index.html` Video hero, six-section narrative, leadership modals, scroll animations, fully responsive, brand system applied throughout	$7,500
Brand standards — guide + web reference Palette, type system, logo usage; Markdown source plus `brand-standards.html`	$1,500
4 × interactive study guides Sessions 001–004 — custom audio player, tabbed readings, accordions, go-deeper modals, 10-question quizzes, embedded video. Closer to small web apps than pages	$4,800
Print brochures — 4 editions Two full art directions of the 8-page (painterly + modern), plus the 4-page and the 2-page conference handout; all print-ready PDFs	$4,000
2027 March for Life planning guide 8-page print PDF and a responsive web edition from one source	$2,500
Liberty Action Alert podcast page 4-part series — players, tabs, accordions, promo section	$1,200
Champions Advocate Weekly workstream AI concept mockup, on-site digest demo with click-through approval flow, and the email-delivery platform analysis	$2,000
Internal tooling Gated admin area, this build log, the correspondence archive, and the live Clockify budget dashboard (serverless function)	$2,000
Total comparable value	≈ $25,500

Sept 112026

Three weeks without a call — catching the agenda up before the board votes

Check-in Academy Budget

Two Fridays went by without a check-in (Aug 28 — Gary moving a child into school; Sept 4 — Mark at a family wedding, Labor Day weekend), so today's /agenda was rewritten as a catch-up: every email thread since Aug 21 reviewed and folded in.
The board meets Tuesday, Sept 15 with Mark's web-services budget request (the proposal's recommended tier). Mark asked for an updated agreement ready to execute on approval and is finding the designated signing authority on the LCRL side. Georgia Endicott (LCMS Office of the President) is now the payment contact — she asked for an invoice Sept 9; answered that it follows once budget and scope are set, Mark copied.
Dr. Seltz retired Aug 31. His retirement announcement went up on the LCRL site Aug 25 (photo header, teaser video, full letter). Mark is now the sole LAA approver; three episodes (Toffler, DeAngelis, Pavone) each approved and posted the day they were sent. Seltz's new address on file.
Mark's ask for today: get the Academy-subscription messaging ready now — "Right now Boulder people do not know that there will be an individual fee. So, it looks free." He told Pr. Jarvis $100/month and promised a 50% pilot discount. Drafted plan/academy-pricing-messaging-2026-09-11.html: Founding Members at half price, locked for as long as they stay (the Memento model from Aug 21), with the pastor's spoken line, a note from Mark to both pastors, a one-page kit insert and a chapter-page paragraph — prices left as placeholders because the $100/mo told to Jarvis and the May "$1,000 ≈ 20 seats" example don't reconcile.
Chapters: Boulder met for the first time Sept 10 on the revised kit (Jarvis, Aug 22: "Perfect! I like 'neighbors' better than 'adults.'"). St. Stephen launches Sept 16; Carly forwarded the kit and the three open questions (dates / Dec 16, contact, name) to Rev. Rodriguez and his assistant Sept 2 — no answer back, so the current pieces are proposed as the launch-night pieces. Carly uploaded the July 2-page brochure to Basecamp Sept 10, presumably for the ULC conference on the 19th.
Advocate Weekly: Shelly's first submission arrived Sept 2 (Illinois euthanasia-law lawsuit; Päivi Räsänen's UK ban). Held pending the budget, with his understanding; proposed as issue #1 the day the board approves, on a 48-hour draft turnaround.
Still unanswered: Doctrinal Review page-vs-PDF (asked Aug 14); the Mom & Pop Papers folder Mark shared Aug 21 couldn't be listed from Gary's account — to be confirmed on the call.
Budget band on /agenda now reads as a closed period: the retainer ended Aug 31 over its 60 hours; work since Sept 1 is outside any agreement until Tuesday.

Sources: plan/sources/2026-08-21-transcript-weekly-checkin.txt; Mark's emails Sept 3 ("No Meeting on Friday") and Sept 10; Georgia Endicott, Sept 9 · Commit 551970c

