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Award sponsors have taken the lead in battery recycling

The front cover of our latest issue shows the roof of the London Oratory, the magnificent Roman Catholic Church in the Diocese of Westminster. The project to reroof the building was the winner of the Lead Contractors Association’s prestigious Murdoch Award in 2013.

Martin UK Roofing Systems Ltd, who carried out the commission, used BS EN 12588 rolled lead from ALM, part of the 2iM Group, which again sponsored this year’s Murdoch Awards to recognise the UK’s very best in leadwork contracting. As a niche competition open only to specialist contractors, the awards highlight restorations on some of the country’s most iconic buildings, and also some of the smaller, less fashionable, but no less detailed projects.

ALM’s rolled lead sheet is now produced using material recovered from car batteries by another 2iM Group company, Envirowales. The group also includes Jamestown Metals Glasgow, Jamestown Resources Dublin and Royston Lead Barnsley.

Another busy year sees heating specialists in action across the country

Christmas worship will be a more comfortable experience for the congregation at St Mary’s Without-the-Walls in Handbridge, Chester. Stoke-on-Trent heating specialists Mellor and Mottram completed the installation of a new system in the 19th-century building at the beginning of November, allowing worshippers time to get used to the new-found warmth before Advent.

The church was built in 1887 to replace the original St Mary’s On-the-Hill, which is now a heritage centre inside the city walls.

The new system comprises two gas boilers from Rinnai, the award-winning manufacturer based in nearby Runcorn. The boilers feed radiators from the Jaga range, featuring low surface temperature for added safety of the congregation.

Ayreshire leadwork specialists complete new President's golf resort refurbishment

Leadwork specialists Nova Contracts, based in Kilmarnock, have recently finished extensive leadwork improvements to the 5 star Turnberry golf resort owned and operated by new USA President Elect Donald Trump. As part of the 200 million pound refit the company's craftsmen built and installed 94 lead dormers in the accommodation area and replaced 300 sq m of lead cornice-ledge in the hotel's ballroom and hospitality roofing area.

An extensive 18 month refurbishment programme took place and Turnberry re-launched on 1st June 2016 with the redesigned Open Championship golf course, The Ailsa, available for play for the first time. Nova worked in partnership with DM Roofing, who provided tiling, joinery and roughcasting services on the Turnberry project.

Christmas entertaining – be prepared with a Mogo folding table!

At this time of year, you may well be thinking about upcoming gatherings of friends and family, especially if you plan to host a party yourself and cater to a lot more people than you usually would. It’s great to be surrounded by people at Christmas, but how can you possibly get everyone round the dinner table?

Mogo Direct has the perfect solution for you. They offer a range of brilliant value, premium quality folding tables which are ideal for welcoming more guests than usual, at home or at your event venue. Their main range covers plastic, wooden and metal folding tables in all shapes and sizes. Round, square and rectangular designs are available with centre-folding, adjustable legs and other handy features available.

Spire restoration at St James Church, New Brighton wins King of Prussia Gold Medal

The winner of The King of Prussia Gold Medal was announced by the National Churches Trust and the Ecclesiastical Architects and Surveyors Association at a ceremony held at St Mellitus College, London on 3 November 2016.

The King of Prussia Gold Medal for church repair and conservation architecture was won by architects Lloyd Evans Prichard for their work to restore the spire of Sir George Gilbert Scott’s St James Church, New Brighton, Merseyside. St James Church received a £500 prize.

Alternative choices for music accompaniment in today’s church

Many churches are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain the services of competent, reliable musicians to accompany congregational singing, yet for a huge number of church denominations communal singing forms an ongoing, popular and significant part of their service format. Anyone who has been to a service where the congregation hesitantly sings unaccompanied will be aware of the importance of a good musical accompaniment.

In recent years new styles of contemporary worship music have achieved popularity. While it is true that some churches now only sing contemporary songs (often accompanied by a worship band), most choose a middle path, adding favourite modern songs to their traditional hymn repertoire. However, the musical skills and instrument(s) required to effectively accompany contemporary music are often quite different to those for traditional church music, thereby exacerbating the problem of finding suitably skilled musicians.

