St John’s Church Hall, Snods Edge

The Project and Brief

St Johns Church Hall is a separate charity linked to the church, a bid was put together in September 2017 to facilitate provision of a community cinema in the Hall, as the hall was eligible for funding from the Kiln Pit Hill Wind Farm. Advice was secured from Hexham Arts and AV as to how best provide the necessary equipment and the bid was accompanied by a detailed quotation which was provided by Universal AV Services.

Universal AV were called in to look over the AV system and provide the specification for the bid. Existing equipment consisted of a portable projector and screen which was brought out for film nights and positioned on a stand amongst the audience. With trailing cables running along the floor it was not the ideal set up. It was decided that a semi-permanent installed system would work better within the space.

The Solution and Installation

In December 2017 a sizeable grant was offered to the Chuch Hall, and accepted, to carry out the work in accord with the specification in the quotation.

Through subsequent discussion this was modified to a degree but installation took place early in 2018 and the first film show using the new equipment happened in early March.

The solution consisted of a Panasonic Full HD 5000 ANSI lumen projector was ceiling mounted to project on to a 3 meter electric screen.

All of the extra equipment was to be installed into a mobile cabinet with an umbilical cord with a wall mounted connection plate. This will allow the users to remove the unit and store it away when not required. To aid the operation of the system attached to the top of the cabinet is an Extron MLC 226 push button controller which eliminates the need for remote controls. The push button controller would be labelled up to give an easy to read user interface with controls for turning the projector on and off, operating the screen, switching the sources and controlling the Blu-ray player, a Kramer multi input system switcher, Blu-ray player and a new 300w amplifier to drive the current speakers, which would be re-sited to the other end of the room.

Installed on the cabinet was an HDMI, VGA and 3.5mm audio jack on an easy accessible plate. This will allow users to connect a variety of devices to the system, from a simple MP3 player, phone or a microphone to allow the system to be used with audio only or a laptop computer to display images on the screen.

The project was managed by a Universal AV Project Manager and was delivered by Universal AV’s own team of in-house engineers who completed the job in one day.

John Foreman, St Johns Church Hall stated; “Universal AV have been very helpful and responsive throughout the process from the initial survey to completion of the installation and handover demonstration. The work was carried out in a timely manner and was delivered as promised to a high professional standard. The new AV system will be a major asset to the Church Hall in achieving our main objective of providing a cinema facility for the benefit of the local community and also enabling the opportunity to attract other local groups and users to use our beautiful and well-appointed space for conferences, presentations, and parties.”

Tom Stutkins, St Johns Church Hall commented; “We love the fact that the new system is compact and simple to operate! Throughout the exercise AV has ‘held our hand’ and its advice has been gratefully received. We would like to think that the relationship will continue in the future, we like knowing that experts are at hand!”