Aug 282026

St. Stephen, Liberty MO — second chapter kit, and the templatization it forced

Chapters Print

The request (Carly, Aug 21): materials for the chapter at St. Stephen Lutheran Church, Liberty MO, led by Rev. Joe Rodriguez (Senior Pastor). Her email carried only a launch date — Wednesday, September 16 at 6:30, third Wednesdays thereafter. No address, no contact, no photo, no session list. Searched the mail: nothing else was ever sent. Carly had sent them the Boulder mock-up as the template and hadn't heard back.
Filled the gaps from public sources. The Aug 7 call's "Saint Stephen Liberty" pinned the congregation down: 205 N Forest Ave, Liberty MO 64068, LCMS, and "Team Jesus" is their own branding. Confirmed Rev. Rodriguez's title from their staff page.
No photo was provided, so the hero is their own sanctuary shot from teamjesusliberty.org — the only church-specific image anywhere on their site (everything else is licensed stock). The exterior is a low brick building behind a parking lot, and the only view of it is Google Street View, which we can't print. Interior is the better hero anyway — it's the room people will actually sit in.
The kit was Boulder-shaped in its prose. "A university campus is a lonely place…", "For CU Students · You Are the Hosts", "empties out at midterms" — all hardcoded in the templates. A parish chapter can't use any of it. So the audience copy, the poster's two columns, the RSVP role menu and the social footer now live in the chapter JSON. Boulder's output is byte-identical after the refactor — verified against the committed PNGs, thumbnails and HTML.
New photoPosition knob. The CSS framing defaults assume a building exterior, where the subject sits low; an interior puts the chancel high, so the handout band cropped to a blank wall with the cross cut off. Optional per-chapter override; omit it and every surface keeps its default.
Two judgement calls flagged for Carly, not decided here: the session list is a placeholder (third Wednesdays, Sept–May), and December 16 is dropped because St. Stephen holds Advent midweek services on December Wednesdays. Contact number is the church office, not Rev. Rodriguez direct.
Deployed Sept 1 (commit f0e106d) — /st-stephen and the kit on /chapters are live; Carly forwarded the pieces to Rev. Rodriguez Sept 2.

Source: Carly’s “St. Stephens Chapter / Materials Request”, Aug 21

Aug 72026

Boulder chapter publicity — built once, templatized for every chapter after

Chapters Print

The request (Carly + Mark, Aug 5): publicity for a new chapter at University Lutheran Chapel, 1202 Folsom St., Boulder CO — campus ministry to CU, led by Rev. Rob Jarvis. Asked for an 8.5×11 poster, half-sheet handouts, and a social post or two, using the photo of their chapel. Meets Thursdays at 7:00 PM, ten sessions from Sept 10 through Apr 8.
Built as a kit, not a one-off. Mark on the Jul 31 call: a Missouri group is "about ready to do this" and "we're going to start churning this stuff." So one JSON file per chapter now drives everything — node print-build/build-chapter-kit.js <slug> emits the poster PDF, a 2-up half-sheet PDF (adult sheet + student sheet), 1080² and 1080×1350 social PNGs, a QR, and a live landing page. Missouri is a data entry job, not a design job.
The copy solves Pr. Jarvis's actual problem. He wrote that he wasn't sure how to phrase the invitation: the students host the chapter but can't sustain it alone — schedules collapse at midterms and a half-empty room demoralizes the rest. The pieces order the two motives rather than blending them: neighboring-congregation adults are asked to come for the students first, for their own training second. Adult-facing headline "Stand with the students who are standing for their faith"; student-facing "Hold your ground. You don't have to hold it alone."
Landing page + RSVP: /boulder carries the full schedule and an RSVP form. Every chapter posts to one Netlify form (chapter-rsvp) with hidden chapter fields. Outstanding: Carly must be added as an email notification on that form in the Netlify dashboard — until then submissions are captured but nobody is told.
Review page: new gated /chapters in the admin panel shows every chapter's pieces with thumbnails and downloads, and regenerates on each build so new chapters appear on their own.
Build guard added. The kit builder measures every fixed-height print box and exits non-zero rather than shipping a clipped PDF. It caught the poster body running 121px long — and both social posts overflowing silently, because scrollHeight omits a container's own padding-bottom. The guard now also measures last-child position against the padding box.

