OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

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Mike_P
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:13 pm
Location: 1st Presbyterian Church, Girard PA

OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

Post by Mike_P »

In the early morning hours of Sunday, July 22 a fire began in our church building. Fourteen local fire companies were called in. By 10:00am, our usual worship time, nearly 1/2 million gallons of water had been poured onto the smoldering pile of wood and brick that had once been our worship space. http://www.GirardPC.org. Except for possibly a bell tower, our historic 126 year old building is a total loss. The cause remains undetermined.

We had recently purchased 2 new computers and we have been faithfully backing up to a cloud service. All of our important files from our PCs are safe. I received our 'restore' drive yesterday.

A few questions come to my mind as we regroup and begin plans to rebuild:

1. Can I download the original install files from somewhere for PC+ v.11.1 that we were using? (install disks lost in fire)
2. Could a recent Maintenance Release download serve as an installation file on a new system? (I have that)
3. PowerChurch Online seems to be the logical option for us now until we can establish new office space. Can we purchase that on a month-to-month basis as needed and then revert back to the standalone version 12 later? Just our treasurer and I need access right now.

We will be worshiping in a different church building about 2 miles away for the next few months. The reality of our situation has not quite set in for most folks. Your prayers for the members of our 183 year old ministry in our small community would be appreciated.
Mike Parenti
Financial Secretary
1st Presbyterian Church of Girard, Pa.
http://www.GirardPC.org
Using PC+ since v.4.2

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
Contact:

Re: OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

Post by NeilZ »

Mike_P wrote:I

We had recently purchased 2 new computers and we have been faithfully backing up to a cloud service. All of our important files from our PCs are safe. I received our 'restore' drive yesterday.

A few questions come to my mind as we regroup and begin plans to rebuild:

1. Can I download the original install files from somewhere for PC+ v.11.1 that we were using? (install disks lost in fire)
I would call Powerchurch directly, they can probably help you out. Do you have a recent Powerchurch backup? I do hope that you keep a copy of these offsite.
2. Could a recent Maintenance Release download serve as an installation file on a new system? (I have that)
No, MRs do not contain all the required files.
3. PowerChurch Online seems to be the logical option for us now until we can establish new office space. Can we purchase that on a month-to-month basis as needed and then revert back to the standalone version 12 later? Just our treasurer and I need access right now.
Again, I'd call Powerchurch on Monday to see what your options are.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

CharlieParent
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2016 11:14 am

Re: OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

Post by CharlieParent »

Mike,
I am not posting an answer or suggestion...just sending my condolences on the huge loss you and your congregation have suffered.
I will keep you all in my prayers.

Charlotte Parent
Parish Secretary
St. Benedict Tridentine Catholic Community
Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Mike_P
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:13 pm
Location: 1st Presbyterian Church, Girard PA

Re: OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

Post by Mike_P »

Thank you to Zorak and the PowerChurch team!

When I opened my email this morning, they had already sent me the link to the installer file that I needed.
I am downloading it for backup.

After looking through the knowledge base, I was able to copy my program files and data from a backup to another computer following the directions below,
https://www.powerchurch.com/support/425 ... to-another

I now have a fully functioning copy of PowerChurch running on my home PC. :D

This will undoubtedly be the easiest part of our recovery, thanks to a good backup and a GREAT software company!

Thank you again!
Mike Parenti
Financial Secretary
1st Presbyterian Church of Girard, Pa.
http://www.GirardPC.org
Using PC+ since v.4.2

NeilZ
Posts: 10209
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:20 am
Location: Dexter NM
Contact:

Re: OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

Post by NeilZ »

Mike_P wrote:Thank you to Zorak and the PowerChurch team!

When I opened my email this morning, they had already sent me the link to the installer file that I needed.
I am downloading it for backup.

After looking through the knowledge base, I was able to copy my program files and data from a backup to another computer following the directions below,
https://www.powerchurch.com/support/425 ... to-another

I now have a fully functioning copy of PowerChurch running on my home PC. :D

This will undoubtedly be the easiest part of our recovery, thanks to a good backup and a GREAT software company!

Thank you again!
Good to hear ... my advice for the future, start keeping your backups offsite. Dropbox is very easy to use, and is very inexpensive, well worth the price, and as long as you have internet access, you have access to the backup.

If you worry about that, you can do a backup to a local network storage drive, and then using Windows' task scheduler to copy the files to Dropbox.
Neil Zampella

Using PC+ since 1999.

wms7328
Posts: 246
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2005 8:45 am
Location: Unity Presbyterian Church
Contact:

Re: OUR WORST NIGHTMARE

Post by wms7328 »

I just read your original post and I would also like to offer my prayers that your congregation will recover and be restored.

I do have one suggestion you may not have considered. I just moved from a local version of Power Church to the On-line version. In my view the benefits of the on line version are:

1) Power Church maintains backups in case something happens to your data on their servers so you always will have your data. You still need to maintain your own backup in case you want to go back to previous data set for some reason. I make a backup at the end of each week or after making significant changes. I just use a memory stick that I don't keep on site.

2) With on line version, you can access it from any computer that has internet access. We have all of our computers networked together at church and PC was running on one of the computers. We seemed to always have some issue where one of the computers couldn't connect to the PC computer. With on line version anyone can log on from any computer, with the only restriction that only two users can be logged on at one time. As long as people log off when they finish using PC, then it hasn't been an issue. We have about 10 Power church users in our staff. Also, when people call me at home, I can log on and answer their questions immediately.

3) With on line version, all the Maintenance Releases are automatically uploaded so you will always have the latest version. This costs some each year but I've found it to be beneficial due to access without being in the church office. If something like a fire happens, then you will always have Power Church available.

Hope this helps.

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