Please see the Woodbridge Quay Church Vision and Values page at thequay.org.uk/vision-values

In the Music and Technology Ministry we share the following values:

• To have a heart for worship, that we pursue in our own lives and as part of the church

• To aim for excellence in what we do, recognising that God gives us creative gifts, but that we should nurture and develop them and aspire to the best sound, balance, skills and songs that we can

• To walk with humility, holding our gifts and service lightly

• To serve the church, by fostering an environment where all can participate in corporate worship

• To lead well, modelling servant-hearted leadership

• To be committed to the church and to the Music Group and AV team by observing good time keeping, and committing to personal and group practice

• To be inclusive of those with less experience, but who want to grow in their service

• To engage with training, for ourselves, the group, and raising up others

If you are interested in serving in the Music and Technology Ministries at WQC then please have a chat with Jonathan Knight (Music), or Alan Scurrell or Michael Phelan (Tech Team).

If you are a relatively new member of the church at Quay, we would encourage you to get involved in the full life of the church, not just the Music or Technology Ministry. This might include being in a Home Group, or being a regular participant in Sunday services or other regular church events. As a guide we would suggest being an active member of church for six months before getting involved in the music and tech team ministries.

Under 18yrs…

We love our Children and Young People to be a part of the music and tech teams. This is a great way for them to serve the church family and use their creative gifts.

If you are under 18yrs we would encourage you to be actively involved in the Sunday morning Children’s and Youth Provision at Quay; either our Quay Kids Group (Primary School age) or Quay Youth Group (Secondary School age).

This means that you could be part of the music group for the first part of the service, and then join with the Children’s and Youth Groups for the rest of the morning.

This enables you to enjoy being part of the music group and also benefit from the Children’s and Youth Ministry each week. Joining back for the last songs is not ideal as this disrupts the youth session, and the service, so we try to avoid this where possible.

If your group isn’t running that particular week, then of course you would be able to be involved for the whole service.

We would want to chat with a parent about what is involved. They can talk to Jonathan, Alan or Michael.

We are wonderfully blessed at WQC with people who have high levels of skills and expertise in particular areas (musically, vocally, technically). We also have team members who have different levels of skill, and we try and accommodate these into the group and help with training.

Before getting involved in corporate worship, a basic level of musicianship, vocal ability, or technical confidence is needed. We suggest attending our monthly Music Team Practice Workshop a couple of times to see if you are ready to be involved in Sunday services.

To be able to help out with sound and AV (projection), you don’t need to be an expert, but it would be useful to have some standard PC knowledge, and some awareness of music and sound engineering. Any specific skills will be taught through shadowing and just trying it out!

The AV team on a Sunday is normally 2 people, 1 on the sound desk and 1 on the PC to manage projection and streaming to YouTube. We like to mix skills so that people can do both jobs if possible, to make the rota more flexible.

Shadowing or observing the Tech Team on a Sunday or at a monthly Saturday workshop is also a good way of seeing how things work and what is involved “on the desk”.

These are held on the first Saturday every month from 10am to 12 noon and are a lot of fun. These monthly practice workshops are an important way of developing your skills, being part of this group ministry, encouraging others in the group, and growing together in this area of service. We understand that people won't always be able to make every monthly practice workshop, but we encourage people to attend as many of them as they are able. At these sessions we cover:

• Worshipping and praying together

• Learning new songs, fine tuning known songs

• Improving our technical set up

• Learning to work together as a team

• The Tech Team can develop their skills while the band is rehearsing

• Pastries and coffee supplied

Being involved on a Sunday requires attendance at the pre-service run-through. We don’t (usually!) learn new songs here, but we check that we know the intros and transitions and how we are going to play particular songs during the service, as well as pray together before the service.

The run-through is also important for the Tech Team to check the sound is set up and balanced, that the projection of words and any videos are set up, and that the livestream is working. The AV team aim to get to church for 08:30 for the 10am service, and 05:30pm for the 7pm service to allow time to turn everything on and do pre-checks before the music groups arrive.

The pre-service run through starts at 9:00am (for the 10am service) and 6:00pm (for the 7pm service). If you have an instrument that requires tuning and/or setting up then you will need to be there at 8:45am and 5:45pm respectively. Good timekeeping here really helps the group to work well together, and means that we are not rehearsing right up to the start of the service (we aim to have finished run-through by 15minutes before the service starts).

At the end of the service we tidy up and often have a short “de-brief” to check to see if there are things we can learn, and to encourage each other in this ministry.

With over 20 musicians and vocalists and over 6 Sound and Visual Technicians, and with two services every Sunday, having a good rota system is important.

a) The music rota is set up every three months. A form is sent out to request availability and an initial rota is put together to try and get a good balance of skills, instruments, and experience. This is then sent out to the group and also set up on ChurchSuite where you can see when you are on.

If changes are needed then please liaise with the rota person (Jonathan at the moment), the service leader for that Sunday, and others who may be able to cover.

b) AV Team rota is generally done 1 to 2 months in advance if we can. With a small team we generally have people on the rota at least 2 times a month. This is managed on Church suite where you can add availability and unavailability for either the 10am service or the 7pm service.

We use WhatsApp Groups to keep in touch with each other outside of Sundays.

E-mail is used for requesting rota availability and sending out the initial rotas.

ChurchSuite is used for the rota and also serves as the way of sending out the Order of Service each week to those who are involved. This will have links to the songs, the sheet music and chords, and YouTube links for the songs.