Church IT Providing Streaming recommendations???

Letter received from FM....

Brethren,
It is our understanding that there will be some direction provided to the stake technology specialist’s soon from the church ICS Department with guidance as to what needs to be purchased and how to prepare to stream ward sacrament meetings. They expect that the needed equipment would be available locally and cost less than $100.00.
You may want to encourage your Stake technology specialist to watch for that information.

Thanks,
<name withheld>


<location withheld> Fm Group

All I have to say is this. There are already 147 gazillion members of the church, Bishoprics, Stake Presidents, High Councilman, clerks, execsecs who have designed and purchased equipment, decided how to do this. What in the world we were waiting for? Better late than never I guess, but to be told to stop and wait is just infuriating, it could've been sent in conjunction with the announcement. effortlessly and easily. Dang this is just disappointing in a major way.

As I understand it, the "instructions" will be more along the lines of "here are your options" rather than "do it this way". As such, some wards may find better options then what they have been doing.

While some areas have been allowed to webcast for some time, others, like mine, only received permission in the last couple of weeks.

johnshaw wrote:it could've been sent in conjunction with the announcement. effortlessly and easily.

No it could not. Late last week or earlier this week the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve suggested weekly sacrament meetings might now be webcast weekly and provided overall policy guidance. The technical folks at Church headquarters were just as surprised as the rest of us to hear that it should happen by this Sunday.

On July 2nd, I was told to prepare to broadcast Sacrament meeting starting on July 12th. Panic mode on.

drepouille wrote:On July 2nd, I was told to prepare to broadcast Sacrament meeting starting on July 12th. Panic mode on.

And on that same day I was told we still did not have permission to broadcast Sacrament meetings.

I have seen quite a variety of different guidance from different bishops, stake presidents, and area presidents. It has been quite fascinating to watch.

lajackson wrote:

johnshaw wrote:it could've been sent in conjunction with the announcement. effortlessly and easily.

No it could not. Late last week or earlier this week the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve suggested weekly sacrament meetings might now be webcast weekly and provided overall policy guidance. The technical folks at Church headquarters were just as surprised as the rest of us to hear that it should happen by this Sunday.

Wait, you're not suggesting that it was an impossibility, just that they chose not to do it that way right? If you can make a choice one way, you can choose another way. I guarantee you, with absolute certainty, that this wasn't arbitrary. There was absolutely a weekly or bi-weekly meeting to review status part of that meeting included possibilities about what church would look when we reopened, CIS could EASILY have been brought into that conversation without knowing a future date, there could easily have been a decision, and a recommendation happen within hours of each other and still keep the sanctity of messaging from the Q15.

johnshaw wrote:CIS could EASILY have been brought into that conversation without knowing a future date, there could easily have been a decision, and a recommendation happen within hours of each other and still keep the sanctity of messaging from the Q15.

ICS is not invited to meetings of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It appears to me that they are not mind readers, either.

I did not think virtual sacrament meetings would be in my future. I thought we would eventually return to meetinghouses for sacrament meeting.

We have received similar communications from our FM group. Our stake had hoped to acquire cameras and have them installed in the chapels for this purpose. When we inquired about the matter to the Global Service Center they referred us to the Webcast section of the meetinghouse technology site that had not been updated in over a year. We are happy to wait for instructions if they are forthcoming, but the FM group appears to be the only channel that has information.

shh24 wrote:We have received similar communications from our FM group. Our stake had hoped to acquire cameras and have them installed in the chapels for this purpose.

The information we have received is to keep it simple, not spend a lot of money, and not do anything permanent. This is a temporary situation and we are not expected to be making permanent changes.

Our FM Group told us they have no instructions. They are awaiting the instructions that have been promised soon to STSs.

lajackson wrote:

shh24 wrote:We have received similar communications from our FM group. Our stake had hoped to acquire cameras and have them installed in the chapels for this purpose.

The information we have received is to keep it simple, not spend a lot of money, and not do anything permanent. This is a temporary situation and we are not expected to be making permanent changes.

Our FM Group told us they have no instructions. They are awaiting the instructions that have been promised soon to STSs.

Who is providing that information to you?

shh24 wrote:Who is providing that information to you?

Please see this post for the best general information that is publicly available at the moment.

Sorry I could not say more sooner. I believe the FM Groups were in the same pickle until now.

Our buildings generally don't have sufficient bandwidth for streaming (one of them might) and the FM group is in no hurry to upgrade our internet service. I think they're waiting for more guidance from CHQ. I imagine they're hearing from several stakes about this need and probably don't have sufficient budget to do the upgrades. The stake presidency doesn't want to have to rely on the generosity of members with hotspots, good bandwidth, and unlimited data, but who knows...that might be the quickest way to make something happen.
We're doing some testing at our buildings this week.

mevans wrote:Our buildings generally don't have sufficient bandwidth for streaming (one of them might) and the FM group is in no hurry to upgrade our internet service. I think they're waiting for more guidance from CHQ. I imagine they're hearing from several stakes about this need and probably don't have sufficient budget to do the upgrades. The stake presidency doesn't want to have to rely on the generosity of members with hotspots, good bandwidth, and unlimited data, but who knows...that might be the quickest way to make something happen.
We're doing some testing at our buildings this week.

If you don't have bandwidth for video, you could try an audio-only stream.