Streaming

This posting is going to change frequently as new information comes to light or is decided.

20220214: added notes about the two separate "chat" functions.
20220219: added notes about WVBC Web page announcement and bulletin links

There are certain additional challenges when you are planning a memorial service during a pandemic.  There are, of course, restrictions on attendance, and rules about masking and checking vaccine status.  But, by this point in the pandemic, many people expect that streaming of the service will be an option, particularly since, with the advent and onslaught of Omicron, many of those of our age are extremely nervous about attending any kind of gathering.  That is exacerbated, in my case, by the fact that many of my colleagues are contacts I have only ever made online, and they live in different countries, or even on different continents.  Thus the streaming and technical side of Gloria's memorial service takes on greater importance.

Gloria was a member of different churches, at different times, around Vancouver.  But the church where she was a member the longest, and where Karen and Linda grew up, was West Vancouver Baptist Church.  It's a lovely church, in a lovely setting, and so has always faced the problem of having all kinds of people who are not members wanting to use the church as a venue for weddings and memorial services; so much so that they have often had to have policies forbidding outsiders.  However, they made an exception in our case, and we are grateful.

Unfortunately, WVBC has not been doing online streaming of services as much, or as long, as others during this pandemic.  They are certainly doing a decent job of it, and improving and enhancing functions as they go along, but they don't yet have the experience to handle special requests.  And memorial services, as opposed to regular Sunday services, present challenges.

For example, Sunday services are primarily for your congregation, and are much the same, in format, from week to week.  You are able, over time, to explain to your congregation how to access the stream, and what is required, and what options are available.  You can point out that the link to access the service is on the same place on your church's Website every week, or you can get your parishioners to sign up for a newsletter, and publish the link for the stream that way every week.

That's not the case with a memorial service.  A lot of people are going to access the memorial stream on a one-off basis, and have never even looked at your Website, and will never visit it again.  For a memorial service, there is one opportunity to provide instructions for access, and no second chance to correct any problems.

So, it's been an issue for us to collect and provide this information.

(Not aided by the fact that we have to handle the limitations on attendance and the instructions about CoVID restrictions, and so have set up a special email address, gsladememorial@gmail.com, for that purpose.  But the first time we used it, to send out the obituary, we ran into weird problems, and, in checking, found that many of the messages were delayed in transmission for hours, and an unknown number of the rest [by rough estimate about half] were trapped by spam filters for unknown reasons.  It's difficult to fix this: how effective is it to send messages out saying "if you *don't* get this, check your spam filter"?  We may have to resort to a non-technical solution, such as having everyone who *does* know about Gloria's memorial call around to all those that they know of who may not.)

WVBC uses YouTube to stream their services.  This has a number of advantages.  There are few limits on the number of people watching the stream, streams are generally automatically archived for later viewing, and the quality is generally quite good.  Streaming is fairly simple.  However, people who are used to using Zoom for streaming of services (as many churches do) find some aspects of the streaming and access unusual.  With Zoom you can schedule meetings long in advance, and thus publicize the specific link to the service.  That's not the case with YouTube.  YouTube streams are generally available only a few hours in advance, and so cannot, for example, be published in an obituary in a newspaper.  Even if you want to send people the link to the YouTube stream by email, you have to warn them to expect it to come at a certain time before the service.

We have additional requests that can be problematic.  Gloria was a singer and a soloist.  It makes sense that we have Gloria "sing" at her own memorial service, as the special music.  Unfortunately, there is no professional grade recording of Gloria.  The only recordings we have of her are some videos that I shot myself at different times.  These are hand-held, and therefore wobbly video.  And, of course, I was recording them from the back of the service where Gloria was singing, so the sound quality isn't great.

To make this problem even more difficult, WVBC is a beautiful architecture with huge glass walls, letting in lots of light.  This means that projecting videos during the service is difficult, and they are not very bright in contrast to the ambient light.  In addition, WVBC does not yet have the video editting capability to directly broadcast video during a service.  However, in this case the video is not the important bit, and we hope that the sound, as bad as it is in the original recording, does come through.

For those wishing to "attend" Gloria's memorial service online, via streaming video, the research and testing we have done so far indicates the following options.  We will be trying to make a PDF copy of the bulletin available for download before the service.  We don't yet have a specific link for that.  However, there is an option to display, at the very least, the order of service in the chat function linked to the YouTube if you access it via WVBC's own page at https://www.westvanbaptist.com.

