Katy Dickinson

How to Run a Church Convention

The Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real held its Diocesan Convention 2009 last weekend. I was a Delegate from St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) and my husband, John Plocher, was an Alternate Delegate and also backed up Web Sacristan Stephenie Cooper in managing the information flow to the big screen. Our son Paul was a convention Youth Representative for the first time. This blog entry is to document how Stephenie and John set things up so that there is a record for our own future use (and because it might be of use to others). This blog does not provide much information about the sound system, which had a separate crew managing it.

Ours is not a big diocese, there are 47 parishes (church areas) between Nipomo and Palo Alto on California's central coast, with 189 possible lay Delegates and 134 possible clergy Delegates. Our leader is Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves.

There were 200 to 250 people in Sherwood Hall (Salinas) during the two days of convention. Sherwood Hall has a raised proscenium-style stage which is forty feet deep and sixty feet wide. Here are some diagrams John drew of the stage layout and hardware, plus photos of what it looked like in the hall and behind the big screen:

Overview

Stephenie has been running the computers for convention for many years; this is John's first time. The computer resources required to run convention have been doubling or tripling each year. The big screen presents everything at convention, including the agenda, instructions, song lyrics, the text of resolutions and ballot lists, plus videos and slide shows. The convention has a somewhat flexible schedule since resolutions may be amended, discussions may go longer or shorter than planned, and people may arrive with a video or slide show to add that is unexpected or does not match what they said they would bring. The convention follows Robert's Rules of Order for meeting procedure.

Stephenie lives near us, so she and John mocked up the convention audio/visual layout at our house in the weeks before the event. They used almost every laptop we had plus monitors borrowed from the computer lab at SMUM (Santa Maria Urban Ministry). John bought about $125 in bits and pieces to put everything together.

Stephenie and John relied on PC and Mac laptops using simple and standard tools. That is, the displays used the same hardware and software tools with which the information was originally put together. There was no special software package. Reusing standard pieces allowed quick responses plus maximum flexibility, additions, and changes during the event. There was much dynamic interaction and modification of both music and meeting content. In general, Stephenie ran the screen while John queued material and coordinated with people who came backstage to add or change or discuss what was coming next.

The convention had very few computer problems this year. Every once in a while, during a transition we in the hall would hear a voice coming from behind the screen saying "almost ready..." Of course, several people replied with "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain."

Here are John's notes:

Requirements

    *  Working from a detailed master agenda that is subject to real-time revision,
          o Project desired content on main auditorium screen where it can be seen 
             by delegates and head table.
          o Show slideshows, movies and presentations authored and produced by 
             others.
          o Show song lyrics - and follow along verse by verse as sung.
          o Show announcements (break, lunch, count down timer).
          o Show resolutions:
                + Modify to show motions to amend in progress.
                + Show total and individual debate limit timers.
                + Update as voting results dictate.
    * Show "default background image" whenever other content is not being displayed.
    * Allow real-time editing and addition of content - agenda changes/reordering, 
       new songs, movies, resolutions, etc.
    * Synchronize activities to meeting in progress as dictated by the Secretary 
       of Convention.
    * Do this all from a back stage position without direct views of auditorium 
       or head table.

Hardware setup (see diagram above)

    * a 4-way Video Amplifier cabled to a local video monitor, the projector and 
        a head table monitor. 
    * The 4-way amp was connected to a 4-way VGA KVM switch that only used the 
        "V" connections.  This allowed us to easily choose the video source to 
        be displayed from any of the
    * 4 laptops, which were connected to external video monitors and configured to 
        use both the laptop screen and the external monitor as an "extended desktop".  
        2-way VGA amps connected to each laptop so they could drive both the 
        monitor and the KVM switch/video distribution amp setup.  The use of a 
        dual-monitor setup allowed us to edit and direct content from one screen 
        while using the other as a potential video source (more on this below).
    * The laptops were networked together via a local wireless hub/router that 
        was also connected to
        * a 320GB networked hard disk for shared file storage
        * a networked video camera (Axis 2100) aimed at the head table
        * a color copier/scanner/printer

Operation

- All systems were set up to use the convention "image" as the default desktop 
screen background, so that when no windows were open, their "second" display 
could be used as a placeholder video source.

