Pew Sheet – 31st May 2020

The Rector writes ‘This week all the children in the parish received an envelope with Pentecost activities , a red balloon and stuff to make a Pentecost Headband.  Here are two of our younger parishioners wearing their headbands.  I think I know who looks the best!  I’m afraid Nellie will have to wait to shine at the Animal Blessing Service in September! It’s hard to believe that it is Pentecost. 50 days since Easter….Today is when  we remember how the frightened disciples, huddled together in that room, received the strength and guidance they needed to go out and face the world in the name of their Saviour.  We all really need the comfort and strengthening of the Holy Spirit in these difficult &  peculiar days. We are hopefully beginning to see an end to it. Keep ringing each other, keep connecting any way that you can.  Just pick up the phone and ring me if you need to talk. I miss you all and I look forward to seeing you all as soon as it is safe to do so.  God bless you all!. Happy Pentecost!

During last week, I got a call from Jimmy, one of  our friends in the Muslim Foundation of Cork, to say that they had left us a huge box of delicious figs at the church door.  In previous years, I had joined with them in their Community  ‘Iftar’ in Blarney Street in the city. This event is held each year to mark the end of Ramadan. It was a pity that we didn’t get manage to gather together this year. The dates will keep until we meet again as a Parish as they have a best before date of Jan 2021! To our Muslim friends we say ‘Eid Mubarak!’  

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Random Notes CCCXLII

How we stream our services

COVID-19 forced us to focus our minds on how to stream services. It is not as simple as it looks and involved decisions from streaming software to lighting. YouTube was the preferred option, as viewers do not need to sign up or register to see YouTube videos. Unfortunately, it is not possible to stream YouTube video from a mobile device unless the channel has over 1,000 followers. It took St Fin Barre’s a week of concerted campaigning to raise the necessary followers, a task that is much more difficult at parish level.

So, we used a laptop and camera. The first camera was a 20-year-old Sony TRV20 camcorder. While it worked, the quality was quite poor. Thanks to a grant from the Bishop, we were able to source a Logitech C930e webcam from China. It took two attempts to purchase this as worldwide supplies of webcams had all but dried up and the original seller tried to add €100 to the price!

The laptop does not run Windows. A previous attempt to stream using a Windows laptop in St Mary’s a couple of years ago was not a happy experience. The laptop instead uses an operating system called Ubuntu, which tends to be more reliable over long periods of time. A piece of software called OBS Studio is used to capture video and audio from the webcam, and to insert still pictures when necessary. This software is open source and free.

The OBS Studio software streams the video from the laptop to our channel on YouTube. The laptop requires a good internet connection for this to work well. WiFi is not suitable, which we found out the hard way. The unfortunate incident with the parish hall required a new phone line to be run from the parish office to the church as we lost our existing WiFi connection. The broadband router now resides in the vestry with a network cable running out to the laptop. The current connection is now more than fast enough for our purposes.

Streaming services from the altar required additions to the lighting in St Mary’s to provide decent face illumination. See the extra lights in the photo. These were leftovers from a kitchen lighting project and provide a nice warm even light. This installation is temporary!

Finally, there is sound. Further improvements to this are planned, with the altar microphone to be connected directly to the laptop. This in turn requires a laptop upgrade, which will happen in the next few days.

When our churches reopen, streaming of services will continue but everything will have to be rearranged. Initial preparation for this is already underway.

SJFW

How to view Live Stream Services

If you are on a PC , just go to the parish website www.carrigalineunion.org and under the top right hand corner of the screen you’ll see  ‘’Live Streaming of Services’  If you click on that you will be able to choose to view the service.  You can also google ‘Carrigaline Union of Parishes Youtube’ and click on the link to see the recorded services.  A huge thank you to Simon Woodworth for all the work he is doing to keep our online presence possible.  This pew sheet has the readings for today and the prayers of intercession. A copy of the Holy Communion Service was sent out with previous emails, if you’d like a copy just let me know.  The Church of Ireland website has all of the Book of Common Prayer online if you’d like to look at it click on the link below.

 https://www.ireland.anglican.org/prayer-worship/book-of-common-prayer .  

The sermon and the Intercessions along with the contents of the Pew Sheet are put up on the parish website on Mondays if you want to read them there. 

Parish Finances  

Some of you were asking me what to do about your giving during this time of not being able to gather in our churches. If you use envelopes, you can post it to Helen Arnopp, our Honorary Treasurer, at her address in Ballea, Carrigaline, P43 HT95 or if you’d rather s et up a standing order or transfer , here are the details of our deposit bank account:

IBAN – IE47BOFI90297974081798   BIC – BOFIIE2D
RECTORS & CHURCHWARDENS SAVINGS ACCOUNT

There is also a GoFundMe link on the Parish Facebook page and as of this week we have  an iDonate link on our parish website and on our Facebook page (under the odd sounding  ‘Shop Now’ Button!) … it’s all very ‘hi-tech’ ! 

But there is also the ‘lo-tech’ way as well! Some parishioners have set up a jam jar at home and are putting their usual ‘Plate’ giving into the jar with the intention of passing it on to the Parish when this is all over.

ZOOM!

Every Wednesday at 10:30am there is a Morning Prayer from the Rectory by Zoom. Just get in touch with the Rector for the Link.

The Wednesday nights Zoom Gatherings are at 7:30/8pm. You can check in from 7:30pm and then we begin at 8pm. At the moment we are looking at Faith and Art, Patrick Kavanagh’s poem ‘The One’ is next up!   in order to join the Zoom Meeting, just get in touch with the Rector.

IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY DOWNLOADED ZOOM ON YOUR PC/TABLET/SMARTPHONE, IT IS REALLY EASY

…… just google ‘zoom us’ and you will be led to the Zoom site where you can follow directions to download the Zoom software on your device, then you have to register as a user, using your usual email address and picking a new Zoom password.

It is all completely free so don’t worry about costs.

Zoom software is being used everywhere at the minute and it is very user friendly. In the parish we use it now for Select Vestry meetings, I also use it daily for Morning Prayer with the other clergy in the diocese and we use it for Diocesan meetings, Boards of Management etc. so do try it.  

If you have any problems with installing Zoom, let me know and I will try and walk through it with you. I’m afraid we are going to be relying on it for some time yet!

God bless, Elaine