McKim Organ Safely Removed and Stored
By Kirk Denton, organist
The McKim Organ has been safely removed and stored by our organ techician, David Storey. It now resides in Mr. Storey's workshop in Baltimore where he is carefully evaluating the organ and formulating a course of action for its complete restoration.
Mr. Storey was assisted by nearly 35 volunteers who gave of their time over the past month. These included members of the Organ Historical Society (Hilbus Chapter), the American Guild of Organists, and many interested friends and colleagues.
Donna Simonton has assembled a collection of photographs taken during the removal and they are being displayed in the Romaine-van Shaick room for everyone's inspection. The complete story of the removal, with photographs, is currently the feature article on the OHS Hilbus chapter web site. I encourage everyone to visit this site to appreciate the enormous effort taken by these volunteers on our behalf. I would also like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all of those who have given so generously of their time.
However, the removal and safe storage of this historic instrument is only the beginning of the formidable task of the restoration and installation of the organ. We now are embarking on the enormous task of raising money towards this goal.
In the past month, the organ committee has been actively putting into place the seeds of this fund raising effort. To date, we have been pledged $15,000 from sources within our congregation. In addition, we have secured the services gratis of a professional not-for-profit fund raiser and marketing expert to help us identify and solicit available funds from sources outside of the Church. It is our goal and expectation that not only will this professional be able to expedite our efforts for this cause, but during the exploration of these funding sources we will be able to identify promising sources for many other fund raising needs within the Church.
To date, aside from the work of the committee and Board of Directors, all of the volunteer efforts toward this cause have come entirely from outside the UNMC Church family. I can assure you that if this cause is not embraced by our Congregation as a whole we will surely fail.
Therefore, I would like to encourage any and all of our members who have enjoyed and appreciated the efforts of our Music Ministry, past, present and future, to step up and be a part of this unprecedented opportunity to enrich our collective worship experience.