- One system was set up to be the presentation and movie display host.  
Quicktime, powerpoint and other software was loaded onto it, and its 
"headphone out" audio jack was connected to the house sound system.

- Another system was set up to show the Axis video camera's display on its 
primary screen so to get visual feedback cues from the presenters. 
(This could have been done with a TV monitor and inexpensive surveillance 
cameras instead.)
 
- A monitor speaker was run from the house sound system so that John and
Stephenie could hear what was happening in front of the screen and in
the hall.  There was also an audio feed into the sound system so that music 
and movies could play from the computers.

- A third system was configured as a web page editing station in addition to 
being the primary content display driver.   The content was accessed by 
special links from an annotated detailed agenda that sported additional 
presentation cues, such as "SONG", "RESOLUTION 1",  "LUNCH ANNOUNCEMENT", 
"MISSION MOVIE", etc.   All content on this system was in HTML, and the 
special <href> links on the detailed agenda (and on the song lyrics index 
page) were of the form <A .... target="projector">...</a>.  This allowed 
us to display the detailed agenda and song lyrics pages iin a browser 
window on the laptop screen, and have the "projector" window that popped 
up when a link was clicked positioned "fullscreen" on the second monitor.  
Displaying any piece of content was as easy as clicking on its cue.

- The last system displayed a copy of the detailed agenda.  Its second display 
was cued with a copy of the 1-page simplified agenda used by the delegates.  
This proved to be useful in coordinating a presentation and lyrics from two 
systems or to pull up a default display during breaks.

Thoughts for next time


Bring and use at least 4 video monitoring cameras so that backstage can see the 
head table, the presenter's lectern, the musicians and the delegates/audience.  
Being limited to only one of these shots made coordination and timing difficult.  
If there had been more debate on the resolutions, we would not have been able 
to closely coordinate timers, motions and the like.

Move the main display screen up from the stage by at least 8 feet to get it out 
of the direct and reflected stage lighting (improves sight lines, heightens
contrast).

Choose a sans- style font and a better background/foreground color contrast
for greater visibility in the large hall.  Play to the eyesight of the most 
senior members of the group. 

Develop a stage lighting diagram at least 2 months before convention so that 
the Sherwood Hall AV and IT staff in Salinas can work with us to optimize 
things.  Use an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper - same proportions as the actual 
40' x 60' stage.

Get a projector that has at least 2,000 Lumens.

Posted at 05:02PM Oct 27, 2009 by katysblog in Church | Comments[0]

Willow Glen Lions Charter Night

The new San Jose - Willow Glen Lions Club held its Charter Night event last weekend. We sold 125 tickets and had a fun party. Sami Asfour lead the Charter Night event team. The Sweet Adelines women's harmony chorus sang at the start of our celebration. Our new community service club was sponsored by the Almaden Super Lions. Guiding Lions Karen Fillmore and Jim Issacson started and supported us. The Willow Glen Lions club has 37 members. The youngest members are 19 and the oldest is 86.

My husband, John Plocher, and I are both club officers. We are enjoying meeting new folks in the Willow Glen, California community where we have lived for ten years.

Who Are Lions?

"Lions meet the needs of local communities and the world. Our more than 1.3 million members in 205 countries and geographic areas are different in many ways, but we share a core belief – community is what we make it." From Lions Clubs International

Following up on this story:

This blog entry was featured (with the cake picture) on the 27 October front page of the Willow Glen Extra. The full story: "It’s Official: Willow Glen Lions Club".
Lions Clubs International District 4-C6 "All Points Bulletin" (Vol.1, Issue 2, November 2009) p.19 included photos from this blog entry.

Photos:

Posted at 04:33PM Oct 26, 2009 by katysblog in Lions | Comments[0]

Willow Glen Halloween

Halloween decorations are getting more elaborate every year here in Willow Glen, California. There are at least six full graveyard scenes in front yards within a few blocks of my house. Some are put together with purchased headstones, ghosts, zombies, spiders, bones and webs but others are homemade and very clever. Each scene has a day and a night aspect:

Posted at 08:24PM Oct 22, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews | Comments[0]

SEED Mentoring Autumn Event

The SEED worldwide mentoring program held its regular autumn event yesterday. I think the talks and tours went very well and comments so far have been enthusiastic. We welcomed about 50 participants, with the majority joining remotely.