What factors are important?

In order to evaluate accompaniment options objectively, it is important first to understand the musical requirements specific to the successful accompaniment of congregational singing. Unlike the passive task of listening to music, several variables have to be right in order to promote enthusiastic, confident singing in church. For any given tune, the speed, pitch, number of verses – even the length of the pause between verses – will need to be as close as possible to how your congregation is accustomed (or wants) to sing it. An often overlooked fact is that each congregation develops their own “style” over time, so suddenly demanding they sing everything differently from now on is rarely successful!

What options are available?

Essentially there are three categories of product: audio recordings, midi files or a portable church music player unit. These are discussed below:

Audio recordings (audio CDs and mp3 files)

The use of audio recordings is nothing new. Poor-quality tape recordings of hymn tunes were a feature of many crematoria as far back as the 1960s. Although better than nothing, audio formats were (and still are) generally unable to offer the flexibility needed for effective accompaniment of congregational singing. Advances in digital recording techniques now afford a much better quality of sound, but the lack of key requirements as outlined above, coupled with the inherent clumsiness in manipulating multiple audio tracks during a church service, have prevented widespread popularity of the use of audio CDs and mp3 files.

Other problems associated with audio format recordings are lack of adequate repertoire, the often unwanted presence of the recorded local acoustic, and the inevitable performance preferences of the musicians involved, e.g. tempo, “artistic interpretation” of the words etc. In other words, the chances of an audio recording matching how a particular congregation usually sings that tune are slim.

Midi files

A purely digital recording format, the midi file, opened other avenues in the 1980s. Again however, many of the same drawbacks and inflexibility in playback as are associated with audio formats could not easily be overcome. Self-contained midi file players became available, as did collections of hymn tunes in various midi formats. For non-technically minded end users the difficulties of changing the number of verses and orchestration remained while,since midi file players were never designed for church use, they often didn’t have any usable pipe organ sounds for playing traditional hymn tunes and Christmas carols. Another fundamental in the lack of success of this format was, again, lack of sufficient repertoire to fully cover a typical church year.

Church music players

Various companies have attempted to provide a solution in the form of a dedicated midi-based player unit, pre-loaded with a fixed selection of hymn tune recordings, ever since the 1980s. Most were little more than a midi file player with some midi files built in, and all lacked flexibility. Although of some use to missionaries etc, the limited repertoire of tunes and poor sound quality of these early attempts meant they fell far short of providing an effective solution for a church.

Responding to this unsatisfactory situation, Hymn Technology Ltd took on the challenge of designing a completely new portable system, purpose-built for the accompaniment of congregational singing, which could successfully substitute in the absence of a good musician and/or instrument. The result, the ground-breaking Hymnal Plus, offers tremendous versatility coupled with unmatched ease of use and a huge, open-ended repertoire.

What’s different about the Hymnal Plus?

Ease of use

Operation of the Hymnal Plus is very intuitive using the large touch screen display, and users need no musical or technical knowledge. Essential variables such as speed, pitch, number of verses and length of pause between verses can all be altered with simple, dedicated + and – buttons, so playback can easily be adjusted to suit the congregation. The Playlist feature enables storage (and naming) of all the music for services in advance, for playback whenever required. Personal customisations (adjustments to speed, pitch etc) are all stored with each tune in a playlist, so button-pushing during a service is reduced to pressing the Start button at the appropriate times.

Other unique features include a hymn search facility and on-screen display of first line of words and tune name. An infra-red remote control handset is included for added accessibility.

Repertoire

Pre-loaded with a broad-based repertoire of at least 2,750 tunes*, both traditional and contemporary (including a collection of popular incidental music and music for weddings and funerals), the Hymnal Plusis easily upgradeable over time and owners are able to purchase additional repertoire as needed.

* Actual number varies by region

Sound quality

The Hymnal Plus enables the user to choose the orchestration for any particular choice of tune. The internal sound engine has been custom designed specifically for church use, offering a stunning range of realistic pipe and electronic organs and orchestral voices. Over 200 preset orchestrations make sound selection child’s play. A drum rhythm backing can also be added to any orchestration when appropriate.

