AUMC AV Blog

Battery Test Part 2: The Results!

2011-06-02T01:33:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I posted The Background, The Numbers, and The Setup for a battery test I ran overnight last night where I paired some regular Alkaline AA batteries against some rechargeable NiMH (nickel-metal hydride) AA batteries. And here are the results:

Click the graph for full size.
Note: The graph shows the length of time (in hours) along the bottom axis and the number of bars the battery indicator shows on each transmitter on the left axis ("-1" indicating that it fully lost power). I made the two Alkaline battery lines a green color to help group them together. Note that they are the two that stay at three bars the longest but they are also the first two to drop off.

There are three main things I took away from this:

1) The NiMH batteries won! No surprise here as Mike Sessler's battery test which this test is emulating (read about it here: Part 1 and Part 2) shows almost exactly the same graph. Just like in his tests the NiMH batteries lasted about 15% longer than the Alkaline batteries.

2) Also just like in Mike Sessler's tests, the NiMH batteries dropped bars quicker than the Alkaline batteries but in the end outlasted them. This is good to know so that when we are running the batteries we know not to freak out when we see two bars, but we should freak out when we see one bar!

3) My one surprise, and the one difference from Mike Sessler's tests, was that my test ran longer than his... by more than four hours (almost a third longer)! His test ran just under 14 hours, my test ran over 18! This could be for several reasons, including (but not limited to):
a) we may not have played music as loud as he did,
b) the transmitters were five feet away from the receivers,
c) we are using different transmitters than he is.

Anywho, I am super excited about the results from this test! Even worst case scenario we know that our new rechargeable batteries will last 16 hours, well more than we will ever need them!

If my opinion changes on this I will certainly let you know, but for now: I am excited that we went rechargeable, and I think other churches should too!

Matthew Kelling
Director of Media Ministry
Argyle United Methodist Church

Battery Test 2011 Part 1: The Background, The Numbers, and The Setup

2011-06-01T01:02:00.005-05:00

The Background

About 6 years ago I tried to take our little 250 person church "green" by using rechargeable batteries for our wireless body packs. I went out and bought the cheapest rechargeable batteries and the cheapest charger I could find. I would put the batteries in to charge Sunday after church and a week later would use them Sunday morning.

I don't know why I was so surprised when my little plan failed! The batteries would last 30 minutes and DIE! What a waste of money and time! (In retrospect, I shouldn't have bought the cheapest stuff, and I shouldn't have charged them and then let them sit six days, but that is beside the point.)

Because of this we have always used regular old AA Alkaline batteries. They are reliable but can be expensive and a waste because you are throwing them away with charge still on them. (We would put ours in a small tub with a "Free Used Batteries" sign and let people take them for use in toys, remotes, clocks, etc.)

I never again thought about going to rechargeable batteries, that is until 14 months ago when Mike Sessler (the Technical Arts Director at Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo, CA) ran a "Battery Shootout" on some Alkaline and rechargeable batteries.

The results were surprising: ALL 5 rechargeable batteries he tested outlasted his Alkaline battery; they lasted from one hour to four hours longer!

Well, I thought, this is great proof that rechargeable batteries are a great way to go. But still I didn't act.

A year after his first test Mike Sessler did another test to see how the rechargeable batteries were keeping up after a year of use. Again the results were staggering. The Alkaline batteries once again lasted about nine hours, and again the NiMH (nickel-metal hydride) rechargeable batteries were the clear winners by a minimum of four hours!

THIS is the proof I need to finally take our church to rechargeable!

The Numbers

Due to Mike Sessler's tests I decided to go with Ansmann 2850 mAh NiMH batteries (24 in total). They aren't cheap ($3/AA), but they are top-of-the-line. I also got three 9V batteries ($10 each, yikes!) and an Ansmann charger than can charge 12 AA and 4 9Vs at once.

As I was making my purchases I ran some numbers to make sure we were going in the right direction. On January 12th, 2010 the church bought two cases (144 each case) of "Energizer Industrial AA Alkaline Battery (EN91)" from Medic Batteries. The total cost (with shipping) was $110.44, making each AA cost $0.38. However these two cases lasted us only 16 months, so on a per-month basis it cost us $6.90. Not a huge cost for a church our size (we have grown to about 500 in attendance each week). But that also means we are going through, on average, 18 AA batteries a month. What a load of rubbish (quite literally!).

Compare that to the new rechargeables we got in. I bought the AA batteries from Horizon Battery (a sponsor of Mike Sessler's tests) and the 9V batteries and charger from Amazon (I would have gotten everything from Horizon, but Amazon was cheaper). The final cost for all of the product was $208.98 (all shipping was free). If you compare that to the $6.90 a month for Alkaline batteries, we will break even after 30 months (two and a half years). If you assume that the batteries will last you five years before you have to buy the same batch again (I think that this is a very conservative number based on the packages advertising "1000s of charges"), the batteries cost us only $1.41 a month, a savings of about $65 a year. (Of course this doesn't account for electricity used by the recharger. If someone has a watt-hour meter I could borrow I would gladly run that math.)

Again, $65 a year isn't a huge savings for our church, but I believe that cutting back where possible and keeping hundreds of batteries out of the landfill every year is a great direction for our (or any) church to go.

The Setup

But it wasn't just enough for me to run the cost analysis, I had to repeat Mike Sessler's test myself. We have had the batteries for a few weeks now but haven't used them "live" yet as we want to make sure they will last plenty long for our needs.

Note: Click the images for larger size.

For the test I am using two types of batteries (Energizer Industrial Alkaline and Ansmann 2850 mAh NiMH) but I am using a total of six transmitters. (We have eight transmitters but only six receivers. I don't know if our Sennheiser microphones talk back and forth between transmitter and receiver or if communication is strictly one way, so I didn't chance it and only used six transmitters and I left the receivers turned on.) The green handheld transmitter has the Alkaline batteries and the blue handheld transmitter has the NiMH batteries. Of the body packs," Jim" has the Alkaline batteries and the other three ("Joe", "Kory", and "Liz") have the NiMH batteries. I have three body packs with the NiMH batteries because I want to see if there is a difference between different microphone types (lapel on left, over-the-ear on right). Will one use more or less battery power? Who knows, we will find out!

I set up all six transmitters in front of our sound booth iMac and used our camera to point down at them. I opened iMovie on the computer to watch the camera feed and used ScreenNinja to take a screen shot every 30 seconds (uploaded via Dropbox so I can check it from home). I also played songs from our modern worship band over the iMac's speakers to give SOME sound to the microphones (although the body packs' microphones are directly under the speakers and the handhelds are a bit aways, but this is just a rough test so it is OK).

(Between the body packs and the handhelds I am charging up two fully dead HiMH batteries because I am curious as to how long it will take. Also, because there is a light switch outside of the booth that controls the booth's lights, I set up a florescent work light to make sure that the area is alway lit.)

Seen here is a current screen shot. As you can see the NiMH transmitters are all at two bars while both Alkaline transmitters are still at three bars, but this isn't too surprising as the same thing happened in Mike Sessler's test; the NiMH dropped the first bar faster than the Alkaline but far outlasted it in the long run.

Tomorrow I will post the results from the test. Thanks for reading, hope this has been informative and helpful!

EDIT: Here are the results!

Matthew Kelling
Director of Media Ministry
Argyle United Methodist Church

Social Media Ministry, Part 1: Background and Planning

2011-02-04T01:15:00.009-06:00

Background:
In the spring of 2009 Argyle United Methodist Church moved from on top of Methodist Hill to a new campus just down the highway forever giving up the old idea of being a small town country church. Now we are a "large church" (by most definitions), our new campus is very modern (see photo in the header above), we have a contemporary service, and our pastor sometimes doesn't wear his pastoral robes (even to our traditional services).

Yet the communications with our congregation and the community are still as if we were in that 75 year old building on top of Methodist Hill. THIS IS NOT GOOD! We are missing ministry opportunities every day by not being active on social media or even keeping our website updated. How we got to this point is a long story not worth retelling at this point, but here is a spotlight on what we are currently doing:

Back when we were in that old building we produced a monthly newsletter that was mailed to each member of our congregation. This process was very time consuming and costly so a few years ago we decided to stop mailing them to every person; instead we mailed them to only select members (people could still get a copy at the church and/or read it online). Eight months ago we published our last copy of the monthly newsletter (much to the relief of the staff member that was in charge of it).

Now instead of having a monthly newsletter to tell everyone about all of our programs we try to fit every piece of relevant information into one weekly all church e-mail. This technically works but is cumbersome and (I would guess) no one actually reads all of the way through it (they have surely fallen asleep by the time they get to the bottom).

We have a Facebook page but haven't used it to its full potential (note that we don't even have a vanity URL). The main problem with our Facebook page is that there has never been a plan as to what to post, how to post it, who posts, etc. It is just there and sometimes people in the office post to it.

We have a Twitter account but it has a grand total of 5 tweets and it hasn't been updated in 18 months (THAT one you can blame one me).

Our website was redesigned a few years ago so it looks great but some pages are horribly out of date. For example every page on our website has a footer that still features a large button with "Newsletter" written across it (even though the last newsletter was published 8 months ago).

So as you can see we haven't done a good job using social media to communicate with our congregation and the community. This will soon change.

Planning
Tomorrow I have a meeting specifically for the purpose of creating a plan for our social media. (Note: I am using "social media" as a very broad term which would include [but is not limited to] Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, and our website.)

I have been doing a lot to get prepared for this meeting. The first thing I did was grab all of the breakouts from the 2010 Echo Conference that had to do with social media (thankfully I have the DVD set which includes the audio from all of the breakouts). I listened to as many as I could and I shared the files with the other person that will be in the meeting with me.

I would often listen to these breakouts while taking my roommate's dog on long walks in the evening. The breakouts have a lot of great content that got my brain working, and when my brain got working I would pause the audio so I could think and walk for a while. In this way I was able to flesh out a lot of ideas.

How do I apply someone else's great ideas to our church? How will this work for us? What steps are important to getting this done? I would say that about half of my time devoted to "researching" social media was not actively listening to the breakouts but having my iPhone on pause so that I could process the information. And because my brain is not good at remembering things I would open the Voice Memo app on my iPhone and record short memos to myself about my thoughts. I later transcribed these notes onto a legal pad, and I now have two pages full of ideas, things to talk about, ways to approach subjects, etc.

So tomorrow will be a big day for our church. It won't be marked on any calendars, it won't be celebrated for years to come, and most people won't even know that something happened. However I believe that the planning that we do tomorrow will start an amazing ministry that will touch many lives, not just within our congregation but our community and the rest of the world as well.

Please pray with me that this meeting will be God centered and that we would have wisdom about how to approach this brand new ministry that can touch the lives of people in a way that our church has never been able to.

Tomorrow I will post about how the meeting went and I will expand on our process of thinking through this ministry.

One last note: I fully believe that one of the greatest features of social media is COMMUNITY! I write this post (and the posts to come) not just to help others that may be going through a similar transition as we are but also to get feedback from others that have traveled down similar roads. This in turn blesses the other readers of this post. So please post your thoughts and ideas about Social Media Ministries in the comments below. Has your church figured out social media already, or are you where we are now (fumbling in the dark)? What resources would you suggest for guidance on the Social Media front? What pitfalls should we watch out for, and what goals should we strive for? Share in the comments!

Matthew Kelling
Director of Media Ministry
Argyle United Methodist Church

QuickTime Export Droplet (via AppleScript)

2009-12-23T15:40:00.004-06:00

For a long time I have wanted a droplet for exporting QuickTime files. That is to say I wanted an icon on my desktop that I could drop video files into and it would export them with custom settings from QuickTime Pro. Many times have I started a search looking for Quicktime droplets, but I never could find anything. Well, due to some extra time recently, I was able to get down and dirty with some AppleScript to get it done!

Note: I owe many thanks to the help I received online for this, mainly this post from which I have copied (word for word) parts of to help with this post. To the others that helped: Thanks!

Note 2: Sorry Windows users, this is OS X only. These scripts require QuickTime Pro ($30), which allows you to export videos from QuickTime. If you are on Snow Leopard, you have to have QuickTime 7 installed for this to work.

Note 3: I know that not everyone is a scripting pro... I know for a fact that I am not! So I have tried to make this walkthrough as simple language as possible. You need NO experience in any form of scripting to get this to work, but you will need the ability to comprehend what is going on. Just follow the directions and you will be fine. For those pros out there: Feel free to glean what you need while ignoring the rest!

Step 1: Retrieve the export settings from QuickTime.

1) Open a movie representative of the kind you'd like to export in QT.
2) Choose "Export" from the "File" menu
3) Select the desired export kind from the "Export:" popup menu (I always use "Movie to QuickTime movie", using something different may not work with this setup)
4) Click the "Options..." button to specify your custom settings, then click OK
5) Note that the "Use:" popup menu now displays "Most Recent Settings"
6) Start the export by clicking on the "Save" button (if you don't start an export the "Most Recent Settings" won't stick)
7) Cancel the export if it is a long one
8) Leave the video open in QT as we move on...

