[Magdalen] Coffee Hour arrangements (was Re: Heather Cook)

[Jay Weigel]

My former parish church was built new in the 1970s after a disastrous near
collapse in the old nave. It was built to be as energy-efficient as
possible at the time. The parish hall, as well as rooms in the lower level,
are in near constant use for various community functions and organizational
meetings. The nave is mostly not heated/cooled to comfort for a crowd
unless there is a service of some sort (this was always a pain if the choir
went upstairs to rehearse something, and was a particular nuisance to the
organist who, in winter, wore multiple layers and fingerless gloves to
practice).

On Sat, Nov 7, 2015 at 11:04 AM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> I look at this from the standpoint of being involved with the Budget and
> Finance Committee of three parishes, including one where we calculated if
> 100% of our pledge units tithed more than half the pledge units were widows
> on Social Security Survivor Benefits plus a little pension in some cases),
> we still couldn’t afford a Rector, the heating bill and the insurance.
> Fortunately we had some other resources like renting out the church to
> others, renting parking spaces (no exactly legal under the tax laws <g>)
> that at least put us in the black.
>
> But a lot of church space is still assuming to be in the boom days of
> burgeoning membership of the 1950s, and a little use of the parish hall and
> a little use of that big church school wing and the normal little use of
> the church itself really adds up on items like heat, light and insurance.
>
> I'm not in favor of finally going bankrupt and closing and handing the
> keys in to the bishop because little effort was made to rethink the space,
> let alone think about major maintenance items, like when that 100-year old
> slate roof starts to leek and broken slate sometimes tumbles off the roof
> and threatens passersby on the sidewalk below (or crunches a hole in the
> windshield of the Rector's Car).
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
>
>