[Magdalen] Need chairs for nave!

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Attended church once at the church where Heinrich Schuetz was a chorister
as a boy.  Rebuilt after the War, it is a huge affair.  In the altar area,
there is a small plexiglass box for the congregation. Well, small relative
to the rest of the structure, but I suppose it was maybe close to a hundred
feet on a side.  It worked quite well, and heating was only required for
this small area. And you still were sitting in the midst of a marvelous
structure.

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better
for people coming behind you, and you don’t do it, you're wasting your time
on this Earth.”  -- *Roberto Clemente

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 4:43 PM, Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com
> wrote:

> On 20/01/2015 18:36, Jim Guthrie wrote:
>
>> And what do we do with our purses? Hats & gloves? Phones?
>>> And where do we set our prayer books?
>>>
>>
>> Many Churches have moved to chairs and discarded the pews. Not only do the
>> chairs have bookracks and sometimes latches, but in smaller intimate
>> services
>> they can be placed in a circle or different configuration which, at least
>> to my
>> way of thinking, is the best way to do a quiet, intimate said Eucharist.
>>
>
> I agree that chairs gathered round the altar is good for a Eucharist with
> a small attendance.  Some years ago I attended such a Eucharist where the
> Peace was shared by us all holding hands in a rough circle to signify our
> being one body.
>
>
>> These chairs tend to be quite a bit wider than the usual folding chair,
>> but can
>> be stacked if need be.
>>
>> Chairs which allow all manner of reconfiguration for use of the Nave for
>> a variety of other uses -- solving the curse of terrible stewardship of
>> parishes which use the Nave for an hour or three on Sunday morning, but
>> need to keep it reasonably heated all week in winter to prevent pipes from
>> freezing.
>>
>
> There are a couple of points here.  One is that many heating systems have
> a frost protection setting which will fire up the boiler if there is a
> danger of the water in the pipes freezing.  The other is maintenance of the
> fabric which benefits from not too wide a range of temperature during the
> week.  There are also arguments that maintaining a certain relatively low
> temperature which is boosted on occasion is cheaper than heating the
> building from cold.  I know a priest who tried that and found it to be
> true.  Pipe organs are particularly susceptible to temperature variations
> so a more equable temperature throughout the week is good for them as well
> as the fabric of the building.
>
> Roger
>