At this point you are ready for some AppleScripting. Open your Application folder, then open the Utilities folder. Find "AppleScript Editor" and open it. Copy and paste the below text into the window that pops up:

tell application "QuickTime Player 7"
tell first document
save export settings for QuickTime movie to file "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set"
end tell
end tell

Note that this is MY snippet of code, you will need to make it work for you. There is one thing that you may need to change, and one thing that you will need to change:

tell application "QuickTime Player 7": Leopard (and below) users will need to change this to "QuickTime Player. Snow Leopard users leave this as "QuickTime Player 7".

save export settings for QuickTime movie to file "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set": This sets where your setting file will be saved. Remember that this file will have to be stationary for the life of your QuickTime Droplet, so choose a place where it won't get in the way. (IE: on your desktop is a BAD idea!) Note that I have created a folder named "QuickTime Scripts" in my "Documents" folder. After you have decided where you want your export file(s) to reside and you have created the necessary folders, update the script to reflect where you want them. IE: Change "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set" to wherever you want it to save. Also, change Export.set to name of what you want the file to be.

NOW it is time to run the script! On the top of the AppleScript Editor window, click "Run". If everything is good then it will look like nothing happened right away, but if you open the folder where you told the file to say you will see the file: "Export.set" (or whatever you said to save it as). (If things don't go according to plan and you get an error, try to figure out what happened. Go back and read the steps and make sure that each step was done correctly. If you are still having problems, contact me and I will try to help out.)

So, after all of that work we have a single simple file. If you have more than one droplet you would like to create, feel free to repeat the above steps for as many droplets you would like. Also, save this script so that you have access to it later. Now, on to...

Step 2. In this step we will create the actual droplet file.

In AppleScript Editor, create a new script and paste in the following code:

on open these_items
repeat with i from 1 to the count of these_items
set this_item to item i of these_items
tell application "QuickTime Player 7"
open this_item
get name of the front document
with timeout of 36000 seconds -- 10 hrs timeout
export document 1 to "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Desktop:" & name of the front document as QuickTime movie ¬
replacing no using settings "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set"
end timeout
close front document
end tell
end repeat
tell application "QuickTime Player 7"
quit
end tell
display dialog "Your Encoding is done!" buttons {"Thanks a bunch!"} default button 1
end open

Once again there are several things that you will need to change for this to work on your machine:

tell application "QuickTime Player 7": Remember that you may need to change this to "QuickTime Player" if you are not on Snow Leopard.

with timeout of 36000 seconds -- 10 hrs timeout: Currently it is set to timeout after 10 hours. This means that at the 10 hour mark whichever video is being exported will finish, but any additional videos will not start encoding. If you export lots of large files, you may need to bump this number up a bit, otherwise leave it alone.

export document 1 to "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Desktop:" & name of the front document as QuickTime movie ¬: Change this to where you would like the file to save to. It is currently set to save to my desktop.

replacing no using settings "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set": Change this to where you saved the export file in Step 1. Feel free to copy and paste from the script in Step 1.

display dialog "Your Encoding is done!" buttons {"Thanks a bunch!"} default button 1: This is a dialog box that says "Your Encoding is done!" whenever the encoding is done. Feel free to delete this line if you don't want a dialog box.

Now, DON'T Run this script! If you do, nothing will happen. Remember that we are creating a droplet, which is (technically) an application. So (after saving the script for future reference) go to "File>Save As...", type in the name you want for your droplet, and change the "File Format" to "Application". Also, check the "Run Only" box. Now click "Save", and you are done!

Feel free to test out your droplet. Quit QuickTime (if it is still open), grab a few video files in the finder, and drag them onto the top of your droplet. QuickTime should open and start exporting your video files. When it is done it will quit QuickTime and show you a dialog box saying it is done.

Well, there you go! Have fun playing around with AppleScript, the possibilities are endless! For example, you can set it up so that you have a "Hot Folder", and any video dropped into said folder is automatically exported. (See this post for help on that.) Because I have 7 export settings I want to manage, I am now off to work with the "display dialog" tag and compress all seven export settings into one droplet which will ask the user which export setting they want to use.

Hope this helps! If you were successful in getting this to work, let me know by posting a comment! Know of a way I could write this tutorial better? Let me know!

Matthew

2009-11-15

2009-11-12T17:25:00.001-06:00

In the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and David. This week we are going to play a video clip from The Simpsons...

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-11-06

2009-11-05T14:22:00.001-06:00

I am excited to announce that our new AUMC AV shirts are in! Here I am styling the new T:

I am excited how this will bring our team together!

In the booth this week is: Me, Carter, and Mike.

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-11-01

2009-10-29T16:50:00.002-05:00

In the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Bill. Did I ever tell you that the AUMC AV Volunteer Team ROCKS? Well they do!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-10-25

2009-10-22T18:29:00.000-05:00

In the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and David. Party at my place!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-10-18

2009-10-14T23:16:00.001-05:00

I am out of town this weekend, so Carter is in charge this week. You guys be nice to him!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-10-11

2009-10-08T14:13:00.001-05:00

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Bill. Bill is the BOMB! BOOM!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-10-04

2009-10-03T21:07:00.002-05:00

Sorry about the late post this week, I have been out of town. Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and David. Woop, another Sunday is upon us!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-09-27

2009-09-24T22:15:00.001-05:00

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Mike. Be ready with your "A" game on!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-09-20

2009-09-17T18:35:00.001-05:00

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Bill.

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-09-13

2009-09-11T14:26:00.001-05:00

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Carter. We are going to have a BLAST, right guys?

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-09-06

2009-09-03T12:32:00.001-05:00

Due to an impromptu family reunion out of town this week, working in the booth this week is: Carter, Adam, and Mike. You guys have fun!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-08-30

2009-08-27T16:27:00.001-05:00

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and David

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2008-08-23

2009-08-20T12:58:00.002-05:00

Now you can follow Argyle UMC on Twitter! http://twitter.com/ArgyleUMC. You can also still follow us on Facebook.

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Carter

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-08-16

2009-08-13T15:50:00.002-05:00

We just got in a new piano pickup system, I hope to have it working by Sunday!

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Bill

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-09-08

2009-08-06T19:46:00.002-05:00

We got an organ! At least, we finally moved an organ from the old building into our new sanctuary, and it sounds great! Be ready for it this weekend!

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Mike

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

PS: Note that the link to the Breaktout is the same each week... hmm, something fishy going on there...

2009-08-02

2009-07-30T16:17:00.002-05:00

This week Joe is mixing things up and making things interesting. The beginning of the sermon is going to be something unique, so be ready for it!

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and David

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-07-26

2009-07-25T01:05:00.002-05:00

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Bill

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

2009-07-19

2009-07-18T12:22:00.002-05:00

I was going to do this earlier this week, but I must have forgotten. I want to start posting the AUMC AV Breakout and the volunteers who will be working the booth each week.

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Bill

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

A quick update...

2009-06-26T13:41:00.003-05:00

Just a quick update:

I just spent 10 hours uploading all of the sermons (and sermon notes and handouts and study guides) from 2009 to the new AUMC website which will launch in the near future. I know you will love it when you see it! There is a media center that has a built in audio player so you can play the audio directly in your web browser. It also generates podcasts so that if you want it will automatically download for you!

Pretty neat stuff. Too bad you can't see it right now... but you will soon!

Matthew

RETHINK CHURCH Intro (final)

2009-06-08T04:35:00.002-05:00

The video is finished! Here is the final video:

RETHINK CHURCH Intro (final) from Matthew Kelling on Vimeo.

This week Argyle UMC started a 6 week sermon series titled "RETHINK CHURCH". I have developed a short (30 second) intro for the sermon series that will be played before each sermon in the series. The purpose of the video is to transition people from worship to sermon, IE: get people ready for the sermon.

At the end, the graphic it goes to (a door in the desert) is the graphic for the series, it was on 10,000 post cards mailed out and it has been in the announcement slides, so everyone will recognize it. I transition to it because it will be the background during the sermons this series.

The song is "You are God" by Russell Martin and is available for purchase in the iTunes Music Store: link

Matthew

ReThink Church intro

2009-06-04T22:44:00.001-05:00

Hey all,

Below is the ReThink Church intro that will be played before the sermons in this series. Tell me what you think!

ReThink Church Intro from Matthew Kelling on Vimeo.

Matthew

Breakout!

2009-05-29T16:19:00.003-05:00

The AUMC tech team has always used the bulletins for our order of service. We would just grab one of the folded bulletins that goes to the congregation and we would use it to know what is coming up next in the service.

I hope to end that practice.

I have made a "breakout", a sheet that is designed just for the tech guys to know what is coming up next in the service. Take a look at it and tell me what you think: Link.

Matthew

Clean Freak

2009-05-16T19:28:00.008-05:00

OK, yes, Friday I spent eleven hours cleaning the sound booth. What can I say? Not only am I a neat freak, but it needed it! We started installing equipment last summer and we have had 6 Sunday services in there (not counting Holy Week services), and the room has never been cleaned more than vacuuming and emptying the trash. So while you can argue that the 11 hours is a bit much, you can't argue that it needed it. Plus, I like to do a deep clean about once a year, just to shake out all the cobwebs.

WARNING: For most people, this post will be long and boring. It has no real information in it, it is just me talking about what I did for 11 hours, and it has a lot of purdy pictures. I am posting it here because I apparently have too much time on my hands, and because I enjoy reading about similar things that others do, so I assume that others will enjoy reading this. So read on, if you are so inclined. Oh, and of course clicking a photo will get you a larger version.

The "Great Cleaning of 2009" actually started on Thursday, before the Kingdom Kids (AKA: preschool) graduation. I zip-tied the wires going to the camera together so that they look all purdy. I have no before picture, but:

After: Camera

This looks great, and it will work wonders when you are running the camera, the problem will come in when I want to take the camera somewhere and I need a power source... I just need to buy a separate power source for occasions such as those.

Moving on to the computer. I wanted to move all of the wires that run to the computer from one hole in the counter to another (from the hole by the video rack to the hole behind the sound board, look in the second photo below, you will see the grommet that I wanted to run them through), but alas, several cords weren’t long enough, so I wasn’t able to. Here all I really did was wrap the cables.

Before: Computer

After: Computer

As I said, I did the above Thursday evening. Friday afternoon I showed up just after 2 PM (I had to wait for Sonic’s Happy Hour) and I got to work on the main rack.

Before: Main Rack

Before: Main Rack

I spent time dusting off the rack and vacuuming under it. I also brought some of those pads that you put under furniture that makes it easier to move and put them under the rack, so it is now easier to slide on the carpet [we have to slide out the rack if we want to open the back door]. I took out the PC and used a can of air on it (it needed it!). I also put a left over pice of black poster board in the bottom of the rack so that now the PC sits on that and not the carpet... makes sliding around easier. After strapping a few wires down, it was done.

During: Main Rack (minus the PC)

After: Main Rack

After: Main Rack

Next came the back of the video rack.

Before: Video Rack

This was just a matter of grouping cables together and zip tying them together. Also, there are some extra cables for the switcher, IE: a VGA cable in case we ever need to hook up a laptop. These cables are Velcro-tied together for easy access.

During: Video Rack

During: Video Rack

After: Video Rack (minus the back cover)

At that point I moved to the other side of the sound booth and did the audio rack.

Before: Audio Rack (with the cover)

Lather, rinse, repeat. The one thing I did extra here was I moved all of the wires out of one hole and through another hole in the counter (note the hole in the above photo is in the corner, and the hole in the photos below is by the window). This allows the rack to be closer to the sound board, letting the sound guy have easier access to it. I was also able to remove three cables from this area (note two of them in the photo above) because when we installed the audio distribution amp we ran several replacement wires and the old ones weren’t needed any more.

After: Audio Rack (sans cover)

After: Audio Rack (with cover)

Now you are starting to see how much of a neat freak I am. With each of the racks, I wasn’t just cleaning, I was doing a deep clean and re-orginization. IE: I am organizing wires, dusting everything off, cleaning the counter, and using my can of air like Bruce Willis uses guns in a Die Hard flick. In fact, I am such a neat freak that I had to reorganize the wires in the back of our audio board:

Before: Audio Board

Did this need to be done? No. But it makes me feel better.

After: Audio Board

So at this point I had done pretty much everything above the counter, which left below the counter. And below the counter needed a lot of work! I worked each section (between each support for the counter) one at a time, down the row.

Of note: I had a great (well I think it was great) idea to help with cable management: I bought several dowel rods, zip tied them together, and they made one long cable support underneath the entire counter. So all down the line I zip tied cables to this support, and it helped achieve a great clean look. You can see the dowels in the photos below.

After: Segment 2

Before: Segment 3 (under the sound board)

After: Segment 3

Before: Segment 4 (under the computer)

After: Segment 4 (note the floating hard drive)

Before: Segment 5

After: Segment 5

Not to be constrained to the sound booth, I also did some work on the choir mics:

After: Choir Mics

The hard work was done, but I still had plenty left to do:

During: Sound Booth

After a thorough vacuum and final dusting, everything was done!

Finished: Sound Booth

Finished: Sound Booth

Finished: Computer

Finished: Video Rack

Finished: Behind the Video Rack

Finished: Sound Booth

Finished: Back of the Audio Rack

Everything tidied up for the night
(with the iMac running AppleJack)

I even had a visitor on my way out the building:

My visitor

And THAT is how you spend 11+ hours cleaning a sound booth. I still need to do some work to the back of the TV in the foyer, but I need someone else to help me take it down and put it back up. Maybe next week...

Matthew

New Hard Drive

2009-05-06T03:07:00.002-05:00

Last week I ordered a My Book Studio 1TB external hard drive and it came in today. So of course I had to spend time today updating the firmware, formatting it just how I want it, and setting it up.

Right now I have it partitioned into two halves, one for backup and one for archiving, but while driving to my day job today I decided to change that up slightly. The way I set it up this morning there is no backup of the archive. If the drive in the My Book fails, then we loose our entire archive. (The "archive" being a folder with every PPT and audio file that we have ever used."