Speakers and activities for the event included:

Christine Bucklin,
Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning
speaking on "Harnessing Serendipity"
Hal Stern,
Vice President, Global Systems Engineering, Global Sales and Services
(and 14-time SEED Mentor)
speaking on "Tribes, Couplings, and Value"
Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos and Sun Fellow Jim Mitchell joined us for lunch in the Java Java Cafe (in Sun's Menlo Park, California, campus)
Tours were given of
Sun Labs (featuring Gilda Garreton, Poorna Udupi, Stephen Uhler),
the Enterprise Technology Center (featuring Rob Snevely),
the Executive Briefing Center

Event photos:

Posted at 12:12PM Oct 22, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business | Comments[0]

Glass Pumpkins

Glass pumpkins have become a common home decoration at this time of year. They come in even more sizes and colors than real pumpkins. I have a small group I bought a few years ago which live next to my front door from September through Thanksgiving (after which they are replaced by poinsettia plants for Christmas).

My son Paul's High School sells pumpkins made by David Camner and his glass students - "The Paly Glass Team" - each year to raise funds for their art program. Since my kids no longer seem interested in carving real pumpkins to make Jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween, I bought three Paly art glass pumpkins to decorate my Thanksgiving table this year. One is a long purple eggplant-like shape, the other two are traditional shapes but unusual colors. Paul helped me pick them out.

Posted at 04:31PM Oct 21, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews | Comments[1]

Shop for a Cause

I spent last Saturday morning sitting at a table in the Valley Fair Macy's shoe department distributing discount tickets in exchange for $5 donations to Santa Maria Urban Ministry (SMUM). My husband John Plocher and I are on the SMUM Board of Directors. We also volunteer in SMUM's after-school homework and computer lab program for grade school kids.

Edy Unthank (SMUM's grant writer, also on the Board) had arranged for SMUM to be one of Macy's "Shop for a Cause" program charities. Macy's contacted the organizations which sold the most tickets and offered us each a table next to one of their entry doors so that we could sell even more. I put my orange and yellow Mexican blanket on the table, set out a big bowl of candy and SMUM brochures, set up my laptop to loop John's SMUM video, and asked every shopper I could to accept a 25% discount ticket in exchange for a $5 charity donation. In four hours, I collected 68 donations! Edy took the afternoon shift and collected 40 more for a total of $540 (see photo below). We snooped one of the other charity tables last Saturday and were told they had only sold $135 worth of tickets all day - so SMUM did very well. Including the tickets we sold in advance, SMUM raised over $1000 from this program.

Thanks, Macy's!

Posted at 03:47PM Oct 21, 2009 by katysblog in Church | Comments[0]

Best Selling Mentoring Report (sortof...)

At the end of August 2009, Sun Labs published a technical report about Sun Microsystems' mentoring programs: "Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009", by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon, available free at: http://research.sun.com/spotlight/2009/2009-08-28_TR-2009-185.html.

314 Downloads

This week, I was very pleased to learn that there have already been 314 downloads, a best seller by technical report standards. OK, the report is free and 314 is hardly the tens of millions of books Dan Brown can sell writing about cryptography, symbols, and conspiracy theories; however, it is a solid and satisfying start. 314 downloads is in addition to the 90 paper reports we handed out from Sun's table at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09) earlier this month. After so much effort, I am glad to know that someone is actually reading it (or downloading it, anyway). Hooray!

Report Overview

Sun Microsystems has benefited from a long-term successful culture of mentoring, especially in its worldwide engineering divisions. About 7,300 mentoring pairs have participated in one of Sun’s formal mentoring programs since 1996. Sun has developed several internal formal world-wide mentoring programs in which mentoring pairs focus on a business problem or goal of the mentee. To create this report, the authors analyzed Sun’s 1996-2009 mentoring program data, Sun-wide data, plus information from a Gartner report on Sun mentoring which focused on the ROI of Sun’s mentoring programs.

