Pledge payments continue to come in, and many thanks to all
of you who have begun - or completed - your contributions.
The Tower working group [Buffy McKay and Charles Prettyman,
co-chairs, joined by Senior Warden Russ Borgman, former Senior
Warden Sally Falck, Don McBeth (who coordinated the
construction of our new building in the Lift High the Cross
campaign), and John Hartnett] met with our architect Tom
Fenniman and his associate Chris Rome on Friday, April 3.
With Tom the group explored a variety of solutions to the
leaks in the roof and the structural weakness resulting from
the narrow proportions of the buttresses at the arched door
entry. One of our preliminary goals is to provide enough of
a covered porch at that entry so that a casket could be
covered with a pall there and perhaps to re-grade the approach
to eliminate the step. Ways to bring in more natural light,
and to give a more uplifting experience when entering the
church through that door are also on the list of things to
consider.
There is more early work to be done, but I suspect by the
early fall we will have very preliminary plans to share with
the congregation in a Sunday morning forum. Our new building
profited greatly from input from the congregation, and
although this project is on a much smaller scale, our Tower
and our Fairmount Road entry are significant elements of our
visual identity, and whatever work we do with them needs to be
done well and thoughtfully.
Other projects: you can see the evidence of the in-ground oil
tank having been removed from the front yard of the Rectory.
Grass seed and some ground cover have been put in place, and
now we will let the rains and the sun do their part. We
continue to work on developing a plan for the organ console
upgrade. Work in the church on lighting and the floors will
be coordinated with the organ and Tower work.
We plan to do a no-cost temporary cleaning of the Saunders
Room to restore the room to use while we develop a plan for
its refurbishment. And the newly refurbished Altar Guild
Sacristy did great service during the very full liturgical
schedule of Holy Week and Easter.
JGH
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