So I am going to change it so that one partition of the My Book is backup (using Time Machine), and the other is video storage for the many gigabytes of video that I am recording. (Compressed, each Sunday is about 10 GB.) This will allow there to be two copies of the archive folder (one on the iMac, one on the external drive). This doesn't provide a backup for our videos, but they don't need a backup as they are just a "novelty", they are just to have in case someone wants a DVD.

The other good part of this system: Once a year I buy a 500 GB hard drive (cheap these days) and dump the previous year's videos onto it. That hard drive now gets stuck in a back closet somewhere, and we never have to loose any of our information.

OK, I know at this point I am rambling, but can you blame me? It is 3 AM, and I need to get to sleep. I hope you enjoyed reading about the new hard drive as much as I enjoyed typing this post.

=: >

Matthew

More installation...

2009-05-05T04:32:00.002-05:00

Hey all,

Sorry about not updating the blog more. I keep trying to normalize my life, and I am getting varying results... but that is a post for my other blog.

We got the new audio distribution amp installed. This will help greatly in... well, distributing our audio. See, we were having problems with our many audio needs in the booth, we have: CD recorder, hearing assistance device, camera, iMac, PC, and TV, all that need audio from the board. We were having problems getting the right audio to all of the components, so now with the new amp those problems are solved. Now, instead of having four mixes going to different components (and not really doing a good job at that), we now have one mix that goes to the TV (so that we can play a CD on the TV and not any where else) and one mix for everything else.

So as it stands, we only need a few more wires and the booth will be as complete as I can get it right now. The only other pice of equipment I would like would be a wall mount for our camera, but that will have to wait for now. I am getting excited to say "Done!" on the sound booth. I am thinking about having a pizza party or something, a guy's night out or something... I will keep you posted.

On a different note, I have a note for the sound booth volunteers, of which I already out e-mails, but an additional reminder: Please e-mail me your schedule until the end of the year. (That sentence was much harder than it should have been!) I am trying to create a schedule for Sundays for the next few months, and I need to know when everyone needs off.

Also, for anyone who would like to contact me, feel free to e-mail me at Matthew(at)ArgyleUMC.org. Other forms of communication:
My Personal Blog
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter
Or, check out my bio page at the Argyle UMC website.

Matthew

Working...

2009-04-30T21:28:00.002-05:00

Today I got some work done in the booth. I feel like I got a lot done, but all I did was solder a few wires. It is amazing how fast 8 hours flies by when you hang out in the new booth...

This weekend Adam and Bill will be helping out in the booth. Give it up for Bill, it is his first week! Woop Woop!

Matthew

Out of the closet...

2009-04-24T01:20:00.002-05:00

So today I spent many hours cleaning out our closet, our cabinet, our deep shelves, whatever you want to call them. I don't have any "before shots", but lets just say that it had become our place to dump thingss. There were literally piles of things in there of things that I had dumped, and it needed an overhaul.

So I did, and now it looks great! Plus it has the added benefit of being able to find things!

(click for bigger view)

Matthew

An update

2009-04-18T23:11:00.002-05:00

I just realized that once again I haven't updated you guys in a week. Apparently Saturday night is now my normal posting night. (Really, I want to post more often, but I have been busy lately.)

Anywho, I spent the better part of today at the new building adding some personal touches to the booth. Things I did today include (but are not limited to):

- I added black poster board (via velcro strips) to the back of our mini-racks so that people looking into the booth don't see a bunch of blinking lights and wires.
- I added a cable run for the camera, so now the cables go up the wall hidden from sight.
- I mounted the ethernet switch below the counter and plugged it in. I can now talk to one projector via ethernet (the other one has a wire crossed in the patch bay).
- I added an extension cord to the audio rack so it now powers on and off with everything else.
- I added a lock to the TV in the lobby so that it doesn't walk off. (Take THAT you bad-minded people!)
- I soldered a cable so that the band's click track now goes directly from the patch bay to the Aviom (in-ear) system instead of running through the sound board.
- I re-labeled the wireless transmitters (a month ago I "temporarily" labeled them with white electrical tape).
- I finished the ProPresenter file, and made sure the text could be read on the light background (I had to add an outline to the text).

In addition to that, tomorrow will see the debut of our new "CD Seller". It sits out in the lobby so that people can pick up CDs as they pass by. For your knowledge: CDs are a suggested donation of $3, DVDs are a suggested donation of $5. CDs from the last month's 11:15 service will be available via the CD Seller in the lobby. All other services are available on CD or DVD via a special request.

And on that note, I have to go design the display that will be in the CD Seller, so I have to go. See you tomorrow!

Matthew

Easter Sunday!

2009-04-11T20:27:00.002-05:00

Wow, I just realized I haven't posted in a week... it is because I have been so busy at my "real" job AND running Holy Week services at the new building. I haven't had any time off! ("Next week" I keep telling myself, "next week"... then again, I have been saying that for three weeks now!)

Anywho, I spent several hours at the new building today (at what point do we stop calling it the "new building"?) setting up the presentation files and hooking everything up to work. This week we were able to get the hearing impaired system to work, and get live video out on the big screen TV in the foyer. There is still plenty of work that needs to get done, but for now everything is working and we are ready to go!

Tomorrow (Easter) we have four services in the new building: 8:00, 9:15, 10:30, and 11:45, IE: it will be a full day! There are a lot of moving parts, but I have the utmost confidence in our team. Speaking of the team, Adam will be running sound tomorrow, and David will be running the computer and the camera. I will be sitting between them running lights and acting as director, making sure they both know what is coming up next (we have three DIFFERENT bulletins for our four services) and keeping them on time. I don't know how well it will work to have the lights/director in the middle, we will find out tomorrow!

Well, I can hardly type any more (I keep hitting the wrong keys), so I am off to bed, nice and early tonight. See everyone in the morning!

Matthew

Our first service!

2009-04-05T23:39:00.003-05:00

Well, this morning we had our first service! Everything went great, I can't wait to praise God for many years in this new building.

But before I go into the report about today, I have to give a great big "THANKS!" to everyone that helped: James Nance for a great sound system and install, Carter for helping at any time of day when I call and for helping me to run the first service, Adam for hanging out with me and learning the system, Mike and David for your willingness to help at any time, and for your dedication for the past many years, and the rest of the volunteers that have been learning the new system. THANKS for all that you have done, the services couldn't happen without you!

So this morning I was the first person at the new building at 7:15 at which point I snapped the above photo (the new header photo). (For more photos of the first day of services, click here.) I then parked in the back and got in and turned everything on. Carter and James showed up soon, and we troubleshot the hearing impaired system, which wasn't getting a strong signal. (I think we finally decided that the problem is the board is sending the signal too soft, -2dB instead of +10dB. A fix to come shortly.)

Then, before you know it, the first service started, and we were off! The first service went almost perfect, behind a guest speaker breathing too hard into his lav mic. The middle service was awesome; it is now our "modern" service, and it was the largest service of the day! It was great to see 265 people worshiping God in our new sanctuary! After that came our third service (choir led). This service had a problem when one of the choir mics went spastic and started spewing static during the sermon, but we got it muted quick.

Overall, it went very well. Not 100%, but better than hoped. We learned a lot of things today, such as we need to have the band as a group on the audio board, and don't fade to a black screen with words on it during the sermon (it just looks empty).

I also learned something for us sound guys. Those of us that have worked in the old building are used to multi-tasking, we did EVERYTHING that is media based for the service. During the service, our main jobs were: audio, PPT (IE: lyrics on the screen), and once in a while pointing the camera in the right direction or playing a video.

The bad part of this is that we have all become accustomed to this multi-tasking, and I found myself multitasking in the new building. Carter was running audio and it was my job to run ProPresenter (the new program we are using to display the lyrics), the video camera, and the lighting board. But I found myself continually listening to make sure it sounded good, and I kept messing with things on the audio board. At the same time I was neglecting the lights on the stage and the camera (which would just sometimes point at nothing).

I learned today that we (or maybe just me?) are going to have to reprogram ourselves in what our jobs are. If I am running the video/lighting side of things, I need to ignore the audio unless something is glaringly wrong. If I am running the audio, it is not just my job to make it sound good in the sanctuary, it is also my job to make sure it sounds good on the computer, the camera, the CD recording, the hearing impaired system... It might take a few weeks before we get used to this new mindset, but eventually we will.

The other reason to get into this mindset (past it is more efficient) is that it puts respect on the people you are working with. If I am running video, I have to put trust in the audio guy, that he will do his job right, that when it is time for me to play a video he knows it and already has the line un-muted. I will make my point using a sports analogy. In the old building we were a bunch of guys that would do our jobs separately and without consequence to the other volunteers. We would work our one Sunday alone, and not work together as a team. We were like a baseball team, a bunch of guys working individually to achieve a common goal. (I have always said that baseball isn't a team sport, it is an individual sport where people rarely interact with others on their team.)

Contrast that with our new AV team. We have to rely on other people to get their jobs done so that ours works. If the audio guy doesn't un-mute the computer, then when I play the video it won't have any sound! I have to put my trust in others, not just myself. I liken this to football, where you have to have 11 people on your team running every play exactly as they are supposed to or the play won't work. It anyone on a football team does not make their required block, the play will go from a 10 yard gain to a 10 yard loss. Everyone on a football team has to trust that others are doing what is requited of them, and our AV team is going to have to learn the same kind of trust.

The problem is that we are a bunch of baseball players trying to learn football. We are used to standing out in left field waiting for a pop fly, and now we are being thrust into a teamwork situation. I don't consider this an insurmountable object, I think it is great that we are all learning new skills, not just in the booth, but also teamwork and trust. I look forward to seeing the "AV volunteers" transform into the "AV team".

Well I am done rambling for now. See you guys next week!

Matthew

An update...

2009-04-01T23:48:00.002-05:00

OK, yes, so I haven't updated in a few days, so shoot me. I have been running 10+ hours per day for two weeks now, the week before that I was out of town, and this weekend I am going out of town... very busy.

But all of that works means that the sound booth is now closer to being done than it was two weeks ago, yea! A lot of work has been done, including (but not limited to): soldering ends to the wires I ran under the stage, a preliminary EQ for the room (thanks to James), the PC is in the booth and has VNC and streaming live video working, and it is a lot cleaner than it was a week ago.

But there is still plenty of work left to do, like running some wires in the booth and working on the PC. I will be up there most of the day Thursday and Friday getting everything finalized, Saturday I will be out of town all day on a job, and Sunday is our first morning services in the new space! I am so excited!

Anywho, I am off to bed so that I can get lots of work one in the morning!

Matthew

Training sessions

2009-03-31T01:47:00.001-05:00

Remember that there are two training sessions this week, 6:30-7:30 on Tuesday and 6:30-7:30 on Thursday (both PM, because I do my best to be asleep at that time AM). If you would like to be a part of the tech team, please make it to one of these sessions.

Matthew

Changes...

2009-03-28T01:33:00.002-05:00

Even though we are 8 days away from our first Sunday service, things keep changing!

I take back what I said earlier about the PC and streaming video. Now that I thought about it, I can still hook up the camera to the PC and stream the video around the building (and do it for cheap). So as it is, the camera is hooked up to:
the switcher via component (for showing on the big screen)
the iMac via firewire (for recording the services)
the PC via composite (for streaming the video)
the TV in the foyer also via component (so that people in the foyer can see what is going on)

Oh, ya, we got the large screen TV hung in the foyer yesterday! It looks great! (A note to you thievery people out there: we have it well locked down, so don't even think about taking it!) Also yesterday I spent some time cleaning up the booth, so now it looks clean and ready to go... I know that this will change in a few days when we start to install stuff again, but for now, it looks clean!

Also, I got the part back from our old sound board that died. We put the board back together but we didn't have a fuse so we couldn't test it. I am on my way to Radio Shack to see if it works!

Anywho, that is all. Stay tuned for a post about the upcoming week's schedule, and times for the upcoming training sessions.

Matthew

More work...

2009-03-26T21:01:00.003-05:00

Today I got a little bit of work done. I crawled under the stage (something I don't want to do again soon) and ran some mic lines. Other than that I just piddled around today.

However, I did rethink the role of the PC in our sound booth. See, to retrofit the PC to accept the video inputs that I want it to would require $600+, something I am not looking forward to spending. So I thought of a compromise: by giving up streaming video I can save $600. Now the PC will simply be a box that runs announcements 24/7. I hate giving up the streaming video because it was a pet project of mine, but it is worth saving the money for now. And we can still stream the audio, just not the video.

Anywho, I am done piddling around for the night, I am going to go home and take a shower.

Matthew

Another work day...

2009-03-25T22:59:00.003-05:00

Today we had another work day. Adam was able to help out all day long, and several others showed up to help. Thanks so much for being there! Even though we were unable to get as much done as I wanted to (due to unforeseeable events), thanks for showing your support by coming by and offering your help!

Today we set up the choir mics and worked with the lights. We decided the layout of the sound board and applied lots of labels (thanks to James' amazing label maker). We also got to hear the choir practice. By the end of the night I was dead tired, so I know I am going to sleep well tonight!

The next few days I am going to run a few wires under the stage and hopefully work on the PC video server. Wish me luck!

Also, this Sunday night there will be a public band and choir practice. The worship band is going to practice for one hour, then the choir and handbells have the stage for an hour. You tech guys are welcome to come by and see the AV booth at work, but the event is also open to the public for those that want to watch the practice. I don't know what time it will be, I will try to post that once I know. Hope to see you there!