In order to access the live stream, either:

1. Go to https://www.westvanbaptist.com
2. Scroll down the page and look for a link to Gloria's memorial service.  You may wish to check under either "Events" or "Sermons" from the menu at the top of the page if you can't find the memorial service right away.
3. Click on that link.

or

1. Go to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmfbCsa1gobo6HCbo0TifBg
(This is the YouTube channel for West Vancouver Baptist Church.)
2. Look either for a title listing Gloria's memorial service, or, a few hours before 2 PM, Pacific time, a link with a "LIVE" indicator on it.
3. Click on that link.

(For those not able to "attend" the live stream, following the service, it should remain available on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmfbCsa1gobo6HCbo0TifBg and you can access it there and view it at your convenience.  I note that, as of February 19th, the Sunday service on the 20th is already showing as "SCHEDULED" on the WVBC YouTube channel, so Gloria's service may be posted more than a few hour in advance.)

WVBC has already posted a notice of the memorial service on their Website (under "Upcoming Events," about two-thirds of the way down their home page).  Marking that page might provide you with a quick link to get to the service on the day.  In addition, they have posted links to the options for the bulletin for the memorial service, so we might as well, too.

Full bulletin: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mEjENSefDHC1NxBH2PRSEUrUDiO2IiQO/view?usp=sharing
or
https://is.gd/hVfivh
Smaller size at lower resolution:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZtxgCqTTHNeD-2WKnk8kDCpgMiqtDfPM/view?usp=sharing
or
https://is.gd/PF8l9f
Flipbook version:
https://issuu.com/gsladememorial/docs/gloria_slade_memorial_bulletin.pptx
or
https://is.gd/1oWoLy

If you are accessing via WVBC's own page, https://www.westvanbaptist.com, up to several hours before (in fullscreen or window mode), at the very top of the screen (sometimes not visible because the page "opens" partway down the page) a legend shows "Next Live Stream starts in X Hours : XX Minutes : XX : Seconds"  However, if you ever, once, click that off, it seems to be impossible to get it back.

In fullscreen, just below the top banner, the page shows:

HOME   ABOUT   EVENTS   NEWS   SERMONS |West Vancouver Baptist Church and logo | MINISTRIES   MISSIONS   CONTACT   LIVE STREAM

In a window, the menu button at the top right of the page opens to show:

HOME

ABOUT

EVENTS

NEWS

SERMONS

MINISTRIES

MISSIONS

CONTACT

LIVE STREAM

DONATE

In either case, clicking on "LIVESTREAM" shows a black box with the "Next Live Stream" countdown, and a list of previous live streams on the right (in fullscreen mode) or underneath (in window mode).  About 15 minutes before the service, there is a button on this page for "Chat," which accesses a live "text chat" function, where people can chat with each other or a host.  Next to the  "Chat" tab should be the "Order of  Service" tab.  (There is also a "Playlist" tab, which simply lists the previous streams as mentioned before.)  A few minutes before the service is due to start, the black box goes "live" and the service starts streaming.  We have asked to use the Chat function, and, although family members may be a *little* busy just before the service, we have asked a couple of volunteers to be available in it to monitor the chat for any questions.

Actually, further research has indicated that a chat function is also available if you are accessing the stream via YouTube.  We tested this on February 13th, but, unfortunately, it confirmed that the two "chats" are, in fact, separate, and don't communicate with each other.  V is trying to cover both, but it might help if we had an expansion to the usher team to try and expand that cover.  In addition, on February 13th WVBC had some kind of meltdown on YouTube.  Hopefully that won't happen on February 26th, but when it did on the 13th, all they did was roll over to the "Mandarin Zoom Service" feed (a button about halfway down the https://www.westvanbaptist.com page), which, being a Zoom feed, was completely separate and ran, although with the Mandarin translation voiceover.  (Additional testing indicated some inconsistencies in the availability of the YouTube feed on February 13th: two "attendees" were able to view it while some of the rest of us were not, but, when they tried again, were unable to access it again.)

One of the volunteers proposed the title "ushers," so "virtual ushers" it is.  The duties for virtual ushers shouldn't be onerous.  The first is simply to be there, so that when (if?) someone pops into the chat and types a "hello world" into the box, they aren't just faced with the nothingness of the void.  Some people may have questions.  They may want to know how to get the bulletin.  (Some may not be able to attend the whole service, and might want to know if it will be available later.  (As far as we know, yes.  With some testing, we may even be able to predict what the URL/link for the archived service will be by that point.)  Some may have technical questions.  (We can do our best.  If they can't hear the service, ask if they have their speakers turned on or up.)  Some may want to send greetings or messages to the family: if you can copy and paste those into a file, you can email it to me (or gsladememorial@gmail.com) later.