Posts by Nick Jackson

Parish Notices: 30 May 2021

Worshipping in person

In line with the Government’s plan for easing lockdown, and based on our own risk assessments, our doors are open for public worship. You must book to attend any of our services in person, and you must follow additional rules around cleaning your hands, covering your face, and maintaining distancing whilst in the church. If you want to attend a service you can either book online, or you can call us on 0113 450 8554.

We will continue streaming all our services, both during this period of limited availability and into the future. You can join us online every Sunday morning at 10.00 am, catch up any time through the week, listen to our services over the phone, or listen using our podcast.

Continue reading “Parish Notices: 30 May 2021”

Weeknotes: Saturday 29 May

It’s been a quiet week for the tech team. Quiet, but not silent. Here’s what we’ve been up to.

We supported the APCM

Every year we’re required (by law!) to hold some meetings with the parish. This year, as with last year, we held the entire meeting online, supported by the technology team and infrastructure team.

Hopefully next year we’ll be back in person!

We tidied up even more cables

On top of our tech desk is now tidier than before, but underneath still isn’t as good as we’d like. We spent some time this week getting things a bit more organised and cables more tightly bundled, which makes it easier to see what goes where, and by making things clearer it simplifies and reduces risk if we make changes.

We thought about our choir microphones

We’re never happy with “it’ll do”, so we identified some ways we could improve audio quality when it comes to our choir. We’ll be testing out an improved microphone placement in tomorrow morning’s service.

Parish Notices: 23 May 2021

Annual Parochial Church Meeting

The Annual Parochial Church Meeting is an opportunity for those in the parish to have their say in how their Church is run. It includes a summary of the year and reports from key people, as well as the election of roles such as churchwardens and members of the PCC.

This year’s meeting will be held online on Tuesday 25 May 2021 at 7.00 pm.

You can find more information about this year’s APCM on our website at whitkirkchurch.org.uk/apcm/2021, including the agenda and a copy of our annual report.

If you would like physical copies of documents and details of how to join by phone, please let us know.

Become a member of PCC or a churchwarden

If you have been wondering how you might serve the Church here at Whitkirk you may want to consider running for one of the available positions at this year’s APCM. We are looking for new members of our Parochial Church Council, and a new churchwarden to replace James who is standing down this year.

If you’re interested in either of these positions please get in touch.

Christian Aid

Although Christian Aid Week has ended, we are still collecting donations towards this worthy cause until the end of the month. You can donate online quickly and easily.

Last year the community at St Mary’s raised £724, so this year we have set a target of £750. Please help us to achieve this goal.

Worshipping in person

In line with the Government’s plan for easing lockdown, and based on our own risk assessments, our doors are open for public worship. You must book to attend any of our services in person, and you must follow additional rules around cleaning your hands, covering your face, and maintaining distancing whilst in the church. If you want to attend a service you can either book online, or you can call us on 0113 450 8554.

We will continue streaming all our services, both during this period of limited availability and into the future. You can join us online every Sunday morning at 10.00 am, catch up any time through the week, listen to our services over the phone, or listen using our podcast.

Continue reading “Parish Notices: 23 May 2021”

Weeknotes: Saturday 22 May

Another week has gone by, and the tech team have done some more stuff.

(Re)discovering the light

We did some investigation on how the church’s lighting is controlled behind the scenes so that we could make some recommendations on future improvements.

At the moment we don’t have any particular plans for this, but many things have been suggested including coloured lighting, more granular control, automation, and integrating our external lighting. Knowing how our existing system works means we can make more informed decisions about which of these are feasible, both in terms of raw cost and in terms of effort, so that we can decide which (if any) are worth pursuing.

Thinking about the North aisle

Possible future works in the church building would involve moving the tech desk, so we did some thinking about where it could go and the implications for how things would look.

Before anything happens here though there are plenty more hoops to jump through!

Parish Notices: 16 May 2021

Annual Parochial Church Meeting

The Annual Parochial Church Meeting is an opportunity for those in the parish to have their say in how their Church is run. It includes a summary of the year and reports from key people, as well as the election of roles such as churchwardens and members of the PCC.