Matthew

Diagram...

2009-03-24T22:53:00.003-05:00

I drew out a diagram of a few of the audio and video connections that run between all of our equipment... remember, this is a simplified version of SOME of our equipment! ("A" stands for audio lines, "V" stands for video lines.)

(click for large)

Matthew

A great work day

2009-03-23T19:53:00.002-05:00

We had a great work day at the new building today. First of all, I learned how to run the securety system, so now I can get in at night without fear of alarms going off! Outside of that, I cleaned up the booth a bunch, reorginized things, and in general made it ready to run the funeral in the morning. I also changed all of the frequencies in the wireless mics. Fun times.

In the morning we have our first public service in the new building, and I am excited!

Matthew

A great day!

2009-03-22T21:08:00.001-05:00

Today we had the open house at the new sound booth, and it went great. I met some new people, we had a great discussion about the sound booth, and now I know what everyone's favorite desert is!

Matthew

BIG News!

2009-03-22T20:31:00.002-05:00

Today, Pastor Kory Knott announced two big pieces of news: We have our CO (certificate of occupancy) for the new building, and the first Sunday service will be on April 5th. Two weeks from today we will be worshiping in our new building! Praise God!

Then there was more news: Sweet Adeline, who was always at our church early Sunday morning and was our unofficial greeter for the morning service, died this weekend at 91. They have decided to have her funeral in the new building, so while the first Sunday service won't be for two weeks, our first public event will be in TWO DAYS! Thankfully, the sound system is done enough that we can do this event without any problems. We will just have to make sure everything is running enough to get the event done.

Matthew

Open House!

2009-03-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

I want to make a quick announcement: Sunday the 22nd at 2PM there will be an open house at our new sound booth. I know I am preaching to the choir here because chances are if you are reading this then you are already a part of this ministry. But if you aren't, if you are someone who wants to become involved with this ministry, come out and see the new site and see if this is a ministry that you want to serve in.

If words don't get you excited, here is the video that I made to promote the event. See you there!

Matthew

CD Ministry

2009-03-14T02:36:00.002-05:00

I am pleased to announce the details of our new CD Ministry!

In our new building we have a CD recorder built into the sound system, so we will be able to burn the services directly to CD. This makes it harder to do things like edit it for content (for example if someone left a mic muted, or Kory coughs), but it makes the process much more streamlined. We will record the third service directly to CD, creating chapter markers just before the sermon begins and again after the sermon is over. This will allow people to skip to the sermon if they please. ("Chapter markers" is the DVD term, and if you couldn't tell, I am a video guy, not an audio guy, so it might be called something else on a CD. But you get the idea.)

Anywho, as I was saying, we will burn the service directly to CD. We will take that master CD to our CD duplicator (copies to 5 CDs at once), and in about 5 minutes we can have 10 CDs out.

But I am getting a little ahead of myself, let me back up and talk about the design. I am ordering pre-printed CD-Rs with our new logo:

The printing process that is being done is a photothermal print. It has a glossy coat on top so it is smudge proof, and it looks amazing! For the sermon title, date, and other information, we will use a DYMO LabelWriter DUO to print the text onto a clear sticker that will go onto the CD.

OK, back to duplicating the CDs. After we have duplicated the CDs, we will put on the title information sticker and put them in a clear vinyl case. Some CDs will be mailed (or hand delivered) to our shut-ins, wile other CDs will be retained for people to pick up in the foyer. Their going price: a suggested donation of $3.

In addition to burning the aforementioned CD live during the late service we will also record all three services on the computer. This allows us to have a backup in case the CD being recorded doesn't work, or we need to do some editing. We will also use these files to put the sermon on our new website. The new site has a built in media player, so you just browse to the sermon you want to listen to and it starts playing. You can also subscribe to the podcast if you want to listen to it that way.

In a previous post I mentioned recording the video of the sermons. Along with the pre-printed CD-Rs we will be receiving pre-printed DVD-Rs with the same label (except that it says "DVD" instead of "CD", duh). The DVDs will be packaged just like the CDs, with the clear label and a vinyl case.

I am excited to see the CD ministry grow at AUMC. IIn the past it has been an amazing ministry, but it has been mostly limited to mailing CDs to shut-ins. As I was recently telling someone, I have the opportunity to step back and ask the question "If I could have anything in a CD Ministry, what would it be?" IE: I have the opportunity to design the CD Ministry from scratch, from the design and look of the label and case to how we will distribute them. The beginning of this post talks about the physical mechanics of creating the CD, but I have many other great ideas. For example, I want to provide a CD to every family that has a baptism at our church. If possible, I also want to provide a DVD of the baptism. (The CD would be the entire service, the DVD would just be the video of the baptism.) Whenever we have special choir events (and with Joe Stobaugh, we have a bunch!) I want to provide a CD to every member of the choir to say "Thanks for making this day special." I want to give the congregation the opportunity to "Sponsor a Shut-in", where someone in the congregation would pay for the cost of mailing a CD to a shut-in for a year, or better yet, they pick up the CD and every week hand deliver the CD to the shut-in. What an amazing ministry opportunity!

You can see how excited I am to be able to think outside the box and not have any limitations on how we can best serve our great God! Do you have any ideas for a great CD Ministry?

Matthew

Streaming video...

2009-03-09T01:25:00.003-05:00

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the CD and video ministry at our new building. Well, I finally nailed down the CD ministry (they look great!), so my thinking has been going to the video ministry, mainly if we are going to video tape each service, and if so, how.

After a lot of thinking and doodling, here is what I am thinking:

The video camera will split to three sources:
- The switcher (for live video in the sanctuary)
- The iMac (for recording to disk, so there are no tapes to mess with)
- The PC (for everything else)

The PC is the latest revelation of mine. I plan on bringing the 2 year old PC from the old church and utilize it in the new building. I hope to do many things with it, including:
- Take the live video feed and the output from the iMac and create a Picture-in-Picture feed (live video as the main feed with the output of the iMac [lyrics, for example] as a subset in the lower right).
- This PIP feed would be broadcast as a video stream so that staff within the AUMC building would be able to watch. (So, for example, people in the office and nursery can tell what is going on in the sanctuary.)
- The PIP feed would also be sent out to the TV in the foyer. This is so that people in the foyer can see what is going on in the fellowship hall (live video) but can also see what is on the screen (iMac).
- But what about the rest of the week? I hope to set up the PC to run announcements during the week so that the TV in the foyer will show the announcement loop all week long. Using a program that my brother uses (ProShow), I can set up a folder, and any file dropped in that folder will be displayed as a slideshow. This makes it easy to add and delete announcements without quitting out of the slideshow.

What all that is saying is: I can use hardware that we already own, and with a minimal software purchase we can offer many video features that we couldn't before. We can also videotape every service with minimal cost (a $150 hard drive can hold 60 services in raw video or close to 1000 services in compressed video). I am excited about the opportunities that are before us.

Matthew

PS: I know that it doesn't look like a lot of work is going on around here, but there is! I am now off to type up the new AV Guidelines!

Chairs...

2009-02-25T02:32:00.001-06:00

I am looking at buying three Staples® Culley™ Black Luxura™ Manager's Chairs for the new sound booth. What do you think?

And yes, I need to fix the banner at the top of this blog, I let one of my hosting services lapse (because I am tired of paying for several hosting services) and I need to link the photo somewhere else.

Matthew

Dead...

2009-02-17T01:46:00.002-06:00

So this Sunday I came in to run the morning services like normal. I turned on the lights in the sound booth, I turned on the computer, I turned on the sound board... I turned on the sound board... I turned on the sound board...

Ya, the sound board is dead as a nail. So with 20 minutes before the service I wrastle up an extra sound board, unplug everything from the old board, plug everything into the new board, and just as the service starts I start up PowerPoint and we are off.

The services came off OK, with only a few minor glitches, but seeing as our sound board was dead, I can take a few small hiccups.

Today Carter went out and bought a new fuse, thinking replacing the burnt out fuse would fix the sound board. Sadly the problem still exists, the new fuse didn't take long to burn up (only a second or two).

So now we are trying to figure out what to do. We only have a handful of weeks before we move into the new building, so we don't want to spend a lot of money, but we also don't want to have to share an audio board with the night service, as that would mean every week the morning services AND the night services would have to zero out the board and start from scratch. Doable, but not fun.

We have a few options that we are thinking about, so I am not worried. The other question is: what do we do with a large sound board that is dead?

Matthew

*Matthew wonders off to muse about something else for the moment.*

Blessed...

2009-02-03T20:49:00.002-06:00

I want to take a moment and type out a personal post.

Over at the ChurchMedia.net forums there is a post that asks the question: "What are the biggest issues your church faces with technology?" There are many answers, and as I read through them, I realized how blessed I am to work at AUMC! Most of the problems other people mention aren't a concern for our media ministry.

Money
Money has never been a problem for us. Granted, we aren't rolling in dough, and we don't have every latest toy on the block, but there has never been a time that something was needed but was not bought due to money. We made a lot of concessions in designing the system in the new building, but all of the concessions were "we are going to get a good system instead of a great system." The decisions were always "we can't afford that luxury", never "we can't afford that necessity." This is partially due to an understanding administration (which we will note again in a moment), and partially due to the fact that while, like I said, we aren't rolling in dough, we are blessed with enough money to get the things that we need.

Volunteers
Often churches have problems finding enough volunteers to staff the A/V system. A few years ago we didn't have any volunteers (at one point I was doing everything, including running the audio board in the sanctuary AND running the video in the sound booth at the same time), and after an all-church call for volunteers went out, we only had one volunteer step up. Thankfully, we now have three dedicated volunteers that continually bless the ministry! I even had to turn one person away because our volunteer spots are covered. But I will say that in the future we will need several more volunteers, and I am slightly worried that we won't have enough volunteers for the new building. But as God has shown in the past, I am sure he will deliver.

Administration Attitude
Joe and Kory (our Music Minister and Pastor, respectively) have been amazingly open and ready to embrace new technology to help enrich worship. I am always getting e-mails from Joe asking "Could we use this video during worship?", and Kory was the one who brought forth sermon notes, which have been a big hit. These guys (and the rest of the administration) are open to new ideas (we just started using a "giving kiosk", which is a Reverse-ATM for giving money to the church), ways of going outside the box to get a sermon point across, or to help people experience God closer. If I were to pick the #2 reason why our media program is so amazing, it is these guys! (The #1 spot goes to the last section below, but don't go peaking!)

Overall Design
When AUMC needed someone to design the A/V system in the new building, they hit the nail on the head. James Nance has done an amazing job designing, building, installing, and testing our new system. He has the ability to see the whole picture, and at the same time know every detail. In the post I mentioned earlier from ChurchMedia.net someone used this metaphor:

If one wanted to remodel a home, one would hire an interior decorator. His job is to make sure everything that needs to be done is done, within the budget and time limits. He has to do research, he has to do homework, and he has to manage. He does not have to actually lay the tile, he hires a tile guy. He does not actually paint, but he hires the painter. He needs to know enough about tile and paint to make wise choices, but he need not be an expert. ~Steven

This is a great metaphor, in that most churches try to just hire tile guys and painters, they don't hire someone who can get the big picture. Well, James Nance is not only the painter and the tile guy, he is also the interior decorator! He can do everything from designing a high end system from the ground up to installing it to tweaking the audio so that even audiophiles are satisfied. I give him full credit for how amazing our new system is.

Leadership
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I give partial credit for our system to myself. I have been (indirectly or directly) in charge of the media ministry for going on five years now, and I have built and formed many of the things that we use today. I work with the administration to plan the media, and I work with and train the volunteers that run the show. And in the future I will become even more directly involved with the media ministry. As the Director of Media Ministry I will be at every service and most extracurricular services (weddings, funerals, the like). As we use more videos during service, I will spend more time behind the camera and in front of the editing suite, perfecting the videos. And there are rumors that we will start using video announcements, and that will require a lot of extra work.

But really, this section isn't about me and how good I am, it is about God. Because it was God that gave me this talent, this desire, this passion for media ministry. I give all credit to God for my talents and accomplishments. Joe is very good about praising me and my work, and I often stop him and say "It isn't me that got this done, it was God." If I deserve any acclamation it is for my devotion to the passion that God gave me; if you want to give praise for the work that I accomplish, give it to God.

This brings me to the last (really it is the first) reason that our media ministry is so blessed:

God
In every aspect God has blessed the media ministry at AUMC. God brought me to AUMC long before I even had a desire to work in church media, and now that it is the passion of my life, I see how he planned for me to be here from the beginning. He planted amazing volunteers here to help in my work. He has given us amazing administrators to be open and willing to try different approaches to things. He gives us enough money to get things done. God has blessed every aspect of this ministry, and I am so thankful for that.

That isn't to say that everything is perfect and sugar-plums. We have our areas of problems and concerns, but the blessings that God has brought here far out-shine any problem.

I look forward to see what God has planned for this ministry. I can't wait to experience worship as AUMC has never been able to offer before in our new building. Yes, we are worshiping the same God as before, and I am not saying that the current worship sucks, I just believe that what the new building has to offer will bring a new level to the worship and teachings that AUMC has to offer.

Matthew

Four videos, two weeks

2009-01-19T00:25:00.002-06:00

I am getting four videos ready for the next two Sundays.

This coming Sunday we will show a 1.5 minute promo for an Ester study series (produced by someone else), and a short Prayer Partner video that we are working on.

