Fulfilling the Vision, Part 2

My first post on Fulfilling the Vision is here. My third post is here.

One disappointment I had with yesterday’s Fulfilling the Vision presentation was the apparent absence of any plan to change the seating in the chancel or balcony, to improve the lighting in the church, or to change the dark woodwork in the church and narthex that reflects the building’s original décor.

In April, when I learned that a committee was looking at building needs, I sent a memo to church leaders about issues in the church and narthex I was aware of as a result of my long tenure as Audio-Visual Coördinator. One Sunday after church, the Senior Warden and I walked through the church reviewing the issues I raised in my memo. None of my concerns that had not been raised earlier made it to yesterday’s presentation.

There is, of course, $200,000 in the proposed budget for a “Facilities Maintenance Fund.” This sounds like a special fund for current (often deferred) maintenance, however, rather than for capital improvements, so I suspect my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. “Facilities maintenance” should be part of our operating budget. The need for “facilities maintenance” will not have gone away after Fulfilling the Vision has been long forgotten.

I consider the seating, lighting, and cosmetic changes I proposed to be high priority items. Only yesterday, for example, did a fellow choir member turn to me and say, “I wish they would improve the lighting in the chancel, so we could read our music better.”

Please do read my memo here. You may find that it identifies issues you had not thought of or issues of which you were only subliminally aware. It may address issues about which you are passionate.