This year’s meeting will be held online on Tuesday 25 May 2021 at 7.00 pm.

You can find more information about this year’s APCM on our website at whitkirkchurch.org.uk/apcm/2021, including the agenda and a copy of our annual report.

If you would like physical copies of documents and details of how to join by phone, please let us know.

Worshipping in person

In line with the Government’s plan for easing lockdown, and based on our own risk assessments, we have now re-opened our doors for public worship. As in the past, you must still book to attend any of our services in person, and you must follow additional rules around cleaning your hands, covering your face, and maintaining distancing whilst in the church. If you want to attend a service you can either book online, or you can call us on 0113 450 8554.

We will continue streaming all our services, both during this period of limited availability and into the future. You can join us online every Sunday morning at 10.00 am, catch up any time through the week, listen to our services over the phone, or listen using our podcast.

Continue reading “Parish Notices: 16 May 2021”

Weeknotes: Saturday 15 May

Another week, another weeknotes. Here’s what the tech team have been up to!

More technicians!

We’ve trained another video technician, increasing the number of people who can stream and record services.

As with other parts of the Church, it’s important that our technology is understood and usable by enough people to make sure the workload is spread out. Over lockdown this hasn’t been the case, so we’re trying to correct that as quickly as possible.

It’s also a great opportunity to revise our documentation and make sure that it’s clear and comprehensive.

Defeating the cable snake

Anyone who has ever put more than two cables in the same place will know how quickly they get tangled. Our tech desk has literally dozens of them, for audio, video, data and power. You can imagine how chaotic this can become.

One of our ongoing battles is making sure all our cables are kept as tidy and organised as possible. It’s not just for the look of things (although we all appreciate a clean desk), but also to help make faults easier to diagnose, make changes simpler, and make it less likely that moving one thing will disturb something else.

To help in this we’ve re-organised a chunk of our cables (with more to come) using some adjustable, re-usable cable ties. These haven’t just let us keep our spare cables from becoming tangled, but we’ve also used them to help bundle and distinguish cables between different parts of kit.

Parish Notices: 9 May 2021

Annual Parochial Church Meeting

The Annual Parochial Church Meeting is an opportunity for those in the parish to have their say in how their Church is run. It includes a summary of the year and reports from key people, as well as the election of roles such as churchwardens and members of the PCC.

This year’s meeting will be held online on Tuesday 25 May 2021 at 7.00 pm.

You can find more information about this year’s APCM on our website at whitkirkchurch.org.uk/apcm/2021, including the agenda and a copy of our annual report.

If you would like physical copies of documents and details of how to join by phone, please let us know.

Christian Aid Week

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Christian Aid Week. If you’d like to give to this worthy cause, helping to fight poverty and tackle the climate emergency, you can donate online through the St Mary’s Christian Aid e-Envelope at whitkirkchurch.org.uk/donate/christian-aid.

If you are attending our worship in person and wish to donate, Christian Aid giving envelopes are available at the back of the church. Please take one and return it with your donation next week.

Last year the community at St Mary’s raised £724, so this year we have set a target of £750. Please help us to achieve this goal.

Worshipping in person

In line with the Government’s plan for easing lockdown, and based on our own risk assessments, we have now re-opened our doors for public worship. As in the past, you must still book to attend any of our services in person, and you must follow additional rules around cleaning your hands, covering your face, and maintaining distancing whilst in the church. If you want to attend a service you can either book online, or you can call us on 0113 450 8554.

We will continue streaming all our services, both during this period of limited availability and into the future. You can join us online every Sunday morning at 10.00 am, catch up any time through the week, listen to our services over the phone, or listen using our podcast.

Continue reading “Parish Notices: 9 May 2021”

Weeknotes: Saturday 8 May 2021

Another week, another weeknotes! Here’s what the technical team have been doing:

Further audio refinements

We’ve made some more adjustments to how we pipe audio from our in-church microphones and into our video stream. This gives the technician more control over the different sources of sound, and hopefully will help to reduce some of the echoing which becomes apparent when certain combinations of microphones are used.

Moving the wifi

We’ve changed the position of our wifi transmitter in the church, which should now give better coverage across more of the building.