Next Sunday we will show a shorter promo for the Ester series (still produced by someone else), and a video that we are thinking about doing for our new Giving Kiosk. The Kiosk video is going to be a lot of fun, I just have to figure out how we are going to pull it off.

Matthew

Christmas...

2008-12-27T22:45:00.001-06:00

Yes, I know that I haven't posted much recently, but I am on Christmas vacation, so I have a good excuse.

But I did want to post about our Christmas Eve services. We had it at Argyle High School because our current sanctuary isn't big enough (and because or new building isn't ready yet... still...). Both services went amazing!

Shh, don't tell anyone, but I had some tears in my eyes at Silent Night (my favorite Christmas song).

Pictures!

Before service:

During the second service:

More photos: Gallery

Matthew

Rendering...

2008-12-19T01:58:00.003-06:00

The projector for the new church will be set to display at 1024X576 (widescreen), so I set up a preset for exporting videos at that resolution. Now, when I make a video (or download a video) and I want it to be the right resolution, I just run it through this preset. And of course I want the best quality video possible, so I turned every setting to "Best" in every possible way, I turned de-interlacing on, I turned on every possible thing to make it the best quality video...

Exporting a 2 minute video takes 8 hours.

Yes, I will make a preset that isn't set to "Best" in every possible way for those times when I don't have overnight to render a video...

Matthew

Photos...

2008-12-13T01:43:00.002-06:00

I have uploaded the latest photos to the photo album above. I have also posted them for easy viewing here: link

Matthew

Another Update

2008-12-10T00:06:00.002-06:00

For those that read this, I will give an update. We have been working hard at finalizing everything in the sound booth. Lots of finishing touches are getting made. For example, today we labeled everything... the sound board, the switcher, cables, the racks... lots of little sticky paper was coming out of that label maker.

Outside of that there isn't much to report. We are having problems with our aspect ratio with the projector and switcher. But that is all.

Matthew

Arg...

2008-12-03T01:30:00.001-06:00

Due to a job that had me working until 6 AM (plus an hour drive home), I wasn't able to get to the new church site this morning, but Thursday and Friday are clear for me, I hope to get lots of work done then!

Matthew

A small update

2008-12-01T23:30:00.002-06:00

I just wanted to throw out a quick update. Due to Thanksgiving, not much progress has been made in the past week. However, there are a few things that have happened.

As you can see from my last post, the large front screen has been hung and the projector has been aligned to it. I haven't seen it in action, so I am looking forward to that.

Also, the new computer for the booth has been ordered (on Black Friday for extra savings). It should be in in a few days, and I look forward to playing with that new toy... err, umm, that new pice of equipment. Ya.

Overall, things are coming together. The computer is the last large pice of equipment that we will have to install, so from here on out it is the small things we have to worry about.

Right now, lots of thoughts are going through my head; about how I am excited that this process is drawing to a close; about how I am looking forward to our first Sunday; about how I am looking forward to leading a team of volunteers. So far, my involvement in the new building has been helping James install things and making decisions about where equipment will go. Soon, though, I will be busy training volunteers, testing the system, practicing with the band, and soon running services in our new building. I can't wait to praise God in our new sanctuary.

Matthew

Big Screen...

2008-11-23T22:11:00.001-06:00

Just thought I would post some quick pics of the screen in the new sanctuary:

From the sound booth:

Matthew

Big Screen...

2008-11-21T02:05:00.000-06:00

I hear that the big screen has been hung, but I haven't had the chance to make it out there to take some pictures... maybe on my way out of town tomorrow I can swing by for some quick pics for ye old blog.

Matthew

CD Ministry

2008-11-12T19:17:00.002-06:00

I have been thinking about our CD ministry. We currently mail out about 5 CDs a week to shut-ins, and every once in a while we will burn a CD for someone who asks. This process is tedious, because we have to get the audio files to people that will be burning the CD, then we have to make labels, mail out CDs... it is time consuming for several volunteers.

So how can we make this process better and easier? Well, for starters, we will have a CD recorder in the booth, so we won't have to record on the computer, then burn that to CD. (However, we are still planning on recording on the computer for internet/archive use.) From there, we will need a quick way to duplicate them. While there is no CD duplicator in the budget, one might have to be bought to speed along this process. Using the duplicator, it is easy to make lots of copies fast (It can duplicate a CD in three minutes. That means if you have a duplicator with three burners, you can burn one CD per minute.)

But what about labeling the CDs? I plan on buying bulk pre-printed CDs. This keeps the cost down while making the presentation very professional. The one not-so-professional aspect is that if we use pre-printed CDs we will have to include blanks for Date, Sermon Title, etc., and someone will have to hand-write those in. I hope we can find a tech guy with pretty (handsome?) handwriting...

As to how people will order the CDs, I have several thoughts. The main thought is to have a table somewhere (probably in front of the sound booth). On the table would be "ordering envelopes". These envelopes would be the same type of envelope that we use for tithing/giving, but it would be printed for purchasing CDs. It would have blanks for them so that people can fill out what they want, IE: date, sermon title, full service or just sermon, etc. The CD would be a "suggested donation" of three dollars (which they would put into the envelope). This covers our costs, but doesn't make it a hinderance if someone doesn't want to pay for it. We might even want to put out pre-printed manila envelopes that are big enough to mail a CD in. If someone wants us to mail it to them, they just fill out the manila envelope so that all we have to do is drop the burned CD in.

Another random idea: have a sign saying that peope could "sponsor a shut-in". For $200 they could pay for a year of mailing CDs to a shut-in. This would help cover the cost of this ministry.

Anywho, this goes under "some random thing that Matthew is thinking about way too much," but oh well. What do you think? Are these good ideas or bad ideas? How does your church do it?

Matthew

Good and Bad...

2008-11-09T11:39:00.002-06:00

Today during the services, Pastor Kory announced that there is good news and bad news about the new building.

The good news: We have a projected "move-in date" of December 14th.

The bad news: This doesn't mean that our first service will be December 14th. We will need to move stuff from this church to the new one (like 500 chairs), we need to perfect the sound system, etc. Also, we decided that we don't want to rush everything to have Christmas Eve services (our second busiest day of the year for the church) at the new building. So our plans are to have the Christmas Eve services at Argyle High School. This will accommodate the hundreds of people that will be at the services. We will move into the new building soon after that.

Anywho, I just thought I would pass along the information.

Matthew

Sunday Morning Bible Study

2008-11-08T00:54:00.002-06:00

First, let me say that I should be getting to sleep right now, and I pray that God will see this time writing this post as a sacrifice, and that he would reward me with rest. =: >

Second, for your consideration (not only because it is a cool scripture, but because it is the scripture that I was reading that made me get up to write this post): Ephesians 6:10-20

OK, on to business. I have been thinking a lot about the new tech team, and specifically how I am going to lead the new tech team. A general idea has been beating around the bushes, and tonight it cleared up: I don't want to just lead a bunch of guys into working perfectly as an AV team. Yes, leading worship is a large goal that this team has, but I am now convinced that this is not what God is calling me to have as my main goal.

I believe that God is calling me to minister to the people in the tech team. And I don't mean "minister" like a pastor does, or "minister" like an accountability partner does. I feel that God is calling me to help people focus on God. Too often I see teams in churches get the job done, but not much more. For example, every Sunday morning at AUMC, long before any service starts, everyone involved in worship (IE: the staff) gets together and goes over the services; who is doing what, the topic of the day, any special announcements that need to be made, etc.. And then they pray.

This weekly meeting is effective because it gets things done. I realized that every Sunday our tech team will need a similar meeting to cover similar (but media focused) topics. But I don't want it to be a simple quick meeting; I feel like there is an opportunity to do more. See, in the staff meeting, everyone there is on staff and knows their parts well, but my volunteer team will be much less focused and aimed, ready to fire on all cylinders (sorry about the mixed metaphors).

Before I go on, let me backtrack a moment. As all three readers of this blog well know, we have been working on the AV system in the new building, getting things ready. About a week ago some painters were going though the building, re-painting all of the door frames. We were working in the booth that day, so we were constantly going in and out of the booth. If you have seen pictures of the booth or have been on site, you know that there are several steps right inside the doorway to the booth, so as you are walking out of the booth it is very natural and often necessary to put your hands on the top of the door frame to steady yourself. If you can't see where this is going, you need to go back to 6th grade: yes, we now have not one, but two lovely handprints forever embossed on our door frame. (And from two different people, neither one me, I might add.)

Anywho, the painted-on-handprints led us to start joking about football stadiums that have sayings over doorways, so that as players walk through the doorway they see the saying and reach up and slap it. We decided that we needed to put a sign over the door that people would see every time they left the booth, because they are already putting their hands up to touch the door frame.

When we were talking about it that day, I took it as a joke; but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I like the idea of having something (probably a scripture) there to remind people of our purpose, our reason for being here (both specifically volunteering at the church, and our reason for being here on Earth). The more I thought about it, the less I could narrow down what I wanted to put up there. I soon had the idea of every week having a different scripture, just to give volunteers something to think about and to help them stay focused. I took it one step further: I was thinking that it would be a good idea for, every Sunday morning, before any service, us to get together as a tech team and first read over the scripture of the week, then pray. At that point, we could have our tech meeting, I would tell them what they needed to know for the services.

OK, bringing the two halves of this post together: I again took it one step further. The following is my hair-brained idea. It is the ramblings of a brain that needs sleep, but here goes: The two tech volunteers and I show up at the same time, probably at 7:45. I go to the 7:45 staff meeting, while the volunteers turn on the system and get everything ready. At 8:00 (or whenever the staff meeting gets out), I grab the two (or however many there are) volunteers and we head into a conference room (that is, if we can find an open one). In the room, apart from the hustle-and-bustle of everything else, we would have a 5 minute "Mini Bible Study." It wouldn't be in-depth or profound, but it would be enough to help people focus on WHY we are here volunteering, on HOW we can serve God, on WHO we are serving. (The studies would not be geared for these specific topics, those are the reasons for the study.) After the study, which would focus on the scripture that is hanging over the sound booth door, we would pray, go over anything about the service that needs to get covered, then at 8:10 head to the booth for final prep. This would give us plenty of time before our 8:30 service to have things ready to go.

Yes, I know that taking 10 minutes of busy time could be a bad thing, but I think that having volunteers (and of course myself) focused on God BEFORE we start leading worship for others could be an amazing tool to help us be focused and ready to glorify God.

Is this a good idea, or just a waste of precious time? I love to hear any and all feedback on all of my posts. =: >

Matthew

Header

2008-11-07T00:44:00.000-06:00

Well, we have a new header (meaning the photo at the top of the blog). Like it?

I love the back-lit cross!

Matthew

An Apple for your thoughts...

2008-11-04T21:06:00.003-06:00

As our country decides who our next president will be, I am trying to get my mind off of the idea that we are picking the wrong guy. So, here is what I am thinking about for the computer and computer software in our new building. I put this here to get your feedback. If I am missing something, or you disagree with me, speak out and tell me what you think!

Hardware:
iMac: $2,368.00
24", 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, 500GB hard drive, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB memory, price includes Apple Care.
Honestly, this one buggs me. I know that it wouldn't be smart, but part of me says "Wait until Apple updates the iMac" (which should be mid-January). See, my last iMac I bought two months before they were upgraded, and it still buggs me that I missed out on a better computer for the same price. I guess I am destined to do it again. Anywho, I want to get the top of the line iMac. If we will be doing video and other heavy processing, I figure it is worth the extra couple hundred bucks to get the best.

Some kind of mouse: $30-$100
Sorry Apple, the Mighy Mouse sucks, especially if you need precision mousing like we will need. So I suggest that we splurge on a different mouse. I personally own the Logitech MX Revolution. It is expensive (just under $100), but it is an AMAZING wireless mouse.

Apple Mini-DVI to DVI Adapter: $19.00
A monitor cable to hook the iMac up to our video system.

Kensington lock: $30
So the iMac doesn't walk away.

2 more GB of RAM: $30
Lots cheaper than the $150 Apple wanted.

Necessary Software: (IE: Software we will use on a weekly basis)
ProPresenter: $340
This will be the backbone of what we project. We will use it for projecting songs, scriptures, videos, etc. The more I use this program, the more I like it.

Microsoft Office: (already purchased)
For those times that we need to use PowerPoint, we will need Office. It has served us well so far, so we will have it in case we need it. (The sermon notes might end up being displayed in Office every week.)

Audacity: Free!
Audacity is a great app for recording audio. It will be easy to record the audio from the board so that we can easily put sermons on the website.

DropBox: $100/year
A great utility for moving and sharing files on several computers. I will probably pay the upgrade for 50GB so that we can store everything online... this will also serve as an off-site backup.

Not Necessary Software (IE: Software that we won't use on a weekly basis, but it will probably be installed on the computer anyway)
Quicksilver: Free
A great little app that can do just about anything. If you haven't used it, it is hard to explain what it is. If you have used it, you know why it will be on the computer.

Covenant Eyes: $100/year
Covenant Eyes is a program that watches what web pages you view and it reports to someone else what you have looked at. While mainly used for people seeking an "accountability parter", it can also be used for keeping track of what others are looking at on your computer. Not that I plan on the internet being abused on the church computer, but I think it is wise to hold people accountable when they are browsing the web.

Adium: Free
A multi-client IM program. We might use this to receive notices from the children's wing.

Meteorologist: Free
A great weather-in-the-menu-bar app.