Mentoring is near the top of most lists of tools that are effective at promoting professional development and advancement in industry. As a business method, mentoring works well generally and also is particularly valuable to women and minorities.

Mentoring has paid off for Sun in increased productivity, efficiency, and greater satisfaction among participants. This report presents what Sun did and how Sun did it to allow others to take advantage of the company’s extensive and successful experience with this remarkably effective and versatile business method. So far as is known, this report is unique: no other company has published a long-term detailed analysis about its corporate mentoring program.

3 Authors

Helen generously took Tanya and me out to the new and impressive Rosewood Sand Hill Hotel for lunch to celebrate our publication and so that we could all sign report copies to give with thanks to our program sponsors. The pink drink in the picture is the Madera restaurant's "House Made Prickly Pear Lemonade" - very pretty and refreshing!

Posted at 06:04PM Oct 16, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business | Comments[0]

YouTube Video Slideshows, Shop for a Cause

This is an update to my October 12, 2009 blog on "Making YouTube Video Slideshows". My husband John Plocher just published his second video about Santa Maria Urban Ministry (SMUM), a charity for which we volunteer in inner city San Jose, California. John again used the lovely flute music from Adam Sun's Reflections CD as the background. You can now see the new video El Ministerio Urbano de Santa Maria (SMUM).

We will be showing this video at our display table tomorrow (17 October) at Macy's Valley Fair (2801 Stevens Creek Blvd, San Jose) while selling "Shop for a Cause" tickets to benefit SMUM. Some of the after school program kids at SMUM:

Santa Maria Urban Ministry in San Jose, California
photo: copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson

Posted at 12:29PM Oct 16, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews | Comments[0]

A Company for Big Hearts

In my 1 May 2009 blog, I wrote "Sun is a company for people with big hearts."

I thought about that today when I heard the end of a story which made me even more proud of the people with whom I have the honor to work. A week ago, one of the Software Directors sent out email to Sun's Menlo Park campus telling about one of our janitorial staff who had suffered a tragedy and needed immediate help. Her young son had just died by violence and she had no money to pay for his funeral. Her janitorial co-worker had asked for donations.

Since then, we learned from the Director who was helping to raise money that:

7 October:

13 October::

Such a sad circumstance cannot be said to have a happy ending but it could have been much worse without the support of the Sun community. I was not involved except by giving a small donation but (with permission) I wanted to share this story. Makes me proud.

Posted at 05:25PM Oct 13, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews | Comments[0]

SEED Mentoring's Autumn Event

The SEED worldwide mentoring program will hold its regular autumn event on 21 October 2009. Since the Sun-Oracle transition is taking longer than expected to complete, we are keeping up with business as usual as best we can.

Speakers and activities for the event will include:

Christine Bucklin,
Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning
Hal Stern,
Vice President, Global Systems Engineering, Global Sales and Services
(and 14-time SEED Mentor)
Tours of
Sun Labs (featuring Gilda Garreton, Poorna Udupi, Stephen Uhler),
the Enterprise Technology Center (featuring Rob Snevely),
the Executive Briefing Center
We may have a SEED dinner that night if there is enough interest

26 are registered to participate so far, less than usual for this event, about half of whom will join by video or conference call. We have reserved large video conference rooms in both Menlo Park, California, and Burlington, Massachusetts. I hope to see more registrations this week!

Posted at 10:26AM Oct 13, 2009 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business | Comments[0]

First Big Rain in the Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area is enjoying its first big rain in about six months. We had one or two light sprinkles this summer but other than that, it has been very dry. KQED radio said this morning at 7:30 am there were 50 major traffic accidents on the highways. I was driving my son to school on Highway 280 this morning, going 65 miles per hour in heavy rain in the diamond lane (for commuters with two or more passengers), when three cars in turn came up right behind me to flash their lights so that they could speed ahead. Traffic was light, so they soon drove around my apparently too-slow self. We all forget how to drive in the rain during the summer.

My husband John spent yesterday at home putting everything away that wandered outside during the dry spell: the pillow on the deckchair, the hammock, the painting scaffold, stuff moved onto the driveway while working on a project in the storage area, etc. He and our neighbor Felix also quickly finished the overhang roof over the storage shelves at the back of the garage. Unfortunately, one of my prickly pear cactus and the English walnut tree on the river bank had grown enthusiastically into that space, so much yelping and whacking of plants were part of the project.