Flexibility

For complete convenience the Hymnal Plus also plays user-supplied midi and mp3 files, which are stored on its compact flash memory card. These files can also be included as items in playlists.

Options

Optional features include:

Video output for lyrics and text display via projector or TV monitor (with auto-advance of lyrics)
Qwerty keyboard for direct text entry
Soft carry case
Rechargeable NiMH battery pack
Psalm Player, for interactive accompaniment of psalms etc

LSA Young Leadworker of the Year 2017 – competition now open

Are you a leadworker under 30 years of age? If so, don’t miss your chance to give your career a boost and gain recognition for your skills. The Lead Sheet Association is launching its search to find the 2017 Young Leadworker of the Year.

The competition is open to leadworkers in the UK – whether you are self-employed or working for a contractor. You just need to be under 30 years of age on the closing date, Friday 24th February 2017.

Hymnal Plus - the ultimate worship music solution

Hymn Technology Ltd was established in 1995 to market and distribute an American electronic hymn player in the UK. Directors Martin Phelps and Alan Kempster, who between them had amassed over 50 years experience in the organ industry, saw the huge potential for a unit that could accompany congregational singing in the absence of either musician(s) or instrument(s).

The US manufactured product sold well, but it became apparent after a while that churches needed a far more advanced and complete solution to what was clearly becoming a huge problem - the lack of competent musicians in churches up and down the land who were prepared to make the commitment to be available every Sunday.

Custom built sound installation for New Testament Church of God in Willesden

The New Testament of God Church in Willesden commissioned Northamptonshire-based SA Sound Services to handle the audio element of an extensive refurbishment, triggered by the installation of a new wraparound balcony seating around 200 people.

"With a full AV and sound upgrade to carry out, we took the opportunity to put in all the cables at the same time," recalls proprietor Steve Ashley, "all the video cables, and runs of analogue and digital cables for the PA system, all under the floor."

Lightning strikes Irish church

Image One Killasmeetia Church has been given protection by LPTG Member in Ireland, ADS & Associates of Co Clare, having been struck by lightning.

Many believe that a simple rod at the top or highest point of a building constitutes a lightning protection system, however this case study illustrates that this is not the case.

The church is located in the middle of Ireland and was struck by lightning a few years ago. However the church did have a lightning rod on the cross (the highest point) at the opposite end of the building to where it was struck.

Members offer 25 years peace of mind

The trade body that represents the leadworking industry – and guarantees quality in that industry – is the Lead Contractors’ Association (LCA). The LCA was formed in 1984 to promote quality standards in leadwork and now comprises over 70 specialist contractors committed, supported by 15 associate members who supply materials and ancillary services.

Members comprise every business model, from sole traders and partnerships to established corporate bodies. Whether they employ their own workforce or engage teams of subcontractors, members are required to take full responsibility for the purchase and application of the lead sheet under their control.

No ordinary work of art - architectural ceramics firm skills in demand by the art world

Architectural ceramics specialist, Darwen Terracotta and Faience, was chosen by Charles Holland of commissioned artists Ordinary Architecture to build the artwork Foundation Myths. This pioneering sculpture has been installed at the new Artists’ Garden at the York Art Gallery. The work comprises ten, life-sized, ceramic tree stumps arranged geometrically in two rows to echo the foundations of a former building.

Lead casting by John Williams & Co

Kent-based roofing and heritage conservation specialists John Williams & Company have recently celebrated 150 years of working on prestigious historic and ecclesiastical buildings. The company offers a bespoke lead casting service, using traditional moulded sand techniques to create seamless lead plaques and decorative features. Here they give us an insight into this aspect of their work - if you would like a quotation for a lead casting or just some advice please contact them directly.

Method of Sand Casting

Stage 1

A template is made in the exact form as the required finished lead feature. Templates can be mafrom any material so long as it is relatively smooth. Sand moulds will take the shape of even the finest of details so if materials such as natural timber are used the mould is likely to also incorporate the grain of the wood in the casting process.

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