Feeling sunny

It’s been a while in the making, but St Mary’s Church Whitkirk Community Centre is thrilled to share the news that it’s now (at least partially) powered by the sun.

Thanks to the combination of a generous legacy left to the Church, combined with grant funding, the new solar panels will generate an estimated 6,900kWh of electricity every year – that’s enough to fully recharge 150 electric cars, completely meet the electricity needs of two and a half houses, or make a whopping 200,000 cups of tea!

The system – installed by local firm Leeds Solar – also includes a battery which will soak up any excess power generated during the day and then release it at night.

By combining the solar panels and battery with information from the National Grid, the Community Centre is also helping to build a more resilient and lower-carbon electricity supply for the whole area. 

All together it’s estimated that the system will not only save the Church around £2,500 a year which can be put back into the local community, but will also prevent over a tonne of carbon being added to the atmosphere.

Review: Remembrance Sunday 2023

After all of our big tech events, we like to review how things went and identify areas for improvement, even if we felt that nothing went wrong. We always do these in a no-blame way, following the Retrospective Prime Directive:

“Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.”

Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Review

For our reviews we follow a format called The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, where we identify things which went well, things which shouldn’t have happened, and things which we could have done better.

The Good

  • The stream from the War Memorial was good, with solid connectivity and clear audio.
  • Using an additional speaker at the War Memorial gave clearer, crisper audio for those there.
  • Relaying the Act of Remembrance into the Community Centre is appreciated by those unable to join the procession for whatever reason.

The Bad

  • We lost our in-church connectivity just as the procession was forming, which meant we had to hurriedly switch to a backup. We were only able to do this because of performance issues earlier in the morning meaning we were in a state where this option was available. We should investigate ways of improving the resiliency of this connection.

The Ugly

  • The internet connection in the church was performing poorly at the start of the service, prompting us to use a more adaptive but lower quality streaming process.
  • There was a slight mis-timing at the start of the service due to some confusion over flag parties.
  • We forgot to disable the wifi on our mobile camera, which led to a drop in connectivity as we left the church.
  • We used a radio microphone at the War Memorial, but this wasn’t as reliable as we expected. We should spend the time to install a wired microphone in future.

Community Centre: Now with extra wifi

A few weeks ago during a routine check on some of our equipment in our Community Centre we noticed that one of our wifi access points was no longer connected to the network and totally refused to reconnect no matter what we tried. This was annoying, but not entirely unexpected – the access points were installed in 2019, as a relatively cheap stop-gap solution until something more permanent was put in place. Then 2020 happened, and priorities changed slightly.

But still, a failing access point forced our hand. More specifically, it forced our hands to move the remaining access points around to try and maintain coverage where it was most needed – the bar, where it supports our till and card terminal, and the office, where people do a lot of parish administration.

Unfortunately, this deployment meant that the Main Hall suffered from poor coverage. It would sometimes work if you stood in the right place, but couldn’t really be relied on. Since we promote our guest wifi network, and advertise wifi coverage as one of the features of the building, this wasn’t great. Not only was it far below the standard we aim to provide, but it also began to affect the quality of events.

So we decided to fix it. Fortunately we already had the beginnings of a solution powering the wifi in our church building, a pair of TP-Link Omada hotspots (more specifically, EAP115s), along with a controller. Instead of spending time scoping out a new system, we knew we could just extend this. All we needed to do was decide on the new hardware for our Community Centre and get it installed.

During the refurbishment of our Community Centre in 2019 we installed some structural network cabling (the plan being to one day hook proper wifi access points up to it), which meant we knew the points in the building where hotspots could be easily installed. Being able to power them over ethernet was crucial because not all these locations had mains. Ideally, we wanted ones which could be powered by our network switch directly; the EAP115 access points need an external power injector, which in turn takes up space and needs sockets. We also considered the density of users, and if we should future-proof by supporting the newer WiFi 6 standards.

In the end we settled for four new WiFi 6 access points; three EAP620HD units which cover the main hall and bar, and an EAP615-wall unit which gives the Smeaton Room dedicated coverage, as well as maintaining access to physical network sockets in there should we ever need them. In an ideal world we would have ceiling-mounted all of the EAP620s, but limitations of our cabling means that two of them are wall-mounted instead. Fixing this would require a significant amount of work to move cabling, channeling out walls and ceilings and then making good again, and it’s simply not worth it for the marginal gains.

The next step once the hardware was installed was provisioning it and configuring our network. For the most part, we just added the Church’s existing network configurations to the new spots. Print off some updated signage with our new network details for guests, and we’re done!

Finally, because we know everything we do has an environmental footprint, we’ve offset a full tonne of CO2 emissions to cover the impact of manufacturing and shipping this new equipment. We’ve also funded the planting of another 25 trees, more specifically mangrove trees in Mozambique.

Oops: Streaming failure

This morning we suffered a networking failure which meant we couldn’t stream the entire service, and only captured the first few minutes.

What happened?

Shortly after the start of the service, we began to see signs of unexpected buffering on our video stream. A few minutes after this we lost all internet connectivity in the church. We quickly tracked this down to a complete failure of the wireless bridge between the church and the Community Centre, but were unable to restore the connection.

Why did this happen?

We don’t know. It’s possible that the cold temperatures were having an impact on the equipment we use for the wireless bridge and the timing of the failure was entirely coincidence. The equipment, however, is intended for use outdoors and should be comfortable operating in a much wider range of temperatures. For this reason, we’re wary of naming the weather as the culprit.