Source: Carly & Mark’s “Boulder CO - Champions Chapter” emails, Aug 5

Jul 242026

No check-in — convention feedback in, two blockers moved

Check-In

Mark emailed ahead of the usual slot: ill most of the week, nothing new to bring, happy to meet only if there was show-and-tell. Nothing had shipped since his Jul 17 walkthrough, so the call was skipped and the two open blockers were answered by email instead — reply drafted in plan/meet-today-reply-email-2026-07-24.html.
Payments: Mark met the LCMS accountant assigned to the project at the convention and walked him through the Subscriber Academy + donation payments. The accountant is one month into the role, doesn't yet know the church's practices, and has to escalate. A team Zoom is planned and Mark wants Gary on it. Stripe stays blocked until two policy answers land: which account receives the money, and who may administer it.
Advocate Weekly: still no answer from LCMS Legal, and Mark doubts they can give one. New approach — go direct to the sources we already cite, ask for reprint permission and their preferred attribution. Gary to write a reusable request for Mark & Shelly, then bake the returned credit line into the page + email so it's applied consistently.
Also flagged to Mark: the retainer is at 59.4 of 60 hours and the fall scope needs calendar time — memo prepared (plan/champions-academy-scope-memo-2026-07-24.html), to be sent separately rather than raised while he's unwell.
Mark's reply, same day — the convention went well. "Great responses from people I demonstrated the materials [to]." Dr. Seltz and Mark never got to the new sessions in the crush of the convention, but Seltz "brags about the champion pages" — Mark's verdict: "This is a slam-dunk." The 8-page and 2-page brochures also landed well with attendees.
User testing this month: Mark will put the two sample sessions in front of specific people in July and report back — the first real read on the podcast-first format outside the two of us.
Green light on the scope memo: Mark closed with "I look forward to the contract information that you can provide me." He's expecting a proposal, not just a status note. He also expects direction from the LCRL board now the convention is over — but warns "convention-hangover" will stretch it 2–3 weeks, which puts board input around mid-August, right at the edge of the Aug 31 retainer end.

Source: Mark’s “Do we have a reason to meet today?” email, Jul 24

Jul 172026

Weekly check-in — go live, and a curriculum whiteboard ahead

Check-In

Approved to publish. Walked Mark through session-004.html and the reworked session-001.html. Mark: "It's a test bed — let's go live, then we'll fix whatever needs to be fixed." Both shipped right after the call (commit ea0c683) so he could show them to Dr. Seltz and the two Phoenix champions at the LCMS convention that weekend. (Carly was on vacation.)
Sessions 002 & 003 pulled from the site. Mark's call — the old video-first format alongside the new podcast-first pages "would be confusing." Cards commented out on index.html + footer; the pages still resolve by direct URL until they're rebuilt.
NotebookLM is the interim production tool — Mark's honest framing: a fast stopgap for packaging existing material without recording a podcast. He's thrilled with the audio and video ("so much better than I could ever have said it"), but wants two things: control over the visuals/branding, and a script he can read himself — because a script is what he can send to doctrinal review, a step he's skipped so far (everything is labeled "pilot program," listener beware).
Doctrinal bug in the AI visuals: the generated videos put God's saving work on the left and the state on the right — backwards from LCRL's two-kingdom convention (left-hand = state, right-hand = Gospel). Present in both the Session 001 and Session 004 videos. Gary to work out how to prompt NotebookLM around it.
Gary's counter-proposal — go topic-first. Rather than architecting the whole course structure up front, just produce one topic at a time (long-form audio or lecture) and let AI derive the sequencing, entry points and routing from the body of material. Mark got it immediately: "So session two is the two-kingdom perspective — we've got two or three Mom & Pop papers plus all of Seltz's podcasts. We have all the elements. Let AI build it."
Curriculum shape Mark described (to be whiteboarded together): the champion works a session individually → the group meets to discuss (needs a discussion guide) and, mainly, to execute their mission plan → separate, optional book clubs, with chapter summaries credited to the author (e.g. Luke Goodrich's Free to Believe). Also wants each session segmentable — one piece per week, not one sitting.
Progress emails + gamification. Mark is "so excited" about automated encouragement email as champions move through material — completion nudges, "here's what's next," plus stars / bonus points / champion coins, swag, or a reward like half-off Year 2 for finishing Year 1.
Stripe: Mark met the accountants at the convention to open the subscription conversation — the open question is where the money flows (church-body accountants, not a Champions merchant account). A follow-up Zoom with Gary + the accountants comes after. Once an account exists, Mark invites Gary as a developer and the e-commerce build can start.
Pitch deck (~August): Mark wants a presentation to sell the Network + Academy on the road — a 3-minute, 5-minute and 10-minute version, interactive to present and downloadable as a PDF takeaway.
Roadmap: Mark continues Year 2 in the new format (Sessions 5–10) and is handing Session 004 to his Michigan group as a live test; Year 1 gets rebuilt for the new groups starting September, with Year 1 Session 2 bringing in the Mom & Pop papers.