Afternoon update -
what the Guadalupe River (West Alma/Lelong bridge in Willow Glen) looked like when we drove home:

Wet leaves:

Posted at 09:49AM Oct 13, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews | Comments[0]

Making YouTube Video Slideshows

Following our daughter Jessica's excellent example, my husband John Plocher has started to make YouTube videos. Since 2008, Jessica has been posting videos as part of her "P4" or Poetry and Prose Performances Project "Bringing Great Literature to YouTube". You can see her Background Info for instructions on how to do this.

John found out that this is harder than it seems when he created his SMUM Slideshow September 2009. Both the text and photos came out blurry when uploaded - which they were not when the video was made. The videos are helpful in both public relations and fundraising for the SMUM charity in inner city San Jose, California. While making the video, we were delighted to reconnect with Adam Sun (former owner of Szechwan Cafe on California Avenue in Palo Alto), who gave permission to use his lovely "Coincidence" flute music from his Reflections CD in the video. We also found out during testing that our pet cockatiels love flute music.

The blurry video started John on an investigation of how Apple - iMovie works with YouTube, which soon lead to a family upgrade to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X) software, which lead to buying new copies of stuff we were running on the down-rev version which does not work on Snow Leopard... Several weeks later, John is now working on his second video about El Ministerio Urbano de Santa Maria (or Santa Maria Urban Ministry, SMUM). John and I are on the SMUM Board so we tried out a draft video at last week's meeting (they liked it). He is working on a final version to be shown at the Diocesan Convention 2009 (Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real) later this month in Salinas, California.

My contribution to this project is taking most of the photos which end up in the slideshow videos. I have been taking photos of specific SMUM subjects recently to fill in the gaps - pictures of ABC Playtime, the Board and regular volunteers, older kids other than Jose and Samantha and Stephanie (who all love to be in pictures and are very cute), the food sorting and distribution areas, action shots, etc.

Some recent images:

Posted at 01:46PM Oct 12, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews | Comments[0]

Blessing the Animals (Horses in Church)

Last Sunday was the popular Blessing of the Animals service at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (in Saratoga, California). We took our two cockatiels (Simon and Garfunkel) to church in their cage. The blessings started with two draft horses and a very-small-looking regular horse cloping down the aisle. Our birds are not shy so they made loud squawks during the sermon. There was much dog visiting and some barking on this one day when the animals come to church to honor St. Francis of Assisi. The first hymn was from 1848:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful:
The Lord God made them all.

Posted at 11:08PM Oct 06, 2009 by katysblog in Church | Comments[1]

Carnegie Mellon Today

Our family was delighted to see the "Photo Op" article on p.7 of the newly-published October 2009 issue of Carnegie Mellon Today magazine. The article is about my daughter Jessica who took a photo of General Colin Powell at the Presidential Inauguration. The Special Libraries Association used her photo as their magazine cover image.

Jessica is a Junior in the Humanities Scholars Program at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is planning on spending her next semester at the CMU-Q campus, in Doha, Qatar. Jessica's major is Ethics, History and Public Policy with a minor in Vocal Performance but she spends a much of her spare time messing around with computers.

Posted at 02:26PM Oct 06, 2009 by katysblog in News & Reviews | Comments[0]

Hopper Conference Photos (GHC09)

We have all of my Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09) photos from last week uploaded, so I just finished adding the pictures to my GHC09 blog entries so far:

Day Before the Hopper Conference, Tucson, Arizona (GHC09),
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
1st day at Hopper Conference (GHC09),
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
2nd Day at Hopper Conference (GHC09),
Thursday October 01, 2009
I Am a Technical Woman, 3rd Day at Hopper Conference (GHC09),
Friday October 02, 2009

Here are additional photos, some from the walk my daughter Jessica and I took on Saturday morning before we left for the airport.

Katy and banner

Jessica and cactus

Katy and Jessica badges

saguaro hill

Cactus skyline

last cactus flower

little cactus, rocks

Posted at 10:43PM Oct 05, 2009 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute | Comments[0]

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