Maybe Later Software (IE: Software that we will need one day, but probably won't get right away.)
PhotoShop Elements: $90
This is good for editing backgrounds and photos and stuff. There have been many Sunday morning where I was in the booth and just wanted to touch-up a photo so bad...

Final Cut Express: $200
For basic video editing and the like. However, iMovie will have to do for now.

Well, I am sure that I have left something out, in which case I will add it in later. Outside of things I have missed, what do you think of the list?

EDIT: I have added: Kensington lock, extra RAM, DropBox, and Meteorologist.

Matthew

Not much...

2008-11-03T17:39:00.003-06:00

Short work day today. We got the projectors installed, and built the two light bars that will hang over the choir. In the next few days, James will work on the punchdowns. Next week we will start the heavy working again.

Matthew

From nothing to fast in...

2008-10-30T22:51:00.002-05:00

Well, before this morning I hadn't worked at the new church in two weeks, so it had been going slow... but so much has changed in the last 24 hours.

Without going into too much detail (as to not bore you), I have entered into an alliance with someone at church, someone that I should have been partnered up with a long time ago, but because of my personal problems I did not allow that to happen. Thankfully, I have forgotten the past, and now look forward to working with him in the weeks, months, and years to come.

We also got to work up at the new building today... WOW, what a difference a bit of carpet can make! (see the photo gallery above to see pictures) Because of the carpet, we can now start doing some real work, cleaning things up, attaching cables to things... all the fun stuff that I have been waiting for.

So anywho, things are (for real) now starting to get busy. I hope to soon give a "tour" of the place, to show off all of the new toys... but that won't be for another couple of weeks (I had originally planned on doing it by now, but now it probably won't be until near or after Thanksgiving). Please pray for us as we do these installations; please pray that we make the best decisions, that we are lead in everything that we do, and that God keeps us safe.

Matthew

Carpet

2008-10-28T16:30:00.000-05:00

Yea! Carpet is in! That means we can start having some real fun up at the new building!

Matthew

Photos: Updated

2008-10-23T00:14:00.002-05:00

Yea, I finally got the photos updated. I added over 50 photos to make a round 200, including:

Photos from around the building,
photos of them installing the cross on the front of the building,
photos of the new cross (including one taken at night... the cross is back-lit!),
photos of the new carpet in the children's wing (taken today).

Anywho, I hope you enjoy them. Look for "Sept_28" on page 2 when you click on the "photos" tab above.

Matthew

Photos...

2008-10-20T23:17:00.002-05:00

For the first few months of this blog, I was taking many photos every week at the new site. I would go out on a Sunday afternoon and get 20 or 30 photos from around the building.

Lately, however, I have been lax on the photo taking. Most of my photos have centered around the booth/sanctuary. So yesterday, after church, I went by and took around 50 photos from around the building, including two panoramics of the sanctuary.

That is the good news. The bad news is I keep forgetting my camera in my car, so I haven't uploaded the photos yet. Don't worry, they will come soon. =: >

Matthew

No video...

2008-10-18T02:50:00.000-05:00

Well, I told a bunch of people that this weekend we will be showing Part 3 of our Satan Interview series... but I lied. Because of time constraints and because this weekend's service will be special, we won't be showing the interview... hopefully next week it will be shown.

Matthew

An Avalanche of Videos

2008-10-03T02:14:00.003-05:00

AUMC is being covered with videos.

From two Sundays ago to three Sundays from now, we will average two videos a Sunday. This is a huge upgrade from before when we would play at most two videos a month. The videos these five weeks all fit into one of three categories: "Satan Interviews" (we still have one left), announcements, or "Giving Interviews" (a two week video series that will give the testimonies of people in the congregation).

This explosion of videos is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because personally, I am a video guy. I enjoy producing, making, and showing videos. And from every account that I have heard we are getting great responses from the congregation about the videos (which is good, because I was slightly worried that the older portion of our members wouldn't appreciate it as much). It is also a curse because it is a lot of work for me to do all of the pre-production, shooting, editing, finalizing, and everything else that goes along with creating videos. But it is a mixed curse, because while it is a lot of work, I enjoy the work; it is fun for me. One half of me regrets that I am doing this for (almost) no pay, while the other half is glad that I am able to use the talent that God gave me to glorify his Kingdom.

Today I was working on the "Giving Interviews" (as I am calling it, there is no official name for these videos). Below is a screenshot of the timeline. It is relatively simple (Actually more simple than the Satan Interviews because while both interviews were two camera shoots, during the "Giving Interview" both of the cameras were basically the same shot. Also, the audio is much better this time around, I didn't have to tweak every sentence like I did with the other videos.). The music is "In the Midst" by Russell Martin (permission pending, but I doubt that he will say "No").

(click for full size)

Anywho, I am off to bed. We will be working at the new building in the morning, hanging choir speakers and such. Wish us luck!

Matthew

Layout

2008-09-29T23:48:00.002-05:00

So instead of going to sleep tonight (like I should), I am going to post here the layout of our new sound booth. Don't worry, most of this was typed out for a post at ChurchMedia.net (an amazing site, BTW), I just have to change a few things so it will flow here.

Anywho, on with the important (IE: fun) things. First the overlook, then I will explain:

(And when I say "Not Drawn to Scale", I really mean that! Click on the "photos" tab above for recent shots of the booth (remember to go to Page 2). They will give you a more accurate feel of the space.)

OK, here is the explanation. We decided to leave the "main rack" in the corner, and pull it out if we need to get to the back of it. This will allow the most space in the sound booth; it will also cordon off the back of the rack so that it would be hard to accidently bump something back there. I am not worried too much about the video guy needing room; we will buy stools for the booth, and there is plenty of space to sit/stand/move around (we were moving around it all day today and had no problems).

The audio mixing board will be in the booth, centered on the window. To the left there will be the lighting board. It won't be used much, but it is there. (On a side note: Good news! We will be able to control house lights from inside the booth... yea! Great job getting that done, guys! I think that this is a small thing that can make a huge impact when used well.)

To the right of the audio mixing board will be a short rack with audio stuff in it. This is so that the audio guy can have quick access to things he needs. To the right of that will be a short rack with video stuff, including the scaler/switcher. Above the video rack, we will hang the computer monitor(s) on the wall. This will be a great placement for the video guy, and it will give us more counter space.

We designed the space not only for the "now" but also thinking into the future. We know that there are some changes that we would like to make to make the system optimal, and while I hate not being able to make the system optimal now, I understand that it is not practical to make those things happen. So, the idea is to one day in the future renovate the sound booth to build it out into the sanctuary, basically adding another counter 5 feet in front of the counter that is there now. At that time we would move the audio mixer and other audio stuff to the new counter, freeing up lots of space on the back counter.

Once we free up all of that counter space, we could do something else: cut out the end of the counter and put the main rack where the "short video rack" is in the sketch up there. This would make even more room in the sound booth.

However, if we did that, we would run into a problem. The original plan was to run the wires under the booth and up the back wall to get to the rack (there is an access panel to get under the booth, so it is very easy to get under there). But if we move the rack to where the counter is now, then the cables would be strung the wrong way, we would have to re-punch all of the cables to the patch bay, and that is not something that I want to do.

The compromise is to build a "trench" along the back wall (it is the red line in the sketch above). It will be small (several inches tall, several inches deep), and because we are doing it now, it will be carpeted over, it will have a nice cover that is supported so if someone steps on it it won't break, and it will be easier to run cables instead of crawling under the booth every time we change something. Again, this isn't "optimal", but it opens lots of doors without closing any.

So that is the plan as it stands. I am confident that we have made the best overall decisions while limiting our loses. I am looking forward to getting in and actually installing some of these things in the space.

Matthew

Photos

2008-09-28T20:10:00.003-05:00

I updated the photos!

I cleared out the album that had 100-odd photos that I hadn't updated since May. Out of 450+ photos of the new building taken since February, I picked over 160 to be in the current album. Many of the photos on the first page of the album you may recognize, but when you get to the second page, past May, those are all NEVER SEEN BEFORE photos!

Wow, saying that almost makes this all exciting.

Anywho, head on over to the photo site (link if you can't find the "photo" button on the top of this page) and see the latest photos of the church!

Matthew

An Update

2008-09-23T17:33:00.002-05:00

Well today was another day of working on the new site, installing the new sound system. Today we installed the "trench", cut holes in the floor, untangled all of the cables that had been run before, and ran the cables from where they come out under the sound booth over and up into the trench, ready for installation into the main rack.

I don't have time to do it right now, but I have a few posts I want to write out. One is explaining the layout of the new system, IE: where everything will sit in the sound booth this will explain the "trench" mentioned above). I also need to clean up the photo album, and add the latest photos (I haven't uploaded any in a while).

Oh, and I want to welcome the third official reader of this blog: Welcome, James Nance. James is the guy who is installing our new system, so be nice to him!

Matthew

AUMC Satan Interview #2

2008-09-21T22:17:00.000-05:00

Here is part 2 of the AUMC's Satan Interview series. Enjoy!

Matthew

We are in!

2008-09-19T18:25:00.005-05:00

So today was my first "work day" at the new building. All we did was run a few cables through the conduit, but it was still lots of fun.

What was even more important was that we made a lot of decisions today. We finalized the layout of the sound booth, so now we know where everything will go. I don't want to repeat myself, so if you want to know about the new layout, head on over to this post where I described it all.

Anywho, thanks for reading. Just the thought that there MIGHT be someone reading this makes my ego flutter.

Matthew

Give it up!

2008-09-19T18:25:00.002-05:00

So I was working on Satan Interview #3 today, and I saw this frame and just had to share it:

Oh, and here is another one:

Matthew

Satan Interview Week #1

2008-09-14T22:36:00.003-05:00

Last week I teased this a little bit, but this week we finally showed it: The video that we did of Pastor Kory Knott interviewing "Satan" (played by Joe Stobaugh). We had a lot of fun doing it, and it got a great response from the church when we played it this morning.

Anywho, I uploaded it to YouTube, so here is Satan Interview Week 1:

Matthew

PS: Just to wet your whistle a little, there are two more weeks to go!
PSS: If anyone knows how to get good quality YouTube video

Jazz Fun

2008-09-14T20:50:00.002-05:00

Tonight we had a special service called "Soul Cafe". The theme for tonight was "Jazz", so it was basically an hour long jazz worship session. It was a load of fun for everyone! We had some great musicians playing, lots of great music, and everyone was worshiping God.

Anywho, I had a lot of fun. This reminds me why I enjoy Church Media so much. Sure I was running around last minute like a head with my chicken cut off, but it was all worth it. The praise, the glory lifted to God was amazing.

But what really got my adrenaline pumping was that it was different. Sure, Sunday church is fun, but it has become mundane and predictable. When I am having to run around and fix all of the small problems at the last minute, that is my forte. When I was in college, taking lots of Radio, TV, and Film classes, my favorite times were always when we were in the TV studio doing live production. The "it has to get done now or we fail" really gets my blood pumping.

For example, tonight we sang the song The Summons. When I had the last minute check-over-the-PPT-file-with-Joe, he pointed out that I didn't have the lyrics to the song, so I would have to add them (from this morning's PPT, a simple copy/paste). But leave it to me, I forgot. So, we are going through the service and Joe introduces the song... and I realize that I don't have the lyrics. So, while they start playing their jazz intro, I look on the hard drive for this morning's file... it isn't there. Not in the trash, not in the normal folder, I have no idea where it went. So I grabbed my USB thumbdrive and thew it onto the computer, opened the PPT file from the morning, found the song (at the end of the file, of course), and copied and pasted the lyrics into the currently running PPT file, all in about 20 seconds. And I got the lyrics on the screen only about three words late. If I never told anyone about me forgetting to copy the lyrics over, then no one would have noticed that I had just saved the song from total disaster (or at minimum a lot of confusion).

I was able to do that (and other such feats of awesomeness) because I have been doing the sound booth for well over four years at AUMC (and a year at another church), and I have lots of practice and experience fixing problems on the go. And I have to say, being able to save the day makes me proud. I try not to be prideful, but I do have pride in the work that I do.

I also want to point out that none of this is my doing. Joe Stobaugh is always telling me what a great job I do, and how much I do for the church, and I always want to reply: "I'm not the one that deserves credit for this, it is God!" See, I totally believe that God used circumstance and coincidence to bring me to AUMC and thus for getting me into the Church Media business. Today I can't imagine not doing Church Media, whereas five years ago I had never given it a thought. It is by God's grace and guidance that he has brought me here and has groomed me into being the amazing sound guy that I am. (This is why I can call myself "an amazing sound guy" and not be prideful, because it is not by my doing that I am amazing.)

So when you see me do hard work and pull something extraordinary off, know that I do have pride in what I do, but I also fully understand that it is by God's grace and love that I am able to do the extraordinary. Don't give me credit, give it to God (although, a "thanks" to me now and then won't hurt).

Matthew

Satan...

2008-09-05T21:01:00.002-05:00

I don't want to let the cat out of the bag too soon, but here is a screen shot of a project that will be shown this weekend at church (click for larger view):

Matthew

New Worship Outline

2008-09-05T12:21:00.002-05:00

One of the main topics in the meetings that I have been in is "When we move into the new building, what will our worship schedule be?" We knew we wanted at least one contemporary service, but we also wanted a service with a strong chancel choir. The other question was: "Do we switch to those services now, or wait for the new building?"

Well, the decisions have been made, and they were announced via e-mail this week. Here is the e-mail that I got from Joe, our "Minister of Music, Worship, and the Arts":

Greetings friends!