Source: Champions Weekly Checkin_17july2026

Jul 172026

Year 1 · Session 001 — “Welcome to the Champions Network”

Study Guide Year 1

Mark is reworking the Year One curriculum in the new podcast-first format, starting with Session 1. Built session-001.html + .css + .js, reusing the Session 004 player engine. Source: his “Champions Academy Year One Session 1” email (Jul 17), files in assets/002 Year One Academy Files/ (untracked).
Hero = the 19-min NotebookLM teaching podcast (from his written script). Body is an introduction to the Network + Academy: the two-kingdom idea, the six parts of the Academy, championing liberty for others (Madison/Jefferson), the five-fold session purpose, a vocabulary glossary (LCRL/LCMS/Network), and the theme passage 1 Peter 2:15–17 with a phrase-by-phrase memorization plan. Four “go deeper” modals + a 10-question quiz.
Resources: the 5-min landscape review video (16:9 embed) and the full teaching script (PDF). Media on Cloudinary (champions-network/year-1/); the podcast is delivered as a compressed MP3 (ac_mp3, 37 MB m4a → 17 MB).
Card added before Session 002 on index.html + footer. Reply drafted (plan/session-001-email-2026-07-17.html) and added to Correspondence. Also hardened both session players against a benign play/pause AbortError.
Reviewed & approved (Gary), podcast playback confirmed — ready to post. Deadline note: Mark wants it live before his LCMS church-body convention in Phoenix this weekend (show-and-tell), so this is queued to deploy alongside Session 004. Open: Mark's format sign-off; Sessions 002 & 003 remain the older video-first style until reworked.

main · working tree · source: Mark’s “Champions Academy Year One Session 1” email, Jul 17

Jul 172026

Year 2 · Session 004 — “Politics Is a Referee, Not a Savior”

Study Guide Year 2

First Year 2 session page and first podcast-first build: Mark’s NotebookLM teaching podcast (21 min, from a Dr. Seltz podcast transcript) is the hero, with a custom audio player — play/pause, ±15/30 skip, speed control, draggable scrubber. Built as session-004.html + .css + .js, matching the 002/003 design system.
Body unpacks the handout: five principles for talking politics (renumbered — the handout had two “#4”s), the four Non-Negotiables (religious liberty · sanctity of life · marriage · educational freedom — deliberately not called “pillars,” which already means Study/Prayer/Engagement/Hospitality), a roundtable with reveal-on-click leader notes, and a 10-question quiz.
Resources rail: the 76-sec vertical short in a phone frame, and the 15-page field guide in a page-through deck viewer (pages render on demand from the Cloudinary PDF).
All media on Cloudinary (champions-network/year-2/) — the 48 MB of source files never touch the repo. Player falls back to the known 21:31 length when a streamed MP3 doesn’t report its duration.
Linked from the Sessions section + footer on index.html; the section heading was renamed “Year One — Study Sessions” → “Study Sessions” so it covers both years. Reply drafted to Mark (plan/session-004-email-2026-07-17.html) and added to the Correspondence tab. Podcast playback confirmed working in-browser.
Open: Mark to confirm the podcast-first format before go-live; Year 2 Sessions 1–3 don’t exist yet (offered to build them to match when materials arrive). Not yet committed/deployed — all changes in the working tree.

main · working tree · source: Mark’s “Champions Academy - Year 2 Session 4” email, Jul 15

Jul 92026

Correspondence tab — every response email in one place

Internal Admin

New gated correspondence.html, linked from the admin panel: each response email renders as a white “letter” card on the navy theme, newest first, with a jump index and a one-click Copy email button per letter.
Generated from plan/*email*.html — those files stay the source of truth. Never hand-edit correspondence.html; it is rebuilt from scratch each run.
Rebuild with python3 print-build/build-correspondence.py. That wrapper runs the global correspondence skill, re-skins its output to Champions brand (navy/gold, Bebas + Poppins), and re-applies the cn_auth / markrules password gate — all three must be re-applied on every rebuild.
First letter in the archive: the Jul 9 reply to Mark about the 2-page conference brochure.

main · source: “create a correspondence tab like other projects”

Jul 92026

2-page conference brochure (front & back, one sheet)

Print Brochure

Mark needs a one-sheet, double-sided handout for a conference in a week. Built brochure-2page.html + brochure-2page.css → champions-brochure-2page-print-ready.pdf (2pp, 8.75×11.25in with bleed + crop marks, 1.37 MB).
Content merged from his two Word flyers: front — mission, Two-Kingdom doctrine, Who Are the Champions (Common People / Advocates / Connectors); back — the Academy (10 sessions, guides, Community Action Plan), the Toolchest, four outcomes, and the Champions Discovery Weekend.
Terminology held to brand: “cultural servants,” not “laity”; the Academy is the curriculum inside the Network, resolving the two docs’ competing naming.
The NotebookLM infographic he attached was not used — placeholder contact details (email@example.com, a bad phone number, lcrl.org) and off-brand color/type.
Registered as variant v2page in print-build/build-pdf.js; rebuild with BUILD_ONLY=v2page node build-pdf.js.

