Dear Project Leaders...a Letter From Your Church Media Team

One of the authors of this blog works on her church's media team, so we felt  it might help you with promoting or dedicating shoeboxes in your church to share some ideas from the Media Team perspective, and help the media team to help you, if we wrote a letter of things we've wished guest speakers had know before they showed up on Sunday morning to share.

Dear OCC Promoter,

Hi!  We're glad you're planning to share at our church soon about your love of shoeboxes!!  To help it go smoother for you to promote OCC and  make easier for us we wanted to share a couple things.  You may not know who we are-we may be a paid professional with a professional grade system, a person with little tech experience-but a willing heart to help, a teenager who brings our own laptop every week, or anything in-between.  But no matter who we are, practically all of us would LOVE to hear from you a couple weeks before you share, so we can be ready to help you help the children!  If you don't know who we are, just ask the pastor or music minister for our contact info.  Or, you're welcome to come on back/up to our table/booth and see if we're available to chat...but after the service please, we're very busy during the service and often before with last minute preparations/problem-solving/changes/additions!  And please understand if we have to say something just won't work-we'll be disappointed, too!

Some things it would help us to know:

• Who/how many people will be speaking? (We may have more than one microphone, but may need time to prepare it, or may have a specific microphone we need you to use, etc.)

• Do you have any other sound needs? (Like a song, video, etc.  Keep in mind we may not have a tape player, or alternatively may not be able to play a digital file, but given enough time, we will try to find a work around!)

• Do you want anything on the screens?  (Like a video, photos, presentation, website address, etc.)    If so, please get it to us at least a week ahead of time (so we can load it in our computer and try it out on the screens and let you know if we run into problems) and if possible check in with us before you put much time into planning/preparing your screen presentation. (This can be important because we may have to reformat whatever you have to make it compatible with our technology.  Like I mentioned above we may not have a VCR or DVD player, or that may be all we have and can't  play a digital file-or may need a specific format of a digital file.  We may not be able to run a PowerPoint, but have to import it to a different program that may lose some of your animation, so please check with us before you put too much time into it-we hate to have to mess up all the work you put into it!  Videos may work better for us to download a video from the website than play the DVD, or visa versa.   Or one format (widescreen or traditional) may work better for our church's screens/computer than another.  If you aren't familiar with technology we may be able to help you with downloading a video-especially the more time we have!  But we may or may not be able to pull the picture/video you want to share from a website due to copyright or technical issues-often online photos are too small to show up well on screen.)   

• Do you want it recorded? (If the church records sermons it may be an option to record your presentation, or it may not, but feel free to ask if you need a video for something!)

• Do you want anything special with lights? (Off during video, if we have colored lights, we might even be able to do a red and green color scheme, etc).

We may not only need time to prepare/program things, but some things we may need to get approved up the chain of command so to speak.  The more time you can give us, the more we'll be able to help you have a smooth presentation to keep the focus on the boxes and kids!  Thank you!!

In His Service,

Your Church Media Team