Priesthood sessions via webcast?

In our stake we are bursting at the seams during the priesthood session of stake conference. I know other stakes have the same problem. I know some stakes that have webcast hardware have used that to push the satellite broadcast back to SLC so they can view it at another building.

This seems like a waste of bandwidth and time. It would seem more efficient for SLC to push the priesthood session out on the streaming system (perhaps with a confidential URL) so that units can view that with their existing webcast hardware.

Thoughts?

JamesBrown wrote: I know some stakes that have webcast hardware have used that to push the satellite broadcast back to SLC so they can view it at another building.

I assume you are asking about the priesthood session of general conference.

Unless something has changed, they are not doing this for priesthood meeting, because the webcasting service is not available at that time.

For regional stake conferences, a URL can now be provided to feed the satellite portion of the conference to overflow meetinghouses in the stake that do not have satellite equipment.

Perhaps some consideration will be given to doing that for general priesthood meeting.

I would have to ask, however, if there really is not room in the stake center for all of the priesthood brethren. Do you have to broadcast the stake general priesthood meetings to other buildings, as well?

If this is truly so, it may be time for your stake president to contact CHQ and inquire about additional facilities for the general priesthood meeting.

I have never lived in a stake with this problem. It would be fun to see it.

lajackson wrote:I would have to ask, however, if there really is not room in the stake center for all of the priesthood brethren. Do you have to broadcast the stake general priesthood meetings to other buildings, as well?

If this is truly so, it may be time for your stake president to contact CHQ and inquire about additional facilities for the general priesthood meeting.

Additional facilities? Or a stake split?

I've seen a few stakes that fill the chapel and overflow for General Conference Priesthood Session, but I can't imagine a stake with so many that overflowing into the Cultural Hall (or other rooms) would not provide adequate space.

I have been in stakes that have satellite reception in multiple buildings. Perhaps the OP has seen this recently and thought that it was a webcast. I believe that all church buildings with satellite reception are authorized for Priesthood session by default.

I live in a Stake that has had problems with overcrowding for the General Priesthood session at the Stake Center (the police repsonded to complaints about illegal parking and had a conversation with the Stake President).

Since then, the broadcast has been sent via microwave to another ward building. Reports from those who attend the remote broadcast have been positive because of better parking and comfortable seats in the chapel.

michaelfish wrote:I live in a Stake that has had problems with overcrowding for the General Priesthood session at the Stake Center (the police repsonded to complaints about illegal parking and had a conversation with the Stake President).

I can see where parking could be an issue; the number of vehicles would be about the same as a stake conference session for the entire stake, and many stakes have multiple general sessions of stake conference with different wards assigned to different sessions.

RussellHltn wrote:Additional facilities? Or a stake split?

I was actually thinking in terms of him asking for a URL to feed the meeting to one of his buildings that did not have satellite service.

And yet, I still have never seen a case where there was not room for all of the brethren. As robartsd said, all of the satellites receive the broadcast.

Other than parking, I have never seen the problem.

As for parking, tell the brethren to park legally. AF 1:12. A deacon could give the talk at the next stake priesthood meeting. [gryn]

We have this problem as well. Our stake demographics are such that many adult sons and their sons return to their "home" stake for General Conference Priesthood meeting. We fill the Stake Center all the way back to and including the stage, plus the Relief Society and Primary rooms (every chair in the building is set up) and there are still people hanging in the hall that cannot find a seat. And yes, parking is a major problem.

It would be really helpful if we could webcast the proceedings to another building in the stake to spread the load.

The night before General Priesthood Mtg, 1 of our 3 bldg satellite systems went "kapoot". SLC simply gave us a URL to a stream ...so.. via DSL, a laptop, and projector we were back in business that evening.

CalS201 wrote:The night before General Priesthood Mtg, 1 of our 3 bldg satellite systems went "kapoot". SLC simply gave us a URL to a stream ...so.. via DSL, a laptop, and projector we were back in business that evening.

Same thing happened in our Stake. CHQ had different URL's for each session. We had to use the "WebCast" box to stream 3 sessions of conference in April. It seems like even though CHQ does not like to use the streaming option, they realize that when the ox is in the mire. . .

robartsd wrote:I have been in stakes that have satellite reception in multiple buildings. Perhaps the OP has seen this recently and thought that it was a webcast. I believe that all church buildings with satellite reception are authorized for Priesthood session by default.