main · working tree · source: Mark’s “New Champions Brochure?” email, Jul 9

Jun 262026

Advocate Weekly email delivery plan (Resend) + budget scope fix

Internal Planning

Researched the send path: Email Octopus’s API can’t create or send a broadcast (contacts + pre-built automations only), so it can’t send from the site. Chose Resend — its Broadcasts API can, using the same Netlify-function/key-in-env pattern as the budget tool.
Wrote advocate-email-plan.html (gated, in the admin panel): setup steps, contact-list setup & upkeep, and a cost breakdown with a live calculator.
Key cost finding: Resend Broadcasts are billed by contacts, not sends → today’s ~70 and up to 1,000 contacts are $0, $40/mo to 5,000, and send frequency is free. Open & click tracking are built in.
Budget tracker: now counts only Mar 1 2026 onward — no pre-March / 2025 hours anywhere (meter, monthly breakdown, per-project, recent entries).

main · 1f57d8d · source: June 12 check-in (Shelly’s click-through question)

Jun 262026

Advocate Weekly — on-site demo + click-through approval flow

Feature Internal Content

Built advocate-weekly-demo.html (+ .css / .js, split per house rule) — the deliverable Gary promised Mark on the June 12 call: a forwardable demo showing how the digest could live on champions-network.com, with a working approval workflow Mark/legal can click through.
Interactive console: paste a source → pick Curate-only (verbatim quote + link, ✓ no doctrinal review) or AI-enhance (our Two-Kingdoms framing, ⚑ needs Mark’s review) → Generate → reviewer view → one-click Approve & Publish → “live” state. Pure front-end sim; nothing is published.
The “stop on the site” page: fuller story, big Read at the source button, and a Related on our properties rail (podcast / lesson / chapters) — already-approved content, so no new review, and it keeps the reader with us. Plus the thin teaser email that drives the click back to us.
Closes with the open questions for the table: copyright of hosting an excerpt (Mark + Legal), pull MailChimp read-rates before trimming the email (Carly), and which stories warrant enhance vs. curate (Mark + Shelly).
Password-gated (cn_auth / markrules) and added to the admin slide-in panel.

main · pending · source: June 12 weekly check-in + “Agenda Item” email

Jun 122026

Admin entry — password gate + slide-in panel

Internal Feature

Reworked the discreet "A" badge on index.html: clicking it now opens a password modal (same cn_auth / markrules gate) instead of exposing the links — public visitors no longer see the internal URLs.
On success, a full-height panel slides in from the right with the internal links, each with a branded gold icon and a short descriptor (Status · March for Life · Newsletter Sample · Brochure · Brand Guide). Roomier than the old popover, so it scales as links are added.
Includes a "Lock & sign out" control, scrim/Esc to close, and reduced-motion fallbacks. Unlocking here carries into the gated pages (shared session key).
Added the per-page gate to newsletter-concept.html so it can't be opened by direct URL (the March for Life guide stays public-ready). Packaged the whole pattern as a reusable admin-panel Claude skill for other sites.

main · pending

Jun 122026

2027 March for Life — planning guide (print + web)

Feature Print Content

Built from Mark & Carly's source doc into an 8-page print guide on the brochure pipeline — march-for-life-2027-print.html + .css → champions-march-for-life-2027-planning-guide.pdf (8.75×11.25, crop marks). Added as the mfl variant in print-build/build-pdf.js (now supports BUILD_ONLY=<key>).
Pages: Cover · Invitation + 7-things-to-plan · hour-by-hour Schedule · Lodging (Westin group rate) & March-day logistics · Travel & Meals · Costs table + Rose Dinner/Young Professionals · DC attractions, Attire & Conduct · Back-cover CTA.
Built a matching responsive web guide — march-for-life-2027.html + .css — with a "Download the print PDF" button and an email "I'm coming" CTA.
Three editorial photos generated (march-to-Capitol cover, Supreme Court, National Mall at dawn — no readable signs / identifiable faces), hosted on Cloudinary.
Open: Mark/Carly review, confirm 2027 specifics (rates, route, events — currently flagged as based on 2026), then add a link from index.html.

main · pending · source: 2027 National March for Life Planning Guide.md

Jun 122026

Champions Advocate Weekly — AI concept mockup

Feature Content

Built newsletter-concept.html — a brand-styled re-imagining of the weekly digest, using the real Vol. 2 No. 21 content (Illinois secret-transition lawsuit + WV B.P.J. SCOTUS case, with their verbatim "Let Us Pray…" petitions).
Frames the proposed AI workflow as a 4-step strip — Cultivate → Curate → Pray → Publish — with the human (Mark) reviewing every word; sets up the Friday 11 a.m. discussion.
Two representative editorial photos (empty school hallway + flag; empty track w/ shot put) generated with no real people/minors, hosted on Cloudinary (f_auto,q_auto), captioned to swap for licensed photos in production.
Added print-build/cloudinary-upload.js — a signed-upload helper (reads gitignored .env) for future image pushes.

