St. Patrick’s Advisory BoardSt. Patrick’s Advisory BoardThe Advisory Board has been working over the past few months on our
Pastoral Plan with the goal of keeping our parish a strong faith community.
As we restore our church and the work for this continues to proceed
toward completion, we have been working on strengthening some of the ministries
and practices that we currently have in place and on establishing several new
ideas to renew our community.
We are very pleased with the progress of the Restoration project and are
looking forward to celebrating Christmas in our church after such a long
absence, even though it is not totally completed. We see that the project is progressing under the contract to Roof Tile Management. We have also noted the many times
that volunteers have worked on the Church and our other projects to assist with
the restoration and with raising funds for it.
We
are truly amazed at the willingness and resourcefulness of our
parishioners and community members in the hard work and time that they have
given to this project. We all
believe that we are working to maintain and improve our faith community and our
rural lifestyle. Thank you for the support you have shown.
We will continue to see this project to completion.
Total
paid to RTM Contractors to date:
$
812,549.25
Total
owing to Diocesan Loan Fund:
$
413,597.04
The building/maintenance committee has been very busy keeping track of
the architect, contractors, engineers, the diocese, and providing advice to
Father Peter and the decorating committee.
The response from the community when volunteers are needed is
overwhelming. How blessed we are to
accomplish so much with volunteer labour.
The floor is now complete, and the floor heat on.
We are pleased to have an almost maintenance free boiler to deal with.
At this point electrical work is continuing, and we hope to have
Colliers, the plaster contractor, back soon to complete the exterior walls. Unfortunately the owner, Gerry Collier, has landed in the
hospital and this has slowed down the process somewhat.
Landscaping and sidewalk repairs will be done in the spring.
This work has been removed from the contract and will be handled by
volunteers thus saving a considerable amount of money.
The general contractors recently completed the remaining exterior work,
which included the addition of some lead coated copper flashing on the tower
where there was a water problem, and the replacing of storm windows on some of
the stained glass windows. They
have also determined that removal of the side altars, as originally planned, is
not possible and they will be attached to the walls in their proper place.
Now that the environment inside the church has stabilized, paint testing
will continue under the guidance of the Marklevitz Architects.
We are confident that a paint will be found that will provide the 40 year
endurance of our last decorating job. Painting
will continue in the New Year, and a deadline for completion of the project has
been set for April 15, 2005.
We are also considering utilizing volunteers to install the wainscoting,
and re-installing the pews, hopefully in March, before everyone is back on the
land.
We are so fortunate to live in a community where we have so many fund
raising opportunities that would not be available to most urban parishes.
The volunteer labour to remove the church floor as well as place and
finish the new concrete floor, has saved us about $60,000.00.
While not technically fund raising they produce the same results.
And who would think that we could have raised $2,000.00 by collecting
scrap metal from parishioners. Thanks
to Joe Leyser for donating the trucks and bins and Don Boyd for organizing and
donating the driving.
We have another such
opportunity coming up. We would
like to have a consignment auction in early April 2005. This will be an opportunity to get rid of some of those
excess items around the home and farm. Large,
expensive items will be sold with the auctioneer’s commission going to the
restoration fund. Smaller, less
valuable items, could be donated completely so all proceeds would go to the
restoration fund. We will include
any items found at any farm auction including dishes, glassware, antiques,
tools, automobiles, and farm equipment. In
order to proceed with this sale we need items to sell.
If you have any items please let one of the members of the Fun’d
Raising Committee know so we can gauge if there is enough interest to proceed.
Following is a summary of our current fund raising activities:
Many thanks to Mary Brown, and Karen Rae who did an excellent job of
organizing this event. A profit of
$3100.00 was raised. Many thanks
also to the people who opened their homes, the student volunteers, the CWL for
providing the delicious snacks, and for all who bought tickets to support this
event.
The Knights have just completed their huge project of building a house
in Mitchell. The house is sold,
although the amount of profit won’t be known until the dust settles.
Great work guys (and girls as I understand many CWL members were busy
also painting and cleaning). The
knights also have been bringing in $1000.00 every three months, for several
years, from helping at the bingos in Stratford.
The pop can collection is continuing, and to date we have received
$4600.00 from pop cans and scrap aluminum.
Please drop off your pop cans in the barrel in front of the parish hall.
We are also collecting stainless steel, copper, brass, and scrap aluminum.
Please call Tony at 393-6480 if you have any of the above, to arrange
pick up. Many thanks to our “can
crushers” and everyone who has been saving their cans.
We have a beautiful replica
of our church façade, attached to a donation box that we can arrange to have at
your birthday, anniversary, or any party. In
the past this idea has helped to raise substantial amounts of money.
To book the “Little Church” call Tom & Liz McLaughlin at
393-5695.
Our committee has been blessed in the past with many dedicated members,
who have contributed much in the way of time, treasure, and talents towards
raising funds to restore our church building.
Some people have found it necessary to retire from the committee, to
attend to other commitments. We are
currently looking for new committee members.
If you feel you have time or abilities to offer please contact Father
Peter at the rectory, or Tom McLaughlin at 393-5695.
Members of the Fun’d Raising committee are: Tom McLaughlin, Tony &
Christine DeGroot, Harry & Michelle Hullman, Pat & Sharon Walsh, Howard
& Marie Hallam, Melissa Baes, Tami DeWetering, Shawn Terpstra, & Monique
Huitema.
The following points are to inform you of what is going on now in our
church, in the decorative aspects of the project.
·
under
the choir loft stairs. The other is in the same location in the sacristy, and
will be outfitted as the wheelchair accessible washroom.
·
Three
paint systems will be tested on three types of prepared plaster surfaces.
Please note that the white colour that you now see in the church is not
paint. It is raw plaster and will discolour in time and collect moisture.
It cannot be left unpainted. So
all areas of plaster will need a primer coat, plus two coats of base coat paint.
·
We
have heard your comments about the church now looking brighter, and the wooden
beam work in the ceiling being more noticeable, enhancing the architectural
beauty of the building. Our
committee is listening and we will keep the paint tones to the lighter tan
shades.
·
Our decorative goal is still to restore the
beautiful decorative detail that made our church unique. We are working with our
decorative painter, Roman Kuczma, to balance this goal with financial realities.
·
Scaffolding
will need to go back in the church to reach the high areas when painting
commences. So the priority is to repaint the decorative work that can only be
reached from this scaffolding now. These areas include:
o
The
ceiling patterns, which will be simplified.
o
The
sanctuary dome will be painted with canvas Eucharistic murals already recreated
by Roman Kuczma.
o
The
twelve center nave wall murals will have the highlighting scrollwork painted
around them again.
o
Other
upper decorative paintings will be touched up, simplified, or redone.
·
Flooring
is being researched now. So far it looks like our best option is still to put an
industrial low pile or loop carpet in the entrance, aisles, sanctuary, choir and
sacristy. We are also looking at various flooring possibilities for under the
pews.
If you have had a chance to volunteer and get involved in our many
church projects, we thank you! For fear of missing someone’s name, and because there are so many, we
dare not make a list of volunteers. But you know who you are, and how much your
wonderful contribution of time, talent and treasure has impacted these projects!
By helping you have felt ownership, community spirit and the magic, that has
kept us all inspired to go on! It’s
amazing what this community dates to achieve
and what we whole-heartedly support and attain. This is the quality that
sets our faith community apart from other communities, and it would be their
wish to be this inspired!
Thanks for your continued support throughout this project. We can still
say it is an honour to work with such great people, on such a spectacular faith
community monument!
Merry Christmas everyone!