I hope this email finds you well! It is with great pleasure that I write you this evening announcing our new plan for the Sunday worship schedule at AUMC. Beginning Sunday, October 5th, the following will be the AUMC Worship Schedule:

8:45: The music at this service will be led by Joe, Anastasia, and various soloists. We will ask for some folks to help lead the congregational singing from time to time but the chancel choir will not be the primary worship leaders in this service. My hope is that in three years the primary choir for this service will be a youth choir.

10:00 The music at this service will be led by Joe, Anastasia, and various soloists until we move to the new building. Once we move to the new campus this service will be led primarily by Nathan Bryant and the evensong band.

11:15: The music at this service will be led by the chancel choir.

5:30: evensong (which begins Sunday, September 21st)

Occasionally all of the musical groups will sing at the various services but the primary leadership will fall as listed above.

Of course, there is no perfect decision that fits everyone's needs/desires but this schedule has been arrived at via prayer and months (literally) of discussion around the ideas of the identity of the various services, our ability to provide the highest quality worship leadership that we can, the mission of the church, and the future of the church as a whole.

If this schedule provides significant challenges to you, I would invite you to talk to me about it and we can find ways for you to participate other than in the mediums listed.

It is truly an honor and a privilege to serve as the minister of music, worship, and the arts at AUMC and I am so thankful that God has seen it fit to put us together at this point in our journey's! You are a blessing! May we all realize that we are blessed because God is going to bless others through us!

Have a wonderful weekend!

In Christ,

Joe

So, to say it again, the early service is cutting out their choir (they may keep a few people to add voice). The middle service will stand as it is for now, but in the new building will become the contemporary service, and the late service will continue to grow it's chancel choir. I think that this is the best of all worlds. Every plan that we talked about had pros and cons, and this plan had the most pros with the least cons.

I hope that come October 5th, everyone will agree that the new worship schedule will work out best for everyone.

Matthew

The REAL Update

2008-09-04T00:28:00.002-05:00

(I should note I wrote this over the weekend, so this information is about 5 days old.)

OK, so I teased you guys in my last post, so here is the REAL update about what is going on in the AUMC A/V world:

A few weeks ago the sound system's installation started. Granted, in the last two weeks only the speakers and some lights have been hung, but work has started! Sadly, I have a "real" job now, so my involvement in the project has become minimal (to my dismay). Oh well, life will go on.

A few pictures before we go on. The current sanctuary (from roughly the perspective of the sound booth):

The speakers (this is the right side array):

The lights (from the perspective of the pulpit):

And the sound booth (from the perspective of the door... not that the door can see things...):

Moving on...

We have been having meetings galore, which is great (I am new to meetings, so I still enjoy them). We had a meeting with the worship team about when we will be moving into the new building, and how that transition will work. We had a meeting about planning the worship services... but I had to miss that meeting (*sob*). I will be having a few more meetings in the next week to solidify some things. These meetings are not only are a wealth of information, they show me that things are starting to get interesting. I can say that our furthest projected move-in date is mid December. We hope to be in sooner than that, but that is our "we won't push past this unless something major comes up" date.

In about three weeks I will start forming the new tech team. I am throwing around ideas in my head, but I am thinking about having an open meeting for anyone who is interested. It would be at the new building after a Sunday service, and pizza should get lots of people there. I hope that we will have a nice sized group of people that are willing to become a part of our new tech team.

Over all, the ball has started rolling. Things are getting interesting, and in just a few months we should be in our new building.

Matthew

Update...

2008-08-26T17:08:00.002-05:00

Wow, it has been a month with no update, and five months without updating the picture of the building... And now things are starting to heat up, things are happening, meetings are being met, and while the move-in date for the church has been moved back (again again again), the ball has finally started to roll.

Oh well. No one ever checks this blog, so why even post?

Which of course is not true. I get the smackling of random Google searches (who searches for "what will being a leader now do for me in the future"?), and I have one or two loyalists who check it regularly (Hi mom and Joe!). But outside of that, not many people swing by here.

And it isn't a problem, I don't mind. First, I never really update. Second, this is a very niche blog, speaking about an audio/video team at a small Texas church.

So why even post, or have the blog? Is it narcissism that keeps me posting here? (I sure hope not!)

Actually, the specific reason that I wanted to post today is two fold: A) so that I can get back into the habit of posting here, and B) so that in three months when I build up a ministry team that uses this blog, the archives won't be empty.

Anywho, I will (I hope) soon start posting about the goings on. I was going to add other updates to this post, but I wanted this post to be a random set of thoughts and musings from me, and I will get the real updates in their own post(s).

Anywho again, thanks for reading this. I hope that you will hear from me soon.

Matthew

Featured Ministry

2008-07-13T21:59:00.002-05:00

Another random idea:

For our "new service" (IE: when we get into the new building), we could have a "Featured Ministry" video every week.

Each week we feature a different ministry of AUMC (or something in the surrounding area like the Food Bank). The video would be about a minute long, and it would include an interview with someone in the ministry which may be a testimonial about how it has changed someone's life, or how they are active in the ministry. Then it would give information about how to join/help the ministry.

I imagine this video being played after the "greet your neighbors" part of the service. It creates a nice bumper to help people get back in their seats, instead of Todd interrupting everyone's conversation.

Suggesting things like this is dangerous for me, because I will be the one doing all of the work! But I figure with a one minute video, all I need is half an hour for b-roll, half an hour for an interview, and an hour or two for editing, this could be an under-5-hours per week thing for me, and I think it would be a great ministry in and of itself.

What are your thoughts?

Matthew

Blog...

2008-07-10T00:22:00.002-05:00

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you... there just isn't a lot going on in the AUMC AV world. Really. The new building has been pushed back, so we aren't installing stuff yet... Don't worry, you will be the first to know when we do!

Matthew

A random idea...

2008-06-20T23:25:00.002-05:00

Here is a random idea (thanks to Church Media Design):

When you want to advertise a special event, or even a normal event, use business cards! Business cards are cheap to buy ($17 for 500), and are a great handout for people.

(I am sure that I really want to say more about this, but my brain just officially shut down...)

Matthew

OK, Fine!

2008-06-07T01:21:00.002-05:00

Fine, I will post!

There, I did it.

But, really... I think that the reason that it is hard to post here is because no one reads it. OK, two people read it, and one already knows most of what I will say, so it just seams easier to call the other person than to post here for no one. Hopefully, though, soon it won't be no one. In fact, I have great ideas for this blog. For example, it will one day be the weekly reminder as to who is working on Sunday, and if one person cannot make it, they just reply to the post.

But anywho, this blog isn't about me... OK, it really is (at least if it hasn't been, I will make it now). I am pleased to announce my new title at Argyle UMC: Director of Media Ministries! (actually, it is currently "Director of Media Ministry," and I am seeking clarification if it is "y" or "ies"... what do you think?)

But before I talk more about that, it is STORY TIME again! As I have hinted at before, the tech team at AUMC has never had a leader. It has always been a group of volunteers that stepped in when something was needed. For the small church, this was OK. But for the new church, this simply won't work. Each service will need several volunteers to help man the stations, and we need someone in charge of training and scheduling these volunteers (as well as be in charge of the well-being of the equipment).

Long story short (trust me, I could go on and on about this): Argyle UMC decided to hire me as the lead AV guy. That was about a month ago, but it was not all well. The problem is, many people in the church (volunteer and staff) are used to working without a lead AV guy. So even though I had the title, I felt that the position was not defined. I needed to sit down with someone and write out a job description, then send it to everyone so that when something needs getting done, they now know who to report to.

Therefore: I had a meeting this week with Joe, our "Associate Pastor/Minister of Music, Worship, and the Arts" (I am glad I don't have THAT as my title). (he is in charge of the entire "worship experience", and because "media" falls under that category, I report to him) We outlined the job description of the "Director of Media Ministries", as well as a discussion on where the position would be in the future. The meeting was great, and it helped me see both the great possibilities of this title, and the limitations of it.

I would love to talk about what is defined on the "job description," but it is still under review. I am sure that it still needs clarification and re-wording. Hopefully, once it gets done, I can post it here so that it will be a public declaration of what I do, so there won't be any more confusion.

Moving on...

Have you ever been interested in worship media? Have you ever been a part (volunteer or paid) of a church's media team? Have you ever been any king of leader in a church? If you answered "Yes!" to any of these questions, then you need Creative Synergy. No, this isn't a pill. It is a podcast directed to all of the leaders in churches. It is mainly about technology, but it is not only for "geeks". They try hard to make it interesting to both geeks and pastors.

For example, they had an episode devoted to copyright and copyright law. This may sound boring to some people, but it was an interesting discussion with (real) lawyers about the rights and wrongs of church using someone else's media. They talk about important issues for small churches (websites, for example) and important issues for large churches (how to go multi-campus). They even gave me the above idea to use a blog as your communication point with your volunteer team. It is an amazing listen for everyone, and I highly recommend it to everyone! (Creative Synergy homepage, iTunes link)

Well, that is about it for now. I am sure that there is more to say, but this is a big enough post as it is... after fasting for a while, you don't go eat a whole turkey, you have to eat small meals so that your body can get used to it again. Well, this is my "small meal", in hopes that I will start blogging here again.

Ta ta for now!

Matthew

Reminder...

2008-05-14T23:08:00.003-05:00

Remind me one day to update you here. Oh, and remind me to update that picture up there... I have new ones, but I always forget to upload it.

Matthew

PS: I haven't been updating this because from what I can tell, there is only one regular visitor that checks this blog (hi mom!). So if you check via RSS or some such, open this actual post and surf around for a moment so I can see you on my tracker!

Behringer MDX-2600 COMPOSER PRO-XL COMPRESSOR - BEMDX2600

2008-03-27T10:38:00.002-05:00

Hey all! I have three things for you today.

1) We have been having problems with the computer in the booth recording the service (the signal is peaking too much, leaving the recording useless), so I have installed a Behringer MDX-2600 COMPOSER PRO-XL COMPRESSOR. I read through the manual, and have a basic idea of what each knob does, but I don't know how to use the knobs to make a better (less peak-y) sound. If you have any idea, feel free to let me know!

2) I have uploaded more pictures into the gallery! I usually upload pictures every other week, so always check out the latest! If I have some free time sometime soon, I want to make an interactive map using the layout of the church so you can tell where the pictures were taken. If I have the time...

3) OK, this is on the personal side of things, but I still have to share it. The other night I had one of those dreams that you don't want to wake from because good things are happening. I dreamed that Liz (our children's director) met me at lunch and gave me what I have always wanted: an iPhone. And it wasn't even an iPhone, it was TWO iPhones! She wanted me to use them for the ministry. One was 2 gig and one was 8 gig, and I told her "I can tell that you bought the two gig a while ago because they don't offer the two gig any more, and you bought the eight gig recently because they just started offering that one a few months ago" (I know that this is not true, but that is what I said). So anyway, if anyone wants to buy an iPhone for the AUMC AV "team" (or just me), donations are greatly appreciated.

Matthew

Last thought

2008-03-15T21:32:00.002-05:00

Two things:
1) I am going out of town for a week on a mission trip to Washington DC. Because of this, there will be no updates until after Easter.

2) Here is something to think about this week while I am gone:
Luke 14:12-14
Then Jesus said to the Pharisee who had invited him, "When you give a lunch or a dinner, don't invite only your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. At another time they will pay you back by inviting you to eat with them. Instead, when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, and the blind. Then you will have great blessings, because these people cannot pay you back. They have nothing. But God will reward you at the time when all godly people rise from death."

Matthew

No more PowerPoint!

2008-03-13T21:17:00.002-05:00

*whew* I don't want to ever see the PowerPoint window again! Or at least until tomorrow.

Because I will be out of town all next week on a mission trip, I had to create four PPT files this week: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. And because the Thursday and Friday services are full of liturgy/scripture reading, it took extra long to make those. I usually spend no more than 45 minutes on any given PPT file, but tonight, I have been working in PowerPoint for well over five hours...

And I am happy to say, that except for one item, I got everything done! That one item was a scripture reading: John 18:1-19:42, which is extremely long. It would have been 70 slides long, doubling the length of the PPT right now, and it would have taken me close to an hour just to get that one scripture put into PowerPoint.

Yes, right about now, I would greatly appreciate a non-linear presentation software, so that all I would have to do is say "I want John 18:1-19:42" and it displays it. Oh well, maybe next time.

And yes, I am still waiting to give you news about our new AV system. It was my understanding that people wanted to sign the contract last week, but still nothing has happened. Trust me, you will know when it happens.

Matthew

Old AV system walkthrough

2008-03-08T01:44:00.004-06:00

The AV system at the current AUMC is hodge-podge at best.

From the best I can tell, here is a brief history of the system (if I am wrong on a point, or you can add to the story, please let me know!):
My brother (Stephen) first got involved with AUMC because they needed a youth pastor, and he wanted to be one. While he was there, he and his friend Brandon became involved with the AV system. At that time, the sound board and computer were in the back of the sanctuary, and at some point, the computer was moved upstairs into the sound booth (while the sound board remained downstairs).

This is where I became involved. When I started attending UNT here in Denton, my brother dragged me along (somewhat willingly) to AUMC where I helped him run the sound/video. At the time, it was a two person job, one for sound (in the sanctuary) one for video (in the booth). Stephen finally graduated from UNT and went off to seminary, leaving me alone at AUMC. I tried having youth work the services with me, but they were un-reliable and under-trained (both my fault). At some point, the decision was made to move the sound board upstairs so that one person can run the entire service.

