Posts by Nick Jackson

Weeknotes: Saturday 19 June

It’s been a pretty quiet couple of weeks for the tech team as we settle into the long period of Ordinary Time between Trinity Sunday and All Saint’s Day, so we’ve used it to catch our breath, tidy up some loose ends and start planning for the future.

And then there were two

We now have two technicians capable of streaming services, giving our technical lead their first Sunday off in over a year. Over the summer we aim to get this number even higher so that we can rota our team in the same way that we rota readers and server.

Never skip documentation

We’ve improved a whole bunch of our documentation and checklists, making things more reliable and increasing our bus factor.

A place for everything

Our Community Centre Management Team generate a lot of documentation and paperwork as part of keeping our Community Centre up and running. We’ve helped them move this into a new online document store, meaning it’s better protected against disaster and more accessible for people who need it.

Boosting the signal

As we plan to reopen the bar in the Community Centre we’ve been doing some work to make sure we can support cashless payments more reliably and make them faster. To do this we’ve started putting together a solid proposal to revamp some of our network equipment.

Parish Notices: 13 June 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: 13 June 2021”

Parish Notices: 6 June 2021

Choral Evensong

The service of Evensong is rooted in hundreds of years of worship, and is renowned for its choral music and rich language.

You can join us online for this evening’s service live at 6.00 pm – or watch again at any time – on our YouTube channel.

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: 6 June 2021”

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”