What are we doing to fix it?

In the short term, we’ve re-angled one of the receivers which has become knocked during routine maintenance to make sure we always have the strongest possible connection between the two buildings.

In the long term, we’ll investigate the feasibility of installing a permanent fibre-optic link between the two buildings so that we’re unaffected by issues such as signal alignment and weather in future.

Post-mortem: Temple Newsam Centenary Weekend

One thing we like to do in the technology team is look back at things we’ve done, and contemplate what we’ve liked, not liked, learned, and can do. We call this a post-mortem, and after a particularly busy weekend celebrating 100 years of Temple Newsam being owned by the City of Leeds, we’ve got two events to look at!

As always our reviews – especially around stuff which didn’t go quite right – are blameless. No one individual is held responsible, as we believe this is the best way to identify our weaknesses and get them fixed.


The Whitkirk Lecture

This was a lecture held in our Community Centre, for which we provided projection and sound reinforcement, as well as video recording for later release.

Things that we liked

  • Having a clicker and presenter display made our presenter more confident, as well as keeping the podium clear

Things that we didn’t like

  • Our projector’s VGA input wasn’t compatible with our chosen computer’s VGA adapter, so we had to cobble together an alternative on the fly
  • There weren’t many good or unobtrusive places to put our tripods to record the talk

Things we learned

  • We don’t have enough power distribution options to get power where we needed it without resorting to a mix of cabling

Things we’re going to do

  • Encourage more investment in the Centre as a presentation venue, such as purchasing a proper podium
  • Look at the costs involved in purchasing a new projector and screen suitable for the space
  • Invest in some more power distribution options for the tech team

The Annual Eucharist

We streamed this service live from Temple Newsam House, as well as relaying it across the building to an overflow space in case the Long Gallery exceeded capacity.

Things that we liked

  • Using a dedicated 4G router simplified our setup, meaning we could more confidently use multiple devices

Things that we didn’t like

  • Our outbound network speed wasn’t as fast as we predicted, meaning we suffered some drop-outs and loss of quality
  • The poor lighting in the room meant some of our shots weren’t as sharp as we would like
  • The lack of internal networking in the building meant we were forced into maintaining two entirely separate mobile network connections

Things we learned

  • Our internal network’s performance was impacted by the sheer volume of people when stood
  • The mobile signal in the Long Gallery, despite our router having much larger antennas than a phone, still isn’t great

Things we’re going to do

  • In future, make sure our hotspot is lifted above the crowd on a tripod
  • Investigate an external antenna (or two) to let us maximise our external connectivity

The death of Her Majesty the Queen

St. Mary’s joins with people of all faiths and none in giving thanks for the life of Queen Elizabeth II. The church is open over the coming days as part of our Heritage Weekend, and is available for all who may wish to pray, sign a book of remembrance, or simply sit in the space.

We shall in due course be holding a service of commemoration, as we remember her life, and we shall confirm that date as soon as possible.

Continue reading “The death of Her Majesty the Queen”

Weeknotes: Saturday 20 August

The period of Ordinary Time between Trinity Sunday and Advent is pretty empty in the Church calendar… but for the tech team it’s a chance to get on with all kinds of bits and pieces.

We automated the notices

Over the past few months, we’ve been progressively automating more of the things which happen every week in an easily repeatable way. The latest thing to be taken over by the computer is the process of generating our weekly notices both for our website and email.

We’ve had fibre installed

As part of our plans for continuous improvement, we’ve had fibre-optic internet fitted to the Community Centre. This gives us slightly higher speeds than before, but more importantly it offers improved reliability, future-proofing and scope for further improvement if needed.

Better continuity and disaster planning

Nobody likes thinking about things going wrong, but we’ve spent some time figuring out how we can improve the tech team’s resiliency in a number of situations.

Parish notices: 22 May 2022

Christian Aid Week

Christian Aid Week is over for 2022, but there is still time to donate towards St Mary’s target. Last year we raised £1,340 so this year we have set a goal of £1,500. Please give generously to this worthy cause.

Giving envelopes are available at the back of the church which you can return next week. You can also donate online through St Mary’s own Christian Aid e-Envelope at wkrk.uk/ca.

Annual Parish Meetings

Today at 11.30 am
St Mary’s Church Whitkirk Community Centre

Our annual parish meetings will be held at 11.30 am, after this morning’s service. These are an opportunity for those in the parish to have their say in how their Church is run, and include a summary of the year, reports from key people and a chance to ask questions, as well as the election of roles such as deanery synod representatives and members of the PCC.

Cake Sale

Next Sunday 29 May at 11.00 am
St Mary’s Church Whitkirk Community Centre

Help us raise funds for prizes for our Summer Fair raffle, by picking up some mouthwatering cakes to enjoy.

Platinum Jubilee Tea Party

Sunday 5 June at 12.30 pm
St Mary’s Church Whitkirk Community Centre

Come join us and celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee with a proper tea party in our Community Centre!

There’s food and fun for all the family, with the street party essentials of sandwiches, cakes, cream scones, jelly, ice cream and strawberries. We’ve got hot and cold drinks, and the bar’s open if you fancy something more celebratory.

Faithbook: “Who is this man?”

Thursday 9 June at 7.30 pm
The Brown Cow

On Thursday nights in June we’ll be meeting and having a chat about what it means to be a Christian.

Each week begins with a short talk and then time for questions and discussion. We begin Faithbook this year with the question “who is this man?”

Continue reading “Parish notices: 22 May 2022”