UUYO Buildings & Grounds Chronicle, 2021.
New info added at bottom of document. To find particular topics, use Search or Find function.
Please advise B&G Chair (Martin Berger, saabmb@yahoo.com) of omissions and other errata.
This document includes occasional observations on Trash & Recycling and Security matters, since the committees that ought to deal with those functions do not formally exist and activities are apt to go unrecorded unless they are included with B&G.
B&G annals for previous years may be accessible on the Church website; if not, interested persons should inquire of the B&G Chair as above. Anyone wishing to receive this Chronicle via e-mail should do likewise.
[Infrequently-Asked Question: Why are B&G activities recorded in such detail? Response: Especially in an organization that runs on volunteer efforts, there is a lot of turnover in who does what, so the collective memory as to what was previously done and why tends to be weak. We have had many substantial projects undertaken by one individual who took care of business and then threw away all records. In many instances questions like Where does this wire go? or the recurrent historian’s query What were they thinking? have no ready answer. If we write stuff down in a searchable format, future generations can determine what we did and why it seemed like a good idea, or the least of the available evils, at the time. Also, my own memory, even for stuff that I did not so long ago, is increasingly unreliable.]
Chronicle entries are composed by B&G Chair (MB) unless otherwise noted.
First 2021 Work Party, 16 Jan. Present: Tim Ingram, Matt Jones, Jim Rak, Lowell Satre, Bob Seibold, Lisbet White, MB.
I had anticipated a small turnout, since most of the workers last year were busied with outdoor work—leaf-management, mowing, weeding, etc.—and today offered no opportunities for any of those activities. A couple of people might help with finishing up the painting of the Office, which I had worked on last year and left uncompleted, distracted by other obligations and issues with my back. I expected to accomplish a modest amount of progress toward covering the old faded yellow with the new brighter yellow, and to demonstrate that B&G was not entirely inactive despite the impossibility of doing building work online during the pandemic.
As it turned out we had a very good turnout, and did a fair amount of useful stuff. I arrived early and made coffee in one of the small percolators (which worked fine but ceased to keep the coffee warm—a matter to be pondered).
Matt was the first to arrive, and we went to the Choir Loft to discuss the state of the plaster. Matt said that he would have some time in the next couple of weeks to finish what he had begun a few months earlier, and render the plaster walls smooth and fit for painting. (For new readers of this Chronicle, the plaster had been damaged over many years by water damage from the leaking and disintegrating old steeple, and has taken a long while to dry out and be repaired.) Tim Raridon, who arrived to work on audio for the following day’s service, had brought in four gallons of paint that is close enough in color to the Choir Loft to be used when the plaster work is done.
The former Sound Room, now used for storage, had been for some time a mess so gross that merely looking into the room produced a grave risk of tripping and falling. Matt and I, assisted by Tim, folded up the large dropcloth, put away the jumble of wreaths and miscellaneous items on the floor, stood pieces of drywall and plywood vertically so that they no longer take up so much space, and removed from the room a number of items that I have either trashed or carried home to burn or repair. (A double set of brown aluminum venetian blinds has already been disassembled and sorted for metal recycling.) A bucket of petrified joint compound, now in trash, was labeled as having been left on the Church premises in 2015.
Lisbet brought a heat-detecting device to measure insulation and the lack of it. She checked a number of things and when I left was in the Sanctuary attic. Lisbet also noted in the Minister’s Office ceiling a discolored tile, which we replaced. Some other esthetic issues were discussed.
When we were able to turn our attention to the Office walls, Lowell argued successfully for deferring the painting in favor of moving the Office Manager’s desk away from the wall to permit proper painting down to the vinyl baseboard; he and Ellen and I would do the whole remaining painting of the walls in the next few days, after we used the persons available to move the very unwieldy desk away from the wall. This was done. I’ll go in and install some right-angle braces so that the desk can be more readily be moved without coming apart.
Two wreaths were removed from the Elm Street doors and put in the former Sound Room.
I left a note on the paper-recycling container in Channing Hall explaining that cardboard belongs in the cardboard-recycling box in the Illinois Closet.
The moldy tea-mug discovered in the Kitchen on Tuesday 12 January is still soaking in the big sink.
A useful Work Party. Thanks to all. To any readers who don’t attend Work Parties: you’re missing out on fun and donuts.