main · pending

Jun 102026

Request — AI-ify the "Champions Advocate Weekly" newsletter

Content Request

Mark forwarded The Champions Advocate Weekly Vol. 2 No. 21 — a weekly MailChimp digest for Champions Network subscribers curating 2–3 religious-liberty news stories, each with a "Let Us Pray…" advocacy block (this issue: an Illinois secret-transition lawsuit and the WV B.P.J. Supreme Court sports case).
His ask: "Would your AI Tool Chest create this faster, better, etc.?" — a workflow to discuss Friday at 11 a.m.
New volunteer Robert "Shelly" Null (retired P.A., fellow Illinoian) is joining to help with story cultivation; Mark CC'd him to introduce Gary as webmaster.

Source: FW The Champions Advocate Weekly Vol. 2 No. 21 (.eml)

Jun 52026

Weekly check-in — production model rethink

Check-In

Big direction shift: move lessons to a "lecture-first" model — Mark records a 30–50 min lecture per lesson and AI peels it into the structured page (chapters, cards, quiz, glossary), rather than hand-assembling ~25 resource pieces (~10 hrs each). Goal is a "Reader's Digest," bite-sized experience. Mark plans to start re-recording Year 1, Lesson 1 in September.
Add scheduled drip emails: sign up → auto-enrolled into a cadence of short, scannable lessons across the multi-year curriculum. Plus AI-generated group discussion cards (optionally printed).
Budget & board: the Academy work has outgrown the original podcast-posting retainer. Gary to prepare cost-to-build numbers for Mark's June 18 board meeting (also Seltz's retirement transition — contracting back 10–20 hrs/wk).
Continuity: Mark asked "what if Gary's hit by a bus?" → Gary to write AI process docs so an intern can run the workflow.
Other items: Mark wants his own @champions-network.com email (Gary to set up, Mark approves); Mark to pick better Vimeo thumbnails; upload the Mom & Pop papers to the site; explore an auto-transcription agent for Seltz's Liberty Action Alerts; Mark to email the March for Life planning doc.

Source: Champions Weekly Checkin_5june2026

Jun 52026

Carly email forwarding live · on-site address updated

Internal Content

Carly@champions-network.com forwarding to championsnetworkoffice@gmail.com is set up and Carly confirmed receipt.
Updated Carly's "Get in touch" address in her leadership modal on index.html from the generic info@LCRLfreedom.org to Carly@champions-network.com.
Mark's matching @champions-network.com forwarding is still open — Gary to set up once Mark confirms he wants it (for a consistent corporate look).

main · pending

Jun 52026

Session 003 — teaching videos + Mom & Pop links wired

Content Feature

Mark supplied 9 Session 003 Vimeo links; embedded each as a responsive 16:9 player (new .s3-video style in session-003.css) in its matching section.
Introduction (overview) · "Honor Everyone" video devotion (devotional accordion) · Pillar: Devoted to Prayer (pillars section) · Three Core Principles (principles section) · Mom & Pop #2 / #3 / #4 highlights (each paper tab) · Chapter 4 summary (Free to Believe Ch. 4 tab) · Reviewing the Study Recommendations (Personal Study section).
Added "Read Online" buttons to all three Mom & Pop Paper tabs (#2 / #3 / #4), linking to Mark's Google Drive PDFs. Resolves both the video and the paper-link placeholders.

main · pending

May 292026

Weekly check-in — walkthrough & direction set

Check-In

Walked Mark & Carly through the new Session 003 guide, the regenerated brochure artwork, and the 4-page edition (still to be added to brochure.html; Modern cover has a layout gap to fix).
Confirmed Carly's bio is live on index.html (Mark/Carly had been seeing a cached version).
Greenlit the Subscriber / Paid Academy. Decided to charge up front via Stripe, with coupon codes for free/beta/discounted access, monthly or annual recurring, gift subscriptions for churches, and an admin backend to grant access by email (decoupled from payment). See the build-plan deep dive in Open Items above.
Action items captured in Check-In To-Dos above: Mark to share Google-Drive PDFs (Mom & Pop Papers + video URLs) and check St. Louis on payment protocols; Gary to wire those links into Session 003, fix & publish the 4-pager, set up Carly's email forwarding, and start the Academy shell + Stripe docs.

