I want to thank you for your patience as we continue to improve our procedures and practices, adjust for the large crowds, and work out the bugs that our church, like any new building, has. A number of you have passed on helpful comments about the sound system in particular, and I want to describe what is happening and update you about what we are doing to address your concerns:
St. Philip's chose a highly qualified designer to create the new sound system for our church; the work of Clayton Acoustics Group includes cathedrals and churches nationwide. As the church was built, our designer, who is also an acoustician, provided input to ensure our building would be suitable for the liturgy. The new system is state-of-the-art and can be precisely adjusted to work with the beautiful reverberance of our new church.
A couple of weeks before the new church opened, however, icy conditions shut down some of the remaining work on our building, resulting in a delay in the sound system installation and tuning. The system received as much work as possible in the days leading up to the Dedication, but there was not enough time to perfect the listening experience.
As soon as possible, we arranged for our consultant to travel back from New York to complete the work, for which he uses a highly-developed acoustical computer model. This weekend, he spent many hours fine-tuning the sound system and working with Msgr. Francis and myself to get things right. He will be making another visit in a few weeks as the process continues, and in the interim we confer by phone and email to make adjustments.
In addition, there is a list of smaller items we continue to address in the new building, including parts for various systems that were delayed because of the pandemic and supply chain issues. You may see workers around for a few more weeks, as progress is made. Again, I thank you for bearing with these minor setbacks as we work through these tasks.