The major item on the past month’s B&G front was the March 20th “work holiday” at the church. A good turnout of willing and reasonably enthusiastic workers enabled several goals to be achieved. In particular, a good start has been made on getting the nooks and crannies about the church cleared of a fair amount of no-longer-useful stuff that has been accumulating over the years. An example would be a couple of fairly broken down chairs of no certain ancestry that turned up out of the space at the “back” of Perkins Hall that has historically been used as a projection room when movies were shown in Perkins. Another example would be a piece of electronic equipment that appeared to my untrained eye to be at least twenty years old, and perhaps even older. Items generally of this sort have been gathered up and put in the unused men’s chorus room in the basement, pending disposal which we hope will occur soon. Accompanying a very crowded “dead storage” room are several spacious and uncluttered to downright empty rooms from which stuff and dust have been removed as a result of the field day. The Eritrean Church has requested UNMC to make available additional storage space, and it is the cleared-out projection room off Perkins Hall. Thanks go out to Hilda Amacker, Tom Curteman, Paul Hannah, Perry King, Shanon Loring, Clint McCully, Linnea McCully, Sue Mosher, Mary Simmons, Donna Simonton, Dave Skidmore, and Al Templeton.
In addition to the clearing out and cleaning of rooms in the basement, good progress was made on clearing out weeds and yard trash and pruning and clipping in the church yard adjacent to the church. We anticipate further work on the yard as the spring progresses, with plans for fertilizing and pruning and clipping in the front and side yards as well. The time will come surprisingly quickly when we will need to start cutting the grass on a regular basis. In the meantime, there is much scope for work by those inclined toward gardening and generally taking care of the church’s lawns and plants.
On the inside of the building, good work was achieved on cleaning and polishing the brass utensils that serve in various parts of the church’s services. Furthermore, a number of light bulbs have been replaced, as well as notes taken on a survey of various electrical repairs needed by the church building.
One final item of note is with regard to the question of making sure that the parking lot behind the Masonic Temple is locked at the end of each Sunday afternoon. Perry King has been serving very kindly as a volunteer performing the opening and closing of the parking lot on Sundays, but his changing schedule in the not-too-distant future makes is necessary for a second person to be prepared to take Perry’s place on occasion. We have had a number of promising suggestions as to ways to handle the providing of such a “lock-up” service, and while these may ultimately work out, it would be extremely useful in the nearer term to have the names of several volunteers to take Perry’s place on occasion.