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

[Ann Markle]

Jim, I'm confused by your statement that it's cheaper to have coffee hour
in the separate parish hall, rather than right in the back of the church,
which is heated anyway on Sunday morning.  Is there a reason it's cheaper
to heat 2 rooms (and many parish halls are also cavernous), rather than
just set up coffee in the narthex, directly behind the nave?  Most of these
areas are not entirely separated from the nave, and so are heated right
along with.  But the original comments referred to removing rear pews so
that coffee was served in the back of the nave (again, which is heated
anyway on Sunday morning).  What you're saying makes no sense to me.

Ann

The Rev. Ann Markle
Buffalo, NY
ann.markle at aya.yale.edu
blog:  www.onewildandpreciouslife.typepad.com

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
>
>
>