Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

Discussions about using TVs, projectors, laptops, tablets, smartphones, DVD Players and other media players in meetinghouses including standards, management, how to connect to them, proper use, and support.
lajackson
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#31

Post by lajackson »

drepouille wrote:Interesting. I did not know that the guidelines for technology in meetinghouses allowed us to donate monitors or televisions to the ward. I know that the guidelines state that no privately-owned equipment may remain in the meetinghouse overnight. They also state that computer donations are not to be accepted.
All true. And the bishop is also charged to teach his youth in ways they will understand, and usually has the priests quorum in his office each week. And twice a month when the ward council meets and discusses the member progress report and the quarterly report and other items, not all members and leaders have access to this information on their phones.

It's a tough line to draw in this electronic era. But if we roll the television from the library into the bishop's office it becomes the elephant in the room. The Relief Society President, elders quorum president, and high priests group leader no longer have a place to sit, and the other four folks on the same wall can't see the monitor. Or we could throw out the Young Men, Women, and Primary Presidents instead. And this is all contingent on the absence of the fire marshal.

I bring my laptop to church on regular occasions, but I am always cautious, because that same laptop is my own personal computer that replaced my desktop and has all things personal on it, journal, family documents, family finances, everything that used to be on my desktop at home. But it also streams general conference, regional firesides from apostles, training meetings from the area seventy, face to face broadcasts for the youth, and stake conference broadcasts.

So yes, official policy allows a bishop to function in his small office mostly with paper and pencil. I understand why we have the church policies that we do. I have not figured out a better way to obediently comply with current policy than to keep a small monitor in the material center and carry it to the bishop's office each week for use, then return it for safekeeping. This all assumes that a small monitor is even authorized by the FM Group for the meetinghouse.

If I brought a personal small monitor to use in the bishop's office, I would not carry it home every week, either. But I think it might also fall into the same category as the dozen phones, iPads, tablets, and laptops brought in every week by all of the other teachers in the ward. After all, the Handbook says the bishop is a teacher, also.
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#32

Post by johnshaw »

We must remember that undergirding much of these policies is the reason the equalized budget was implemented in the first place. It avoids the wealthy among the church from decking out the Meetinghouse with HD and TV's everywhere, mounted projectors etc... From those in areas that don't have the means to furnish there buildings on their own.

If everyone had the same standard we avoid the costly apparel syndrome.
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lajackson
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#33

Post by lajackson »

There are security issues as well. If someone who thought they needed a television were to think the walls of the church were adorned with such equipment, they may well be tempted to break in and take one. This is the same principle behind the policy that money is never stored at the meetinghouse.
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#34

Post by michaelcox »

lajackson wrote:There are security issues as well. If someone who thought they needed a television were to think the walls of the church were adorned with such equipment, they may well be tempted to break in and take one. This is the same principle behind the policy that money is never stored at the meetinghouse.
So instead we put them all into one room (the library) and that prevents someone from breaking in?
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#35

Post by russellhltn »

michaelcox wrote:So instead we put them all into one room (the library) and that prevents someone from breaking in?
Presumably the library is designed with stronger physical security and equipment that is clearly marked - lowering it's value. (Not that that always happens.)
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#36

Post by johnshaw »

The other thing to remember is that the FM group is responsible for these items, they are considered their items, even if you purchase it it becomes there's if it's in the meetinghouse. We purchased some equipment some years ago for our webcasting and FM took it out of the closet in two of our 9 buildings because another stake requested similar equipment, they took it without asking, without informing, and it was a Wednesday before our Stake Conference webcast (the engineer and FM were both in our stake, they had to know we were having a webcast, the equipment was labeled with webcast support, etc...) It's as if they were trying to prove a point in some way.

I was informed that if I wanted to keep anything like that in the future it needed to be locked up in a Bishop Office Credenza/Desk, that is the only place in the meetinghouse that the FM isn't free to do whatever they want.

If you buy a TV for your meetinghouse and it falls outside the standard (meaning # of large/small tv's per meetinghouse) and another one breaks in the area where the FM covers they could, in all reality, take the one from your meetinghouse to replace the one that broke. It's their inventory. Maybe your experiences are different than mine, but FM are pretty free to do as they please and are determined to come in under budget as a huge majority of their compensation increase is based on being under-budget and not on pleasing the Stake President.
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#37

Post by russellhltn »

johnshaw wrote:The other thing to remember is that the FM group is responsible for these items, they are considered their items, even if you purchase it it becomes there's if it's in the meetinghouse.
While that may be your unfortunate experience, I doubt if that's policy. The Meetinghouse Technology Policy makes it pretty clear that FM inventories what FM buys, but the unit inventories what the unit buys. To say that FM can move around inventory bought by the unit is incredulous.

johnshaw wrote:If you buy a TV for your meetinghouse and it falls outside the standard (meaning # of large/small tv's per meetinghouse) and another one breaks in the area where the FM covers they could, in all reality, take the one from your meetinghouse to replace the one that broke.
To prevent theft, I encourage "vandalizing" the equipment with an obvious lettering on who it belongs to. Something like the old soldering iron on the plastic bezel trick. That would also discourage "reassignment" as well. On the back, I'd include "bought with unit funds".
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#38

Post by johnshaw »

It would not have discouraged this particular FM - He told the SP and that was final. We locked things up in the Bishop Credenza afterwords. This same FM moved into some Stake Offices after a new Stake Center was built and proceeded to make internal changes to the Building that weren't discussed with the SP, put locks on doors that previous agreement said they'd remain available to ward use, etc. It became very contentions, but the FM held all the cards and openly said that you can be on the top of my list or the bottom (yes it was a threat).

Everyone's individual experiences vary.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#39

Post by StevePoulsen »

michaelcox wrote:the Meeting House Tech Policy (https://www.lds.org/help/support/meetin ... y?lang=eng) says the following:

"Physical modifications to a meetinghouse, including the mounting of televisions, cameras, digital projectors, and projector screens, may only be done in compliance with MFD standard plans." (MFD = Meetinghouse Facilities Department).

The letter hsbowen posted is from 2012 and the Meetinghouse Tech Policy is from 2014. Anyone know if mounting of TVs is approved now or still not ok?
Still not ok, though, it is frequently discussed. As alluded to in other places, questions about safety, fairness to both rich and poor wards, and costs abound.
Steve Poulsen - Meetinghouse Facilities Technology Engineer
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Re: Wall mounted flat TV Screen in Bishop's office.

#40

Post by aclawson »

johnshaw wrote:This same FM moved into some Stake Offices after a new Stake Center was built and proceeded to make internal changes to the Building that weren't discussed with the SP, put locks on doors that previous agreement said they'd remain available to ward use, etc. It became very contentions, but the FM held all the cards and openly said that you can be on the top of my list or the bottom (yes it was a threat).
The FM may hold the cards but the SP is the dealer. If the SP sent a complaint up the chain there is no question who would come out on top of that situation.
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