Lancaster and Carnforth churches take delivery of new contactless machines for giving
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00:00 [no audio]
00:26 Dave Stout, Regional Giving Advisor for the North.
00:29 This is part of our national rollout of digital devices and Blackburn Diocese is, I think,
00:34 is about the 30th diocese that we've worked with. We're giving out 60 devices to parishes
00:39 across the diocese, lots of different dioceses, lots of different locations and contexts.
00:45 And we're giving out these devices, doing some one-to-one training with each church,
00:49 making sure they're up and running with the contactless device, and also giving some advice
00:54 on online giving and how to maximise digital giving within each parish across the diocese.
01:00 And in terms of the response that you're getting, are you finding it's really positive?
01:03 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, with every diocese there's a whole mix of responses.
01:07 Some people look at these devices in a bit of horror and fear, but actually once we've been
01:11 through the training they're really excited to get them into their parishes and using the devices,
01:16 raising funds for really essential work in parishes. And some people have been using
01:21 these devices already, this is maybe an upgrade or something new and exciting to use
01:25 in addition to other things they're using in terms of digital giving.
01:29 And parishes, do they find a significant uptick in the giving once they have one of these machines?
01:34 Yeah, absolutely.
01:35 Hello, I'm Reverend Kevin Collier from St James over Darwin. There's so many people on the
01:40 local housing estate, which is our context, we're right in the middle of it, don't carry cash,
01:45 or don't carry very much cash. And I know that they want to give something, they want to
01:51 contribute something, but they've moved past that onto their phones all the time.
01:56 And for us the risk of moving and getting a machine, a contactless giving machine,
02:01 was really quite large, because it's very expensive. We don't know whether it's going to pay for us.
02:06 So having this grant has just enabled us to take that step with courage and really hope that
02:13 it will respond in the generosity that I know is there. It's just the right way to engage with people today to do it.
02:20 Sheila Aston, vicar of St Silas Blackburn.
02:23 Matthew Talbot, church warden, St Silas Blackburn.
02:27 We've had requests to be able to provide a service where people can just use their card rather than cash.
02:34 And so we thought for our cafe concerts and our events, this would be a really useful way of being able
02:41 to meet that need as well as simplify our own financial systems.
02:48 Okay, and what kind of events do you think you'll be using it at this year?
02:52 We do have lots of organ recitals and we have quite a few cafe concerts where lots of visiting organists
02:59 and musicians come and play our fabulous organ. So quite often we'll have that box should be positioned
03:07 at the doorway where people can make their donation on the door as they walk in.
03:12 It enables people to be able to be in the church without having to worry about they've forgotten their wallet
03:18 or they've not changed.
03:19 I'm Stephanie Van Kean, stewardship resourcing officer for the Lancaster Archdeaconry.
03:24 And I'm Kristy Sawyer, I'm the stewardship resourcing officer for the Blackburn Archdeaconry.
03:28 The great thing about these devices is that you can set up more than one campaign at the same time.
03:35 So if you've got a special collection for another charity or for a roof appeal, harvest appeal, Christmas,
03:42 then members of the church can use this to give to those special appeals,
03:47 even though they're regularly giving for the ministry of the church.
03:51 The great thing about this is that we've been working so closely with them that we have those contacts now
03:56 and we're able to ask them how are things going, hopefully we're not too scary or nebulous
04:02 and these fictional characters over at the diocese now, people know that they can come to us for help
04:08 and if their machine is acting up or they have a question about something,
04:13 we're only at the other end of a phone or an email.
04:17 And on top of that, it means that through this scheme that we've been able to help out churches,
04:23 we can see whether or not there's been activity on their devices
04:28 and we can see if we can help them in any way with that.
04:33 Yeah, the National Church provides us with quite a lot of statistics,
04:37 so we'll actually be able to see the usage, we'll be able to see if it goes up at special times of the year
04:42 and that'll help all churches, not just the churches who've bought them now,
04:47 but churches that might want to buy one, if we can say, oh yeah, this is definitely worthwhile.
04:54 [no audio]