The pulpit, i.e. the bunkerized lectern sort of affair where ministers once preached from, was removed last year to open up a bit more of the chancel, the raised area at the front of the church. We accomplished the removal ourselves, and brought the former pulpit to the rear of the church where it now serves as our sound booth. Waste not, want not, right? There were a few ugly strips of missing veneer when we were done, but a gifted congregant with a background in stage and television production was able to match it up almost seamlessly.The pulpit's removal did leave nearly a four-foot drop however, which needed to be addressed.
After looking at a number of options, we contracted a company to install a short wall of tempered glass which would prevent falls without blocking line of sight to those onstage. We paid a deposit to the contractors, found our own posts to hold up the glass, and the whole thing promised to be both safe and aesthetically pleasing.
Then the contractors went out of business unexpectedly (at least to us) and there is very little prospect of getting our money back, so it was kind of back to the ol' drawing board, there.
Then our first choice for a replacement contractor informed us that the first one's plan would not have been up to code, and that the posts would need to be bolted all the way through the concrete substrate (I believe? I don't actually speaking construction...). This would take the estimated cost from the approved $6.500 to about $10,000. Yikes!
Well, we certainly couldn't leave the chancel as it was, so we bit the bullet and that committee prepared to ask the congregation at our semi-annual general meeting for additional money to finish the task, almost a year after we had begun.
Just prior to this meeting, one of the committees I sit on heard tell that an alternative might end up being presented at the Semi AGM. Now, I don't know about your experiences at large meetings, but in my estimation, they are a great place to have ideas debated on a yes/no sort of basis, but a terrible forum for the consideration of alternatives. Asking a couple hundred people "forward or not?" can be a productive discussion, but an inquiry as to "which way should we go?" will always be inclined towards quagmire as people alternate between boosting one alternatives, denigrating another and then adding another to the mix for good measure.
To make matters worse, the option was rumoured to be a row of planters bolted to the stage floor and then supplanted with some manner of shrubbery to present a visible barrier as opposed to a more physical one. Despite being in a place of worship, we had very little faith in this plan.
Long story short, instead of presenting two alternatives, we were presented with an opportunity to approve the additional funds if needed, but were given to understand that the parties involved would have two weeks to present their alternative to all of the impacted committees and then, pending their approval, council would be given the choice of the two alternatives.
My committee was shown the alternative on Thursday night, and it didn't involve planters, although that idea had indeed been floated at one point. Instead, the problem had been turned on its head: what if, instead of preventing the fall, we reduced the height of it, by effectively bringing the floor closer?
By adding three 12-inch steps below the stage, the height of the fall was reduced to a mere 18" - the same height as the stage in our upper hall, and well within code standards.
It's fascinating to me to see people thinking "outside the box" like this. The classic example is usually Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot instead of untying it, but I always think of influential Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, director of The Battleship Potemkin and Aleksander Nevsky.
The way it was explained to me, early cinema was almost frustratingly literal, For instance, in order to show one person shooting another, they both had to be in the frame at the same time. This not only rendered them smaller onscreen and removing a lot of nuance from the act, but also made it almost impossible to convey emotion for the characters involved.
Eisenstein was the first to trust his audience to follow a visual narrative; by showing a closeup of someone shooting a gun followed immediately by a cut to the reaction of the person being shot, people immediately put the two together, "Hey, that first fellow just shot that other one!" This technique, known as montage, opened up a lot of doors for visual storytellers. He essentially added "editing" to the filmmaker's toolbox.
It's such a simple solution that you marvel that no one had come up with it earlier, but someone always has to be first. Someone needs to apply that differing perspective that can sometimes present an elegant solution to whatever problem you're facing. Thank goodness these people exist!
Furthermore, there is no telling from whence these individuals and their iconoclastic ideas might come; the individual who came up with the steps solution to our railing issue is the same one who had initially suggested the wall of planters.
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