Somewhere along in here, Carter joined me in the quest for worship excellence. The two of us together could not find it, so we recruited David and Mike to help. Together, the four of us make a merry band of AV guys that fight the evil forces of dead batteries and blown cables... OK, I don't know where this is going, so I will move on.

The following is a walkthrough of our sound system, which for some reason, I feel like walking through it backwards. We start (or end?) at our speakers. We only have two working speakers in the sanctuary, even with the stage, one in each wall. You can see them on the left and right here:

(pay attention to the above photo, I will refer back to it several times) There are actually four more speakers in the sanctuary (in similar places in the wall, only towards the back of the sanctuary), but they are not hooked up, and are probably from when the building was first built.

Tracking back from the speakers we get to our amp, and before the amp comes our Mackie sound board.

It is a nice board, but because we never turn it off, it has developed a hum (at least SOMETHING along this line has created a hum). One AUX out goes to the computer, one goes to the hearing impaired system (rarely used), and one goes to the over flow room (the fellowship hall) (you can actually see this speaker directly below the sound board in the above picture through the window). Personally, I like the numbering system that is on there... but that is probably because I created it. Our wireless packs are on the left, channels 1-6 (designated W1-W6). Then two blank spots (one of them is now W7) and then the stage inputs, channels 9-20 (S1-S12). If you know where to look, you can see written on them "Podium", "Guitar", and "C-L" and "C-R" for the choir mics.

Moving on: we currently have 7 working wireless packs, six are Senheiser EW 100 series, and one Shure for the pastor.

Sadly, the Senheisers are in the 700MHz range, so I don't know if they will be good for long. W1-W4 are lapel mics, W5 is a hand held (which is lost), and W6 and W7 are what we call "Janet Jackson mics." These are the mics that fit around the back of your head and have a big black boom that comes out in front. These are used mostly by puppeteers when we have a puppet show.

Beyond taking pictures of the mic boxes on stage or the choir mics, that is the end of the audio portion of this tour. We will stop briefly to look at the lights, then move on.

Our lighting board is in a cabinet as we hardly ever use it. In total, there are twelve spotlights that point on stage, 4 on choir, 4 on mid stage, 4 on front stage (you can see them in the second picture behind the rafters). For the most part, we just turn these on and leave them on. Of course there is other lighting in the room, but that is all controlled by lighting switches in the back of the sanctuary. Like I said, that was only a brief stop, on to...

Video. As seen in the second picture, there is a large screen TV on stage and one hanging TV on each side of the sanctuary (you can't see the right one in the photo). There is also a large screen TV in the fellowship hall similar to the one in the sanctuary. These are controlled by a simple $50 RadioShack box:

Pressing each button will switch the S-Video signal between the camera (via the VCR), the DVD player, and the computer (the left hand button is broken). As you can see in the second photo, we have a little Sonly Handycam that does our live video. This is hooked via composite cable to the VCR which is hooked into the switcher. Our computer:

... runs through a TVator, which is a little box (sitting on top of the computer) that changes the VGA signal to S-Video. And yes, our computer is sitting on top of our old tape cassette recorder because the monitor cable to the right hand monitor is very short and I am way too cheap to buy an extension cable. The computer is running Windows Vista (was bought the week Vista was released because the old computer's power supply went out), and while I have heard about a lot of problems with Vista, we have never had any problems with it. It is running PowerPoint 2003, our presentation software of choice.

Well, that is about it! If you want to see more photos, click on the "photo" tab above and scroll down to "Feb_24...". Tomorrow I will be at church and will update some of the above information to be accurate (for example the product number of our Mackie board). If you have any questions/comments, please leave a comment below! We do our best with what we have, but if you have a suggestion to make something better, please let us know!

EDIT: Here are those product numbers I promised (hopefully this means something to someone, because they are just numbers to me):
Wireless Mic: Shure PGX4
Mixer: Mackie SR24.4-VLZ Pro
EQ: Rane ME 30B
Amp: Crown CE1000
Speakers: Yamaha

Matthew

Old Church/New Church

2008-03-08T01:41:00.002-06:00

OK, so I am tired of calling them the "old church" and the "new church". Can anyone help me think of better names for them? The names can be practical or non-sensical, but we need to name them something...

Like, name the old one "The Hill" (because it is on a hill), but what would you name the other one? It isn't in a valley, and "The Flat Place" doesn't sound good.

What do you think?

Matthew

Pictures!

2008-03-07T01:21:00.004-06:00

I went out in the snow today and took a bunch of pictures and have added them to the web gallery. Click on the "photo" tab above, and scroll down to "May_06...".

Because they are putting up the outside of the building, I concentrated on taking pictures of what the textures are of the new building. Also notice that they have started putting up drywall. Trivia: The large dumpster with "TK" on it is in Kory's office.

OK, it is way too late for me to be up! I hope to bring good news about our new A/V system soon!

Matthew

Update

2008-03-05T10:49:00.002-06:00

I just thought that I would give people an update on the AV for the new building.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we met with a consultant that had several proposes for our new system. He has given us three proposals for the sound system, a proposal for lighting, and two proposals for video/projection. We talked with him for nearly two hours ironing out the details, asking questions, concerns, etc. After he left, we (staff from the church) continued to talk for another hour about the proposals and what we want to go into the new sanctuary.

So right now, we have a lot of decisions to make, decisions that will make a difference later on. Most of these decisions relate to balancing budget to necessity. Do we go with two projectors, or one? Do we need 6 SM58s and 4 wireless handhelds, or can we get away with less? Choir mics that hang from the ceiling, or put them on stands? Is a patch bay worth the money?

These are a few of the more trivial decisions. With most of the problems, if we make the wrong decision, it will cost more to fix later then it would be to install now. But we can't just install everything now; our budget is extremely tight, and every dollar that we can squeeze out of one item can go to pay for something else.

We are also on a time crunch. The quicker we make these decisions, the quicker we can sign a contract with said consultant, the quicker he can place the orders, the quicker the items come in and we can install them. (if we act soon, then the equipment should arrive just before the building is ready for it to be installed... right now we are in that "sweet spot" and if we wait any longer, then the building will stand empty while we wait on deliveries)

Please pray that we make the right decisions. There is no "right/wrong" decision in the idea that they won't work together, or that it won't look good (that is what we are paying the consultant to do). The "right/wrong"ness is related to the future: what will be good for us, what is exactly what we will need, so that we won't have to go back later and add something, and what is too much, so that we don't waste money. While we can have meetings and talk about what we want to do as a church, a lot of the decision-making-information comes from God. Only He knows what will be perfect for us six months, a year, six years down the line. I pray that God would lead us to make the right decisions now, so that we won't have problems later.

I also pray that we would be reminded that with all of the numbers, figures, products and ideas being thrown around, everything is being done for the glory of God. I pray that we remember that while it is easy to get into the mind set that "we are getting new toys to play with," we should be in the mind set of "these are tools that will be used to glorify God's kingdom."

Word of the week (thanks to our consultant): value engineer verb a derogatory term meaning to cut expenses so that the end product is no longer usable. "If we value engineer our AV system now, we will have to pay to fix it later."

Matthew

PS: Yes, I know that in the Welcome post I said that I would sign my name as "AVBlogger." Well, I have dropped that idea and will just sign my posts "Matthew". Apparently, when I wrote the welcome post, I was being optimistic.

PPT doesn't stand for Pizza Party Time (but it should): The story of a PPT file

2008-02-29T22:38:00.001-06:00

A few weeks ago I wrote an essay (of sorts) that explained in detail how I create the PowerPoint files each week for church. If you are interested, head on over and check it out!
Linky

Matthew

Transition to Leader

2008-02-26T23:20:00.002-06:00

Leadership.

In my life, I have always tried to be a good leader. From being patrol leader in Boy Scouts to being a good role model in band, I have done my best to be the best leader that I could be. But I have failed. I know many people that know me would disagree with that, and I am not saying that I failed at being a leader or that I was a bad leader. I am saying that I had high hopes of being this amazing leader person dude, and I was just a mediocre leader person dude.

But even at that point, how do you define a leader? What constitutes a leader, and what are "good" leadership skills? (and no, I don't want to take a seminar to find out) The obvious definition of a leader is someone in a leadership position, such as a boss, manager, SPL ("senior patrol leader" for those not in Boy Scouts), most elected government officials, etc. In my opinion, I am not this type of leader. Case in point, I was not a good patrol leader. I think that this is because it is hard for me to gain respect from people. I tend to be goofy, silly, rambunctious, and sarcastic, so when I try to directly lead people (AKA: be serious), I don't have their respect.

But there is another type of leader; one that leads subtly. A big brother, a good friend, a stranger walking down the street. Each of these people do not have leadership positions, but they can be a leader to those around them. For example, at our LifeGroup (small group) meetings, even in a social setting, you can tell the leaders and those looking up to the leaders. I fancy myself as this type of leader. One who does not lead by position, but one that leads by relationship. I find myself being friends and leading those that I am around. In my LifeGroup, I try to support others as we talk about tough issues. I cheer them on when they are up, and cheer them up when they are down.

So far, I have been able to keep myself out of direct leadership positions as much as possible, but soon that may not be an option. I have recently done a one-eighty, changing the way that I thought about my life. Six months ago I wanted to go out into the (Christian) movie industry and help make films. I had no disillusions that it would happen, but I had high hopes. However, now, I do not see that in my future. I am not saying that I don't want to do it, but there is something else that I would rather do: church media. I have found a new passion to help others worship. Just as the choir director leads worship while he/she is on stage, I lead worship in the sound booth. It is an amazing feeling to help hundreds of people worship God without them knowing I am there. This is my new passion in life.

But there is a problem. Before now, working at AUMC, I have not been a leader. Sure, I have recruited volunteers and I train them, but they don't work under me, they work along side of me. However, going forward, AUMC will need more than one person to lead worship. We will need three people minimum during any given service. And to do that, there will need to be a leader in charge of getting everyone on the same page. Now, I will say that AUMC has not appointed anyone to be this leader yet, but I fancy myself to be said leader. If I am not, then the whole point is moot, you can disregard this post, and I can go on with my life.

But if I am that leader, then I will have to transition from being a subtle leader to being in a leadership position. This is something that I both look forward to and dread. I look forward to having this opportunity, to finally being that leader that I wanted to be when I was a kid, to be able to lead a group of men and women in a cause, and win! (and by win, I mean pull off a good church service) But I also dread the times that I will make the wrong decision, the times that my mouth fails me and I start to stutter, the times that I let others down. Those times, I will wish that I had just stayed a volunteer.

But it will be worth it. The first service that we have at the new building will be amazing. Our volunteers will be trained, all of our toys... err, new equipment will be installed and ready, and the service will be a big hit (even through a few glitches). But at the end of that day, I will be so amazingly proud; proud of my team, proud of myself, and proud of God for bringing me to this amazing place in life. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it.

So, those of you reading this that will be (or are) a part of my team, know that I may be struggling, but I am giving it the best that I have. Also know that I am a work in progress, that God did not bring me here because I am currently perfect for the job, but because the job will help make me perfect. Know that I am doing my best, and I will only get better.

Oh, and my future self who is reading this in several months when the new building is moved into, ya, I know I was optimistic about the opening day running smooth, don't worry, it will only get better from here.

To my future self who is reading this a year from now: OK, so it didn't "only get better from there," but that's OK, you are doing your best, right?

To my future self five years from now: OK, really, you can stop laughing now.

Matthew

PS: Thanks to Greg Atkinson at Church Video Ideas. Your topics inspire me and lead me.

Wireless Mics

2008-02-26T12:24:00.003-06:00

Just to let our tech guys know: I have re-wired our wireless mics. We had one body pack in the shop, but we got it back, so it seamed like a good time. They are all the Senheiser mics except for W1 (which is Kory's new body pack). They are as follows:
W1: Kory
W2: Tod
W3: Liz
W4: Joe
W5: HH
W6: Janet Jackson mic
W7: Janet Jackson mic

Theoretically, all of the receivers have been renamed, all of the body packs have been renames, and they are all working. However, I could not find the Senheiser wireless handheld (it used to be W4), therefore it still has the old label on it. Anyone know where it is?

Matthew

Welcome!

2008-02-22T02:49:00.002-06:00

Hey, and welcome to the AUMC AV Blog.

This blog will feature news from the AV team at Argyle UMC in beautiful Argyle, TX. We are currently building our new sanctuary on Highway 377, and our team is in the development phase of the new AV system. As we progress, our status on the project will be posted here, as well as other thoughts or ideas we have, and maybe a few quirky links from the web.

If you don't know me, my name is Matthew Kelling. I have worked at Argyle UMC for over four years now in their AV department. You can tell posts are from me because I will always sign my posts "AVBlogger." (OK, I must say not always, because I have forgotten every time so far... but maybe sometime I will remember and not sign with my normal signature of "Matthew") I hope to have a few guest posters come in as well, so be watching!

This blog is multi-function. Sometimes I will post information for the Argyle Tech Team, and I won't explain more than what they need to know. Sometimes I will post for general information/updates on our building project, and I will expand as much as I can. And sometimes I will post my thoughts and ideas. If you ever have any questions, ideas, or want me to explain more, just leave a comment and I will reply!

Well, come in, and enjoy your stay! To continue to the blog, click "blog" above.

AVBlogger

Testing...

2008-02-20T00:14:00.000-06:00

1, 2, 3, testing...

AVBlogger