Source: Champions-Weekly-Checkin_29may2026

May 292026

Session 003 study guide built & published

Feature Content

Built session-003.html + session-003.css + session-003.js from Mark's 4 source docs (Group Study, Home Study, and Free to Believe Ch. 4 & 5 review guides), reusing the Session 002 s2-* design system.
Theme: Two-Kingdom Citizens — Pillar Two (Prayer), the devotional "Honor Everyone" (1 Peter 2:15–17), and the Three Core Principles (Dynamic Differentiation · Reformation Restraint · Vocational Respect).
Sections: hero, overview, devotional, pillars (Prayer active) with a home-study prayer reflection, Three Core Principles cards + deep-dive modals, Mom & Pop Papers #2/#3/#4 (tabbed), Free to Believe Ch. 4–5 (tabbed, with case modals: Smith, Obergefell, Amos, Hosanna-Tabor), current events/engagement + action checklist, and a 10-question quiz.
Hero uses the brightened prayer image as a static background (no Session 3 video yet).
Linked from the Sessions section + footer on index.html. Public page (noindex).

main · pending

May 292026

Brochure walkthrough fixes · new artwork · 4-page edition

Content Feature

Second-wave fixes from the May 15 check-in walkthrough. Page 6 "Render Unto Caesar" diagram: "Champion Public Servants" → "Champion Cultural Servants" (both editions — the Page 3 instance was already done May 15).
Page 4 pillar bullet copy enlarged for legibility (Classical 8.5pt → 10pt; Modern 9.5pt → 10.5pt).
Added a micro LCRL logo beside "An Initiative of LCRL" on both covers, and brought the new Champions Network logo onto the back panel (Page 8) of both editions so Champions reads as the focus with LCRL as the parent initiative.
Regenerated 4 brochure images (Nano Banana Pro, 2K, painterly/photographic style preserved): raised the U.S. flag to full staff on the Classical theology diptych; replaced the folded/mourning flag on the Modern theology page with a proudly displayed flag; brightened the dark Christ-and-scales cover; and replaced the Capitol dome in the "Becoming a Champion" image with a radiant cross so the three figures walk toward Christ, not government (per Carly's note). Refreshed the Modern Bible-study image.
Built a new 4-page condensed edition (brochure-4page.html + brochure-4page.css) in the modern visual language — Cover · Problem+Theology · Solution+Get Started · Contact — and added it to the Puppeteer pipeline as champions-brochure-4page-print-ready.pdf (~2 MB).
Rebuilt all three PDFs via node print-build/build-pdf.js and refreshed page thumbnails under assets/brochure/thumbs/v1|v2|v4/.
Pushed the pending bio + brochure-copy commits live so the Carly Smith leadership bio is now public on index.html.

main · pending

May 152026

Brochure copy revisions · both editions rebuilt

Content Feature

Applied Mark Frith's editorial revisions to both brochures (Classical + Modern): rebuffed → culturally challenged, nice → kind, Right of Conscience → Marriage as Institution, Public Servants → Cultural Servants, "powerful solution" → "faithful solution", expanded Left/Right-Hand Kingdom copy (added "etc.", "His Spirit", "His death and resurrection"), and reworked the Network pillar wording ("Groups within churches" / "Citizens and Church Groups").
Classical cover (Page 1): tagline expanded to "Stand up for religious freedom before it's too late — your constitutional freedoms depend on it." Bumped "An Initiative of LCRL" footer text from 10pt → 13pt with tighter tracking for readability.
Modern cover (Page 1): added "An Initiative of LCRL" caption next to the lockup (Bebas Neue, 12pt, gold-light, gold hairline separator) so both editions carry the LCRL attribution.
Rebuilt both PDFs via node print-build/build-pdf.js: champions-brochure-print-ready.pdf (~9.6 MB) and champions-brochure-modern-print-ready.pdf (~5.7 MB). All 16 page thumbnails refreshed under assets/brochure/thumbs/v1|v2/.
Re-enabled the Carly Smith leadership modal on index.html and populated her full bio from the May 15 interview transcript (20 years mortgage processing, 5 years at Redeemer Lutheran Olathe, dual role at Champions Network, "no freak out" ethos from Pastor Kale).

main · pending

May 82026

Discreet admin entry + password-gated review docs

Internal Feature

Removed Brochure from the top nav (desktop + mobile) — internal review document, not a public destination.
Added a discreet "A" badge (bottom-right, ~32px circle, low opacity until hover) on index.html. Click reveals a small popover with three links: Brochure · Brand Guide · Status. No labels or footer copy that calls it out.
Password-gated brochure.html, brand-standards.html, and status.html with the same dark / gold-grid gate the site used pre-launch (sessionStorage cn_auth · password markrules). Clicking a link from the A-popover lands on the gate.
Created this Status page (status.html) as the engineering changelog.
Triggered a Netlify rebuild via empty commit so Forms Detection rescans champions-consultation and brochure-order.

