Operations Update

We completed our last Work Party for the year today. A very big Thank You is passed along to Skip Mahnke, David Cruikshank, Don Blaney, Ed de Jong and Bill Friscia for helping me with the final winterization of the main campus of our Church. We trimmed back the rest of the grasses, took the refuse to Yorktown Recycling and spread one load of much along the center island of the North Parking lot. Our very good news on Friday evening was that our Landscaper, Mike Androsko, of Androsko Landscaping had completely cleaned up the storm debris in the East Yard Cemetery. This very welcome work made our task much easier this morning and eliminated the need for another work party on December 8th.

Another big Thank You is passed along to Jose Sandavol who worked with me on Monday & Tuesday to strengthen the underpinnings of the Chancel in anticipation of tomorrow’s Concert.

We also have installed new “risers” on either side of the Chancel for this Sunday’s Concert. These risers will allow the choir to spread out more and allow all members to see Director, Simona Frenkel. These risers are a big addition to the Church and will be used for concerts for many years to come. I also made additional risers for the “main stage” (i.e. Chancel) so that the back row of choir members can be seen and can see their director. All of these additions will enhance the enjoyment of the spectacular concerts that Simona and our great choir perform.

Another addition to our great facilities is in the making. We have established a design which will significantly enhance the “kitchenette nook” which is part of the Library/Lounge. The existing kitchenette nook is of a very old style which dates back to the 1950′s and is only partially functional. The old style cabinets, stove top and sink will be removed and replaced with oak faced cabinets with substantial counter space. Several other accoutrement are being considered to further enhance this space and bring it up-to-date. This work will commence this month. The new cabinets are already on site. We will do this work in-house to minimize costs.

We recently had one of our heating circulators spring a leak and this necessitated a repair by our plumbers. Our new fuel oil contract is in place with Burke Heat and the price is slightly less than last year. Routing maintenance continues throughout our facilities. In a word, things are in good shape. Overall, I am very happy with all that we have achieved this year and look forward to continuing our progress in the coming year.

We wish all members and friends of our Church Best Wishes for a Joyous, Prayerful and Happy Holiday Season! Dick Seymour, Chair of Operations Commission & Facilities Coordinator.

SuperStorm Sandy

As all have noted, we have had quite a week with Hurricane Sandy! We took many precautions to protect the Church property and I am very happy with the results. Our actions before & after the storm are listed below:

1. The shutters on the Sanctuary windows were firmly fastened with cross braces so that the shutters could not vibrate loose. This protected both the shutters and the very fragile window sashes. Following the storm, all of the special braces were removed and stored for future use.
2. Sump pumps were checked to be sure they were working properly before the storm and the basements were dry. Both sump pumps were recently replaced. Check valves were installed in the lines so that we do not waste energy with water in the lines flowing back into the sump pump wells. Fortunately, we had relatively little rain with this storm so the ground water that usually comes into the basements did not materialize. Good news for us during the extended power outage.
3. The freezers were emptied and most of the frozen food was brought to our home to keep it frozen. We lost a few items which thawed on the first day of the power outage. Virtually all of the frozen goods were saved and have now been returned to the Church freezers.
4. We had quite a few large branches come down from the tree by the shed and along the East berm in the North parking lot. All of this debris has been taken to Yorktown Recycling so the campus looks pretty good following this huge storm.
5. The furnaces, circulators & copier were shut down during the power outage so that any power surges upon restoration of power would not affect the motors or electronics. Following restoration of power on Saturday morning, all was switched on again and no problems have shown up.
6. We lost quite a few shingles and peak-caps on the roofs of the C/E bldg. and Fellowship Hall. Jose and I were able to replace all on Friday. No interior problems have been found since.
7. We have had one of the 10 ft long copper leaders from the Sanctuary gutters come down during the storm. We tried to restore this leader, but could not do so safely. Therefore, our good friend, Tom Clemmens of Clemco Constrution, will reinstall this leader as soon as his emergency workload eases up.
8. While not related to the storm, we have begun refinishing several of our offering plates which had gotten somewhat dilapidated. Those at the Service on Sunday may have notice our use of very old offering plates. This is the reason for using the old ones. Jose is doing a great job on these and we will have four of them restored by Sunday, 11/11. We plan to refinish all of the good offering plates.

