FUUCSL ServiceInstructions

Instructions and Suggestions for Running a Service.

This page is still under construction as of 10 May 2008.

Congratulations! You've decided to run a service at the UU fellowship in Second Life. You have a great topic all ready, you've done a little bit of research, and you're ready to go. You have the content, now how do you do mundane things like virtually unlock the door and turn on the lights?

These are several avatars who can help you with running the service. Etaoin Barcelona is the lead "trainer" and this page is the biggest source of information to get you started.

As soon as you decide to run a service

Schedule your service.

• Go to the FUUCSL UUWiki scheduling page and sign up for a date.

http://www.uuism.net/uuwiki/index.php?title=FUUCSL_Schedule

• • You'll have to add your userid to the UU wiki to edit the page.
  • If it's far in the future, fill in the weeks of the calendar between the last week and your week, please.
• You don't have to sign up for a topic immediately; just reserving the date is enough.
• We normally run a service on Thursday and Saturday, and normally you should do both days. But if you can only make one of the days, just sign up for the day you can make. We can work on the missing day. Let people know if you have problems making both services.

• Join the "House of Wu" group. Being added to this group will make you a "Service Coordinator" which will give you the ability to rez objects in the Lovelace sanctuary and change parcel media setings. It will also let you set Events to happen at the Lovelace sanctuary. Etaoin or many other service coordinators should be able to add you.

As you prepare your service

Prepare a "service script".

This text document contains all the elements of your service: readings, prayers, music URLs, etc.

I also add things like the event text to paste into the SL Events calendar, and little cues to do things like ring bells. In a pinch, you could cut-and-paste everything from this script into the chat window and you'd run the service. During the service proper, you will be doing too many things to thinks about stuff, and this script takes away the routine thought process.

When writing the service script, start each sentence on a new line, and separate the paragraphs with a blank line. I use something like a "---" at the beginning of a line to separate sections of the homily.

I try to make my service about 40 minutes long. Be aware that "Joys and Concerns" tends to take about 15 minutes. If you find the service lasting more than an hour, try to finish it, since people will start to poof out at about that time.

Find music and other media.

If you use music or media, get the URLs of the files together. Watch out for server network capacity; your favorite server might work well when only you are using it, but if 40 people are hitting it you may have problems. If you can check out your server capacity before the service you will avoid problems during the service.

Note there is some concern about what music is publicly playable and which is not. Please make sure that your music can be performed in SL.

When in doubt, run Radio Riel on the Music URL at http://music.orcadia.org

You can also stream video. If you accidentally clobber the video URL you can load up "A Living Tradition" video at http://www.uua.org/ya-cm/campus/Videos/living%20their%20faith-New%20movie-H.264%20300Kbps%20Streaming.mov

When the service is done, please make sure you reset the media URLs.

Learn to use the toys in the sanctuary.

Practice changing the music and media URLs. Even if you don't plan on using music, you may have to change the parcel music if it starts to play a spoken-word performance.

See how clicking on the small chalice lights and darkens it.

Figure out how voice works with your microphone. A headphone with a microphone attached works best--it keeps your microphone a constant distance form your lips. And if you use voice chat, please be aware that you should only listen through headphones, since external speakers tend to feedback at odd times to the other people listening to the service.

Learn to use the notecard reader. See these instructions on how to use it. You need to get one of these from Etaoin Barcelona.

A few days before the service.

Add an event to the Second Life Event database.

Note that it might take 48 hours for the event announcement to appear in-world. We do get a few visitors from Caledon who notice the pretty star over our area and have gotten a few friends that way.

Practice the service.

I've gone to the sanctuary, even with a few people there, and practiced the service. Like anything else, and especially the first time you run a service, practice is important.

The day of the service.

Make sure the notecard reader and Order of Service sender is set up right.

You can edit the Order of Service sender directly--it is disguised as the vase of tiger lilies in front of the pulpit.

During the service.

Tidy up the sanctuary.

Remove the toys you might have put out

Please make sure you reset the media URLs.

Return to the main page.