Hello all! thank you to those who attended Shop Talke#3 last evening on OBS. It was an informative, thoughtful session by The Rev. Tay Moss with great questions from participants! A question was raised towards the end regarding supporting hybrid meetings such as Vestry or Annual General Meetings. As one of the Leads at the Toronto Anglican Diocese who is looking at ways to help churches grow their hybrid ministry capacity this was a good question... so I ask, what needs do you have to be successful in such meetings? What do you find the most challenging? And the most rewarding? We are interested in hearing from you both with your stories, challenges and wishes for supporting resources? Thank you!
En respuesta a Cynthia Majewski
Re: Facilitating and Supporting Hybrid Ministry Meetings
por John Honsberger -
The hardest part of using technology is always the people. We need faithful people to take on roles that takes them away from their personal worship experience. A good production requires hours of preparation. Without the preparatory work by those in front of the camera and those behind it, the congregants who are streaming the service will be unlikely have a satisfactory experience. Will they stay as part of the church if quality is low? The AV component is very much a ministry that expands the church service beyond the nave.
Recruitment and training for an AV ministry is challenging due to the commitment and effort required by its members. Finding candidates and making them feel welcome is a focus for us this year. Preparation for expanding included
1) Removing under-used pews around our technical area. In fact, those pews were being used for storage so not used by the general congregation.
2) Creating a clean, safe and professional appearance in the AV area.
3) Upgrading lighting Every camera improves with better lighting. This especially helps for people with darker complexions.
4) Getting separate AV budget lines in the church accounting. Assigning oversite and departmental ownership of church owned equipment.
5) Acquiring upgraded technical equipment instead of using personal equipment brought from home. (ATEMs, cameras, microphones, cabling)
6) Publishing technical design and specifications documents. Put them on a share. Do not simply email to personal accounts.
7) Cross-training of current personnel for various technical stations. Then making sure that they get live experience.
8) Ensuring that AV equipment is safe and secure when not in use.
Recruitment and training for an AV ministry is challenging due to the commitment and effort required by its members. Finding candidates and making them feel welcome is a focus for us this year. Preparation for expanding included
1) Removing under-used pews around our technical area. In fact, those pews were being used for storage so not used by the general congregation.
2) Creating a clean, safe and professional appearance in the AV area.
3) Upgrading lighting Every camera improves with better lighting. This especially helps for people with darker complexions.
4) Getting separate AV budget lines in the church accounting. Assigning oversite and departmental ownership of church owned equipment.
5) Acquiring upgraded technical equipment instead of using personal equipment brought from home. (ATEMs, cameras, microphones, cabling)
6) Publishing technical design and specifications documents. Put them on a share. Do not simply email to personal accounts.
7) Cross-training of current personnel for various technical stations. Then making sure that they get live experience.
8) Ensuring that AV equipment is safe and secure when not in use.
En respuesta a John Honsberger
Re: Facilitating and Supporting Hybrid Ministry Meetings
por Tay Moss -
There are really good basic suggestions, John. You're right, a lot of "Tech Areas" at churches are ridiculously cluttered and hard to use.
Regarding publishing technical designs, I believe I covered in my last session on designing for resilency how helpful it is to have things like diagrams of signal path created and posted in the control space for quick reference. I use LucidChart to create these, which has some free options, but they can be done with other apps or even by hand and scanned. I agree completely about putting them on shared drives.
I haven't spoken much about security, but it's a real concern. I had a very valuable camera and lens stolen from my church immediately following a service during coffee hour. It was "theft of opportunity"--someone saw that no one was around in that second and simply put it in their backpack and walked out. One option to prevent this: putting stuff away in locked storage area. This can facilitated with a "media cart" on wheels that has all the gear that it is portable and set-up at the time of each service. Another option is to "tether" pieces of equipment using kits that you can find like this one: LINK. This won't necessarily stop a determined thief, but it could slow them down and make the theft noisy and time consuming.
Regarding publishing technical designs, I believe I covered in my last session on designing for resilency how helpful it is to have things like diagrams of signal path created and posted in the control space for quick reference. I use LucidChart to create these, which has some free options, but they can be done with other apps or even by hand and scanned. I agree completely about putting them on shared drives.
I haven't spoken much about security, but it's a real concern. I had a very valuable camera and lens stolen from my church immediately following a service during coffee hour. It was "theft of opportunity"--someone saw that no one was around in that second and simply put it in their backpack and walked out. One option to prevent this: putting stuff away in locked storage area. This can facilitated with a "media cart" on wheels that has all the gear that it is portable and set-up at the time of each service. Another option is to "tether" pieces of equipment using kits that you can find like this one: LINK. This won't necessarily stop a determined thief, but it could slow them down and make the theft noisy and time consuming.Cross-training! Yes! I've emphasized the need for a team approach a number of times! Thanks for the reminder of how important that is!