 

We continue to strive to keep our facilities in top-notch shape. This takes a great deal of effort behind the scenes and we are indebted to all of those who help and those who bring problems to our attention. Our facilities are used by huge numbers of people each week as openness to the community is part of the Mission Work of our Church. Please let me know if anything looks amiss. We will try to correct problems immediately. Thanks! Dick Seymour, Chair of Operations & Facilities Coordinator

News from Operations

A very big Thank You is offered to the 15 stalwarts who participated in our Fall Work Party on October 20^th. It was gratifying and a real pleasure to have Craig Hibben accompany me for a walk around the main campus to plan the work for our Fall Work Party. Craig’s advice was very helpful. Thanks, Craig!

We accomplished much and our main campus looks great and is pretty much prepared for the Winter season. We do have another smaller work party scheduled for December 8^th to cut down the grasses and take the refuse to Yorktown Recycling.

Those participating in the October 20^th work party were:

Peter Marsh           John Chessa                 Sue Nelson

Judy Chessa          Carol Annacone           Mable Seymour

Dick Seymour       Squeegee Mills             Marsha Henderson

Dave Ramage        Ed de Jong                     Bill Friscia

Julie Friscia

Preschool Fence: Operations and the Preschool shared the cost for replacing the portion of fencing from the preschool entrance to the Butterfly Garden. The existing posts were saved, but a new bottom rail was added to strengthen the overall fence.

Routine Maintenance: Many items of routine maintenance have been done since the last online report from Operations. These include: a new exit light in room #17, a new ballast in one of the driveway bollard-lights, adjustments to many door stops, replacement bulbs for burned-out lights, new window shades in rooms # 1 & 16, thorough cleaning of the grease interceptor in the kitchen, regular testing of the gas stoves in the kitchen including verifying correct oven temperatures, and much touch-up painting throughout our facilities.

Fuel Oil: A new fuel oil contract has been put in place with Burke Heating for the 2012-2013 fuel season.

Maintenance Reserve Analysis: Another update has been completed to our Maintenance Reserve Analyses. This work helps us to understand future needs and costs associated with the maintenance and operation of our facilities.

Budgets: Work continues on the Operations’ and Church budgets.

Custodial Work: We also offer a big Thank You to John Harrigan for substituting for Jose while he was on vacation to his home country. John did an excellent job and we very much appreciate his assistance. Jose has returned and we are very happy that he is back with us!

We continue to strive to keep our facilities in top-notch shape. This takes a great deal of effort behind the scenes and we are indebted to all of those who help and those who bring problems to our attention. Our facilities are used by huge numbers of people each week as openness to the community is part of the Mission Work of our Church. Please let me know if anything looks amiss. We will try to correct problems immediately. Thanks! Dick Seymour, Chair of Operations & Facilities Coordinator

Stewardship 2012:

Thank You! We are in the midst of our Fall Stewardship Campaign and want to heartily thank the hosts of our small group meetings. These are: Barbara & Dave Humphrey (9/19), Rita & Todd Child (9/20), Kathleen & John Rainieri (9/21), Marsha Henderson (9/22), Squeegee & Dick Mills (9/26), Judy & John Chessa (9/27), Jean & John Winget (9/28), Mable & Dick Seymour (9/29), Gloria & Bud Coccodrilli (10/4), and Alice & Tim Chin (10/5). Another small group meeting will take place at the Church on Sunday, October 7th for anyone not being able to make one of the earlier meetings. The focus of these meetings is to engage in conversation about how we can develop ways of better engaging with our youth & young adults and begin to build a sustainable youth & young adult ministry. Everyone is invited to participate in this conversation!

Commitment Cards & Letters: We will be mailing Stewardship letters to all members the week on October 7th. Commitment cards will be enclosed along with 3rd quarter statements of giving. October 28th is Stewardship Sunday, but you don’t have to wait until then to turn in your commitment card to Kim. The earlier we get results in the better we will be in finalizing our Fall planning so that we can enthusiastically kick off the new year on January 1st.

How are we doing this year?  We are truly blessed and gratified for a splendid giving record this year. We are running slightly ahead of plan on all three of our major income lines: Commitments, Non-committed Giving and Loose Plate offerings. The translation of this is simply that we have had no “shrinkage” so far this year. That deserves a very a big HOORAY! Without shrinkage in our commitment line, we can do so very much more in developing the mission of our Church. A very big THANK YOU to all!

What is Coming Up? On October 7th, the Sunday School Parents will participate in a discussion on Living Our Vision. Reverend Tami Siedel will be preaching on October 14th. Tami needs no introduction as she is constantly involved with our Church and is an exceptional speaker. Then, on October 21, we will receive our General Presbyter, Reverend Susan Andrews, to our pulpit for our key Stewardship sermon. Susan is  a dynamic and powerful speaker who has her finger on the pulse of the ninety plus Churches in the Hudson River Presbytery. We are sure you will enjoy Susan’s message and benefit from her broad insight. On October 28th, we will celebrate the success of our Stewardship Campaign with special festivities.

