Our Vestry met on Thursday, March 16th for its monthly meeting. The minutes for the meeting will be filed and will be available for your review. The meeting was held on Thursday this month so as not to conflict with the Wednesday Lenten dinner series that Rob is leading on the Five Marks of Love. If you have not joined us yet for that, you should come next time. It’s a refreshing and lively discussion about how we can live more fully into God’s calling.
Welcome to Spring 2017! The clocks are moved up, the days are getting longer. Hopefully the last snow has fallen and the blooming flowers, greening pastures and, of course, the Cherry trees are reappearing everywhere. Thanks be to God for another season of renewal and resurrection.
At our meeting in March, we received the Treasurer’s reports and I’m pleased to pass on that our finances remain in good order. While our plate collections are slightly behind budget, our pledge collections for 2017 are ahead of budget and we received a few catch up payments from 2016. I think that is a good trend and I like to believe that you all have listened and responded to Vestry’s plea that we take ownership of our beautiful place we call Trinity. Thanks to all of you for your dedication to Trinity and your diligence in helping us to stay on track with our commitments and goals. We remain hopeful that those who have not yet done so this year will prayerfully consider making a pledge of support to Trinity’s missions. We are all in this together and we still need your help in order to realize our full potential. As I said last month, it is never too late to make your pledge and it will ensure that we can support the missions and programs that we have set for the year.
We received a full report from Buildings and Grounds primarily focused on the much needed repairs that are underway in the Nursery. From fully rewiring the building to plumbing, painting and new floors, the refurbished old building is hardly recognizable. I invite you to go over and take a look when you have time. If you’ve noticed the lighting in the sanctuary is better and brighter, that’s because the first phase of that project has been completed too. The old dimmer unit in the basement is gone and new light controllers are in place. The next phase will be to improve the lighting in the choir. B+G continues to use the Facility Condition Assessment in planning future renovation priorities. As always, we’re in this together so if you see something that needs attention, please let us know.
We also received a detailed report from our Music Director, Christian, on the process and progress of repairing Trinity’s Aeolian-Skinner organ. We are fortunate to have located two experts on this type of organ who have completed an examination of needs and we are awaiting their proposal. If we accept the proposal, a plan will be created to supplement the $50,000 gift received from the Lambert Foundation to the Organ Fund so we can complete the project.
Not to be forgotten at this time of year, and actually at the start of our meeting, we received a report on the 2017 Stable Tour. This year’s tour is shaping up to be a grand one with several farms that have not been on the tour for a several years. The committee is in full swing and you will be hearing much more about this as we get closer to Memorial Day weekend. Watch for the May edition of the Country Spirit magazine for a cover story on the tour! That’s all for now- Thank you again for your prayers, participation and support.