A new electric system that mimics a hot water system by warming the fabric of the building – without using a boiler and running on electricity.
That’s just one of the innovations from CRE exhibitor Christopher Dunphy Ecclesiastical Heating.
‘It is particularly useful for churches in more remote locations where mains gas is not available,’ explained Dunphy, who juggles being chair of League One Rochdale FC with running a firm which has designed and installed cost-effective heating systems for more than 40 years.
‘We’ve probably heated more than 1,000 churches,’ said Dunphy. ‘If you’ve got a medieval or Victorian building you’re looking at walls two to seven feet thick. They act like storage heaters. The worse nightmare is a church built in the 1960s or 70s – with low heat retention. Give me an old church any day!
‘It is a complex issue with far-reaching implications which affect the very fabric of your building. Factors almost uniquely relevant to churches that have to be considered. Noise, excessive movement of air, changes in humidity and of course the visual effect on the aesthetic of the church. To get any of these wrong can lead not only to a poorly heated church but can also lead to considerable damage of the building via thermal shock, distortion, condensation, wood rot or even organ damage’.
In short, warns Dunphy, a bad heating system can be disastrous.
‘Our philosophy on church heating is quite simple: to produce the most cost effective solution to your individual needs in the long term,’ he maintains. ‘The criteria for this will be different in every church. When we install a heating system, we like the finished product to be unobtrusive as possible. We pay great attention to every detail. Heat emitters can be colour coded if required and piperuns made as neat and discreet as possible.’
An all-new version of CCLI’s popular SongSelect website has been launched, making it the best single source of legal song words and sheet music for music teams planning Sunday sung worship.
‘Many of the improvements made to the new site have come in response to customer feedback, with existing users providing some very positive feedback on the changes,’ said CCLI’s Rich Burrough. ‘As well as a complete re-skin, the new site eschews Flash in favour of the latest HTML5 player, making it fully responsive for mobile devices. HTML5 is compatible with all the latest browsers including Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and Firefox.’
SongSelect features official song resources for more than 100,000 worship songs and hymns.
A subscription site, available to any church which holds a Church Copyright Licence (CCL) for the projection/reproduction of song words, SongSelect packages start from £32 a year. In response to customer feedback, the new site adds thousands of multi-part vocal sheets to the lyrics, lead sheets and chord sheets which were already available.
‘These come with the new Premium package which costs £115 per year,’ said Rich, ‘though existing subscribers can upgrade for a pro-rated cost.’
All SongSelect subscriptions are church based and allow unlimited access for as many people as required within the church’s music and projection/multimedia teams. In addition, SongSelect seamlessly integrates with a number of leading song planning and projection software packages, including OnSong, MediaShout and ProPresenter.
‘This makes song planning and delivery much easier, whether you’re preparing in advance or responding in the moment,’ added Rich. ‘If you decide it’s for you and your church, you can simply arrange a subscription through your church and link your account to your church.’
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