AWVT at the Church Sound & Media Summit 2026 – Listening Before We Launch

A year ago, we came to the Church Sound & Media Summit to talk about an idea: could we create a structured way of developing and recognising the skills of the volunteers who make sound, media and technical production happen in churches and other organisations?

A year later, AWVT is back at TCSMS — and that idea has moved considerably further forward.

This weekend we’re talking to technicians, team leaders, trainers, manufacturers and organisations about a deceptively simple question:

What does a volunteer technician actually need to learn?

It’s a question we’ve been working on for some time as we develop a structured pathway for volunteer technical skills. Tomorrow we’ll be taking an important next step, with the launch of our new research questionnaire focusing specifically on volunteer audio skills.

Today, though, is about conversations.

We’re listening to the people who actually do this work — and to the organisations that depend upon them — so that what AWVT develops is based on what volunteers genuinely need rather than what we assume they need.

An event like TCSMS makes the breadth of technical knowledge involved particularly visible.

A volunteer might begin simply wanting to help operate a sound desk on a Sunday morning. Before long, they can find themselves dealing with microphones, mixing, monitoring, signal paths, digital consoles, troubleshooting, hearing safety and increasingly networked and software-based systems.

For some volunteers that develops into considerable technical expertise. Others may only ever need a relatively small set of skills to perform a particular role confidently and safely.

That creates an important question for AWVT. How much does somebody need to know at the beginning, what should come next, and how can we recognise the skills they develop along the way?

We don’t think the answer is simply to take professional training and make a smaller version of it. Volunteer training has to reflect the environments people actually work in, the time they realistically have available to learn, and the responsibilities they’re actually being asked to undertake.

Tomorrow, the research begins

Tomorrow we will launch AWVT’s new research into volunteer audio skills.

We’re asking volunteer technicians themselves — alongside the people who lead, train and work with them — to help us understand what volunteers are actually being asked to do, what skills and knowledge they need, what training is already available, and where the gaps are.

This isn’t about starting with a qualification and then trying to persuade volunteers that they need it. We want to start at the other end: understand the real work volunteers are doing, the environments in which they’re doing it, and the support they need to develop.

The results will help inform the development of AWVT’s first audio standards and the progression pathway that sits behind them.

For today, we’re continuing the conversations here at TCSMS.

If you’re at the Summit, come over and find us — we’d genuinely like to hear about your experiences.

And if you’re involved with volunteer audio somewhere else, come back tomorrow when the questionnaire goes live.

This is your opportunity to help shape what comes next.

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