Thanks to all who contribute so very much to our Church.The time, talent and financial contributions of our members are truly admirable! As someone said not too long ago, “we are blessed!”.

Dick Seymour & Pam Darreff, Co-chairs, Stewardship Commission

 

What’s New with Operations In August?

1. A big thank you to the many who have signed up to be Stewards of our gardens. Plaques have been installed showing who is tending each garden. I also want to recognized Craig Hibben who designed all of our gardens and tended them pretty much by himself for over 20 years. A plaque is in the process of being made recognizing Craig as the “Designer and Shepherd of All of Our Gardens”. When completed, this plaque will be mounted on the large pine tree between the Sanctuary and the entrance to the Gathering Space for all to see. Thank you, Craig, for service well beyond the call of duty. We are anxious for you to get well again so that we can see you in the gardens!
2. New Air Conditioning Units have been installed in the main office, the Pastor’s office and the Treasurer’s office. This brings these areas of our facilities up-to-date with efficient air conditioning equipment. The older window units will soon be removed and stored as spares for other areas in our buildings.
3. We have completed our paving project which was long in the plan for the driveway leading from the large paved parking lot to the North Parking lots. The old gravel driveway required extensive maintenance and created much dust. The new paved driveway has been sloped properly toward the
   Cemetery so that it will drain onto our own property. We have installed four “speed-bumps” which have helped greatly to slow down the vehicular traffic through the property. Since installing the speed-bumps, we have not seen drivers “cutting through” our property to avoid congestion at the Rt’s 132/202 traffic light. Hopefully, this will continue to be the case.
4. Considerable routine maintenance has continued throughout our facilities. This includes painting of the Gathering Space, kitchen and preschool areas. Much touch-up painting has been done to keep everything looking good. All floors have been waxed and look sparkling fresh. Thanks to Jose for his continued maintenance efforts and thanks to Lisa Eliasson for helping with much of the painting in the preschool areas. We are most appreciative of both Jose’s and Lisa’s efforts!
5. Thanks to Kathy Anderson and Kim Wertz for their excellent work on cleaning-up and sprucing-up the Youth Room. This room now takes on a fresh new look. We will install new vertical window blinds in this room as well as putting in a new electrical receptacle for a future wall-mounted TV.
6. Another big thank you: this time to Bud Coccodrilli and Carl Anderson for their great work on repairing and staining the fence along our newly paved driveway.
7. We have recently experienced someone writing graffiti on the walls and partitions of the Men’s bathroom. We found it necessary to involve the Yorktown Police Dept and are continuing to investigate the source of this damage. We ask that if anyone “sees something to say something”.

We continue to strive to keep our facilities in top-notch shape. This takes a great deal of effort behind the scenes and we are indebted to all of those who help. Our facilities are used by huge numbers of people each week as openness to the community is part of the Mission Work of our Church. Please let me know if anything looks amiss. We will try to correct problems immediately. Thanks! Dick Seymour, Chair of Operations & Facilities Coordinator

What’s New With Operations – May, 2012

We experienced excellent success with both our Spring Clean-up and our Home Front Project on May 5th. Overall, we had more than 110 people participate. This effort was followed by over 30 Boy Scouts & Leaders helping with the weeding & mulching of the island in the North Parking Lots and the berm. Thanks to everyone for a really outstanding effort!

New windows have now been installed in the doors of Rm’s 16 & 17 with the excellent help of Fran Proceller. These windows eliminate a safety concern and makes it more convenient to know whether a room is occupied before entering.

Jose has completed painting of the entrance hallway to the office. The color scheme is the same as the office which helps to tie-together our entrance & office. Jose has also completed painting of the ramp door to the Sanctuary as it had begun to look rather nicked and chipped. Overall, Jose has been doing an excellent job on all of our on-going rehab jobs throughout the facilities. Thanks, Jose!

The Home Front Project is very near completion. I want to thank Matt Hager, Bud Coccodrilli, Skip Mahncke, Ian Spence and Bill Friscia for helping me with the several steps to complete this project. I have a couple more to go, but can see the end shortly. I believe the owners are very pleased with the outcome of our project.

We are pleased that many volunteers have signed-up as “owners”, or Stewards, of our various gardens. We have plaques being made which will recognize the Stewards of each of our gardens. These volunteers have accepted the responsibility to maintain their gardens throughout the year. Advice will be given by myself and Craig Hibben on any changes any of the Stewards recommend. I know the gardens are in good hands in Craig’s absence.