In my stake, we have all building accepting the general priesthood meeting via satellite. So there is no need to fill up one building.

So my suggestion is have all your building be on the schedule to receive the broadcast. Then people won't have to travel any further than their normal Sunday meeting to watch.

harddrive747 wrote:In my stake, we have all building accepting the general priesthood meeting via satellite. So there is no need to fill up one building.

Are you saying that all of the church buildings in your stake have a satellite system? That would be nice, but not the norm. I'm sure the church has some standards for how far away a building must be before it becomes eligible for satellite equipment.

RussellHltn wrote:Are you saying that all of the church buildings in your stake have a satellite system? That would be nice, but not the norm. I'm sure the church has some standards for how far away a building must be before it becomes eligible for satellite equipment.

Yes all my buildings in my stake have satellite equipment. Two buildings are like 10 minutes apart the rest of them you have to drive about 25 minutes, minimum to get to them.

Terry

harddrive747 wrote:Yes all my buildings in my stake have satellite equipment. Two buildings are like 10 minutes apart the rest of them you have to drive about 25 minutes, minimum to get to them.

Terry

Either you have a Stake President with a lot of influence (which most have):) or else you're extremely blessed. We have four buildings in our and only satellite in the stake center. Distances are at most 20 minutes apart.

That would indeed be nice.

harddrive747 wrote:Yes all my buildings in my stake have satellite equipment. Two buildings are like 10 minutes apart the rest of them you have to drive about 25 minutes, minimum to get to them.

Perhaps it's an experimental setup. But I would have expected a drive time measured in hours before I'd expect to see a stake with a system in every building.

Either that or you're in one of those areas of the church that knock out a new ward every other month and the church is expecting those buildings to all become stake centers.

techgy wrote:Either you have a Stake President with a lot of influence (which most have):) or else you're extremely blessed. We have four buildings in our and only satellite in the stake center. Distances are at most 20 minutes apart.

That would indeed be nice.

I would expect that I had stake presidents that pushed for it. I think most of the building in and around DC have satellite equipment. So all I can say is have your stake presidents request that other buildings get it, because it sure is a blessing in our stake.

harddrive747 wrote:Yes all my buildings in my stake have satellite equipment. Two buildings are like 10 minutes apart the rest of them you have to drive about 25 minutes, minimum to get to them.

Terry

Last time we asked, the rule was 30 minutes. Over that, you could get a satellite system. Our two buildings 10 minutes apart have to share one system (the stake center). Our other buildings are more than 30 minutes apart, and each has a satellite system.

This may have changed with the recent budget challenges. But our newest building was built about 4 years ago, 45 minutes from the next closest building, and got satellite.

On the other hand, I would not be surprised if longer distances are in effect now, the broadcasts will go toward internet URLs.

We have 10 buildings in our stake and all of them including the 5 branches have satellites installed. All of them except 3 buildings are more than 30 minutes apart. Our Southern boundary to our Northern boundary is like a 2.5 hours drive and East to West is about 2 hours. I just assumed that all LDS chapels had them installed. I guess I was wrong.

JamesBrown wrote:In our stake we are bursting at the seams during the priesthood session of stake conference. I know other stakes have the same problem. I know some stakes that have webcast hardware have used that to push the satellite broadcast back to SLC so they can view it at another building.

This seems like a waste of bandwidth and time. It would seem more efficient for SLC to push the priesthood session out on the streaming system (perhaps with a confidential URL) so that units can view that with their existing webcast hardware.

Thoughts?

Durring the preisthood session of conference, there is a URL availble, it is confidential, unpublished, and changes for each conference. the URL is made availble 1 hour prior to the start of conference. It is only given out from the global services Desk (GSD) to the presiding Unit authority (stake president, Bishop etc) this is to prevent it from getting out to the general membership and encourage the brethren to gather together.

StevePoulsen wrote:Durring the preisthood session of conference, there is a URL availble, it is confidential, unpublished, and changes for each conference. the URL is made availble 1 hour prior to the start of conference. It is only given out from the global services Desk (GSD) to the presiding Unit authority (stake president, Bishop etc) this is to prevent it from getting out to the general membership and encourage the brethren to gather together.

Wish I knew this about a year ago so that the two units in my building wouldn't have to go to another building to watch, because of the Satellite being down.

I will have to remember this for future use.