We at Terrace CRC are using Churchinfo, currently we only use it to track membership, small group lists and elder lists and most important printing the church directory with or without photos.
Churchinfo is a free web based solution. It has many features that we are not currently using including:
group membership
contact lists
reports on groups and roles
Members Directory: Printable directory of all members, grouped by family where assigned
Letters and Mailing Labels
Birthdays: Members with birthdays in a particular month
Family Member Count: Returns each family and the total number of people assigned to them.
Membership anniversaries: Members who joined in a particular month
Person by Age: Returns any person records with ages between two given ages.
Person by properties: Returns person records which are assigned the given property.
Person by Role and Gender: Selects person records with the family role and gender specified.
Person Count
Recent friends: Friends who signed up in previous months
Select all members: People who are members
Select database users: People who are registered as database users
Total By Gender: Total of records matching a given gender.
Volunteers: Find volunteers for a particular opportunity
Volunteers: Find volunteers for who match two specific opportunity codes
Advanced Search: Search by any part of Name, City, State, Zip, or Home Phone.
Families to canvass: People in families that are ok to canvass.
As a network Admin, the more you backup the better. Windows 7 has a great backup solution built in. I would suggest purchasing a 2 bay NAS (Network Attached Storage) which supports hot swap mirroring. Then I would use 3 hard drives, leave one drive in the system and swap the second and third disk weekly taking it off site. When it comes to recovery, (and it will) the restore will be fast. Other than that I use google docs as another form of backup and moving files around.
Hey Tim, we have just started posting our video, like Harkus we upload the sermon to Youtube and only if the leader gives permission. I would recommend going with a Pan Tilt Zoom camera rather than a stationary camera. I wrote a blog on the 123’s of our setup.
We used a Sony SNC Z50 camera which cost approx $650 dollars, a donated computer which you should be able to purchase for approximately $200 - $300. The TV tuner card we used was a PVR-350, which you can get from ebay for $30.00. The box of cable should be around $120. Bulan connector from ebay are $10.00 or less.
The process is simple I have the youth running the camera through a web page.
The youth turns on the computer which opens the web page on start up.
They enter enter the information for the sermon, leader etc. Start recording the service, mark the sermon portion with a click able button on the web page. When the service is complete the computer burns the audio CD, uploads the sermon to you tube, burns the DVD and powers off. It takes the youth about 5-10 minutes after the service.
If you would like a copy of the script and a how to setup a web server let me know.
PS I am going to add a laptop to our system for the youth to use.
That sounds like an interesting problem. Maybe a simple solution would be to to have a batch script to move the files on startup? I am curiuos what OS and capture card you are using? Currently I am using Ubuntu with ffmpeg which is an opensource program. There is a windows version as well http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/.
I believe bulletins should be password protected, we post out bulletin on a password protected page. The username and password are posted in the bulletin for members. The main issue I see is not some stranger reading the bulletin but web crawlers (ie google) archiving sensitive information about people. It is interesting googling peoples names and finding out they are on coffee for church.
My church youth group has been using a facebook group for a few years. It is a great way to communicate. However the problem is some people "do not do facebook". So that got me thinking what about the others? My solution was to use a wordpress plugin to read facebook groups and post them on the church website site check it out http://www.terracecrc.org
Posted in: What software works for tracking church membership information?
We at Terrace CRC are using Churchinfo, currently we only use it to track membership, small group lists and elder lists and most important printing the church directory with or without photos.
Churchinfo is a free web based solution. It has many features that we are not currently using including:
Posted in: What software works for tracking church membership information?
Sorry posted same message twice.
Posted in: What's a good internet-based method for church backups?
As a network Admin, the more you backup the better. Windows 7 has a great backup solution built in. I would suggest purchasing a 2 bay NAS (Network Attached Storage) which supports hot swap mirroring. Then I would use 3 hard drives, leave one drive in the system and swap the second and third disk weekly taking it off site. When it comes to recovery, (and it will) the restore will be fast. Other than that I use google docs as another form of backup and moving files around.
Posted in: Recording sermon video instead of audio?
Hey Tim, we have just started posting our video, like Harkus we upload the sermon to Youtube and only if the leader gives permission. I would recommend going with a Pan Tilt Zoom camera rather than a stationary camera. I wrote a blog on the 123’s of our setup.
http://network.crcna.org/forums/web/video-record-101
Basically you will need
1 PTZ Camera
1 Computer running as a webserver
1 TV tuner card
1 box of ethernet cable
1 pair of balun connectors
We used a Sony SNC Z50 camera which cost approx $650 dollars, a donated computer which you should be able to purchase for approximately $200 - $300. The TV tuner card we used was a PVR-350, which you can get from ebay for $30.00. The box of cable should be around $120. Bulan connector from ebay are $10.00 or less.
The process is simple I have the youth running the camera through a web page.
The youth turns on the computer which opens the web page on start up.
They enter enter the information for the sermon, leader etc. Start recording the service, mark the sermon portion with a click able button on the web page. When the service is complete the computer burns the audio CD, uploads the sermon to you tube, burns the DVD and powers off. It takes the youth about 5-10 minutes after the service.
If you would like a copy of the script and a how to setup a web server let me know.
PS I am going to add a laptop to our system for the youth to use.
Thanks
Andrew Nutma
Posted in: Video Record 101
That sounds like an interesting problem. Maybe a simple solution would be to to have a batch script to move the files on startup? I am curiuos what OS and capture card you are using? Currently I am using Ubuntu with ffmpeg which is an opensource program. There is a windows version as well http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/.
Andrew
Posted in: Video Record 101
Sorry for the delay. Here is a link to my google doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1odHFUd2zMAMFtzyE3BbeasfHFBuxcKnxw4dkm-IxypE/edit
It has all my notes including scripts, when I get a chance I will update them to clarify all the steps needed to make a functional system.
Thanks Andrew
Posted in: Suggestions for Topics / Content
I believe bulletins should be password protected, we post out bulletin on a password protected page. The username and password are posted in the bulletin for members. The main issue I see is not some stranger reading the bulletin but web crawlers (ie google) archiving sensitive information about people. It is interesting googling peoples names and finding out they are on coffee for church.
Posted in: Does Your Church Have an Active Facebook Page?
Awesome post, inspiring.
My church youth group has been using a facebook group for a few years. It is a great way to communicate. However the problem is some people "do not do facebook". So that got me thinking what about the others? My solution was to use a wordpress plugin to read facebook groups and post them on the church website site check it out http://www.terracecrc.org
Thanks Andrew