 

Should anything look amiss in our facilities, please let me know. If an improvement is indicated, please let me know about that as well. Thanks! Dick Seymour for the Operations Commission.

 

Operations Update for February

We have accomplished a lot in the past few months. The office has been completely rehab’ed, painting has continued in the Gathering Space and a plan has been laid out for painting Room #1 and Room #17 (the two walls that are plain with no decorations). We also plan to touch-up many areas including the metal fire doors, the outside door near the office and several wall areas. A protection circuit has been added to our large three phase circulator motor. This will help to prevent burning up the motor if we have an electrical outage as we experienced this past Fall. This motor is very expensive; hence, our interest in the protection circuit.

Our focus is now turning to the annual  Spring Clean-up day on May 5th. While it is still early, Spring Clean-up is a traditional time in the life of our Church where we try to reset the entire physical facilities to a totally clean and sparkling appearance. There will be much work to do outside and inside. Inside the buildings, we will  be focusing on the windows throughout, a really good wipe down of all the woodwork & pews, a good cleaning of the kitchen, reorganizing  all of the kitchen cabinets and repair of our big round tables. Outside, we will have the normal raking of gravel from the berms, cleaning the cemetery, weeding all of the  flower beds and thinning out the iris bed and spreading new mulch.

Our Church is undertaking two big projects on the day of  May 5th. One will be the Home Front Project and the other will be our Spring Clean-up. We are encouraging everyone to plan for this day of work, fun and camaraderie. Deanna Collins will be handling sign-ups for the Spring Clean-up, and the Congregation has already been asked to do an on-line survey of skills for the Home Front Project. In sponsoring these two projects, we are counting on a really big turnout on May 5th. If you can participate in either of these projects or both, please let Deanna Collins know your desires relative to specific work areas. Thanks to all for considering these projects on May 5 th! Dick Seymour for the Operations Commission

Refurbishment of Church Office Completed

A great deal of progress was made over the last two months in the total refurbishment of the Church Office. All of the very old furniture was removed, new carpeting put down and new cubicles were added for the Administrative Assistant’s office, a spare office and a copying center. Much rewiring was done to provide a more balanced electrical load on our overall system and one that is sufficient to meet future needs. The office walls were repaired and painted. All of our electronic equipment along with the telephone system have been relocated to a nearby closet so that they are out of sight and yet with convenient access. New vertical blinds have been added which provides lots of light without the window areas being totally open to outside view. Closets have been cleaned, files consolidated and supplies now have their place in the closets so they are out of sight. A very big thanks to Jose for his expert wall patching and painting. Also, a very big thank you to Kim for her diligent work in reworking the storage areas and files and helping with the office design. Lastly, a big thank you to Chip Low, our minister, for his significant help with the office design and selection of furniture.

Dick Seymour, Facilities Coordinator for the Operations Commission

Change in Traffic Flow at Church

Hi, everyone. This advisory is to explain why we have traffic cones across the driveway at the rear of our Church facilities. We have had an increasing number of incidents where drivers try to avoid backups in traffic at the Rt.’s 132/202 light. Instead of waiting for traffic to clear, certain drivers are “cutting through” our driveways on the North & West sides of our facilities; even, going the wrong way on the one-way traffic pattern along the preschool. I have met with the Yorktown Police Dept to seek advice and let them know of this dangerous driving. While the Police Dept cannot enforce our traffic patterns, they were sympathetic and will keep an eye peeled our way whenever they can. They are aware of the general times of days when this is happening. We are trying to get license plate numbers, but have been unsuccessful so far. The Police advised us not to confront someone engaged in this dangerous driving, but to just call them with a license number if we can get it.

This action will result in a slight inconvenience to our Church Members and Users, but it is just a slight detour through the North Parking Lots to get around the “coned-off” area. We are hopeful that this problem will remedy itself quickly. However, I consider it very dangerous with the speed I have personally seen a particular car moving from Rt. 132 through our driveways to exit on Rt. 202 (traversing the wrong way along the preschool on the West side).

I will take down the cones as soon as we think we have a clear sign that this dangerous driving has ended. Thanks to everyone for their understanding. Dick Seymour, Facilities Coordinator for the Operations Commission.

Progress in Operations Projects 12/3/11

Hi, everyone. Just a brief update on our various projects :

1. Jose has finished the prep work & painting of the walls in the ramp hallway. The ceiling has undergone  many iterations of prep work and we anticipate completing the painting of the ceiling this week.

2. Since my last post, the front sidewalk leading from the Sanctuary to Rt. 2o2 has been completely