main · current

May 12026

Site goes live · 8-page print brochure (two editions)

Launch Feature

Removed pre-launch password gate from index.html, laa-podcast.html, and session-002.html. Site is now public at champions-network.com.
Shipped 8-page print brochure in two editions: v1 painterly (brochure-print.html, ~9.5 MB PDF) and v2 modern editorial (brochure-modern-print.html, ~5.7 MB PDF) matching the website's design system.
Built the Puppeteer dual-PDF pipeline (print-build/build-pdf.js) — produces both print-ready PDFs in one run.
Added public-facing brochure explainer page (brochure.html) with tabbed page-tour. (Now password-gated as of May 8.)

6050172 · Add 8-page print brochure (two editions) and take site live

Apr 32026

Mark Frith bio · full vocational history

Content

Updated Rev. Mark Frith's leadership bio on index.html with his full vocational history.

2ec58df · Update Rev. Mark Frith bio

Apr 32026

Leadership images · third team card · Knight tier photo

Content Feature

Refreshed leadership headshots on the landing page.
Added a third team card to the Leadership section.
Replaced the Knight First Class tier photo on the Journey carousel.

afe1c57 · Update leadership images, add third team card, replace Knight tier photo

Apr 32026

Session 002 hero video

Feature

Replaced the static Session 002 hero image with a looping video.

a4ed8aa · Replace session 002 hero image with looping video

Apr 32026

Sessions section + nav link

Feature

Added a Sessions section to the landing page surfacing the Year One study sessions.
Added Sessions to the top nav (desktop + mobile).

0b7c506 · Add Sessions section and nav link to main page

Apr 32026

Session 002 interactive study guide

Feature

Built session-002.html + session-002.css + session-002.js: video hero, accordions, tabs, six modals, ten-question quiz.

1f5f996 · Add Session 002 interactive study guide

Apr 32026

UI polish · nav, footer, hero video, favicons, logo, quote fonts

Polish

Nav refinements; footer restructured with Network / Get Involved / LCRL columns.
Replaced static hero with looping video on landing page.
Standardized favicons to favicon-champions-network.svg across pages.
Logo + quote treatment finalized: Playfair Display Bold Italic for scripture, Bold upright for proclamation/First Amendment quotes.

a84764b · UI updates: nav, footer, hero video, favicons, logo, quote fonts

Mar2026

Initial build · brand standards · landing page · LAA podcast

Launch

Brand Standards Guide authored in markdown + rendered as brand-standards.html.
Landing page built (index.html + champions.css + champions.js).
4-part Liberty Action Alert podcast page (laa-podcast.html) with audio players, tabs, accordions, modals, promo section.
Repo initialized at github.com/garyricke/champions-network.

966c8e7 · Initial commit — Champions Network site

Internal Document

Current Budget Status

Value Delivered

Check-In To-Dos & Open Items

👤 Gary's To-Dos

👤 Mark & Carly's To-Dos

✅ Direction Set

🛠 Queued & Upcoming

Three weeks without a call — catching the agenda up before the board votes

St. Stephen, Liberty MO — second chapter kit, and the templatization it forced

Boulder chapter publicity — built once, templatized for every chapter after

No check-in — convention feedback in, two blockers moved

Weekly check-in — go live, and a curriculum whiteboard ahead

Year 1 · Session 001 — “Welcome to the Champions Network”

Year 2 · Session 004 — “Politics Is a Referee, Not a Savior”

Correspondence tab — every response email in one place

2-page conference brochure (front & back, one sheet)

Advocate Weekly email delivery plan (Resend) + budget scope fix

Advocate Weekly — on-site demo + click-through approval flow

Admin entry — password gate + slide-in panel

2027 March for Life — planning guide (print + web)

Champions Advocate Weekly — AI concept mockup

Request — AI-ify the "Champions Advocate Weekly" newsletter

Weekly check-in — production model rethink

Carly email forwarding live · on-site address updated

Session 003 — teaching videos + Mom & Pop links wired

Weekly check-in — walkthrough & direction set

Session 003 study guide built & published

Brochure walkthrough fixes · new artwork · 4-page edition

Brochure copy revisions · both editions rebuilt

Discreet admin entry + password-gated review docs

Site goes live · 8-page print brochure (two editions)

Mark Frith bio · full vocational history

Leadership images · third team card · Knight tier photo

Session 002 hero video

Sessions section + nav link

Session 002 interactive study guide

UI polish · nav, footer, hero video, favicons, logo, quote fonts

Initial build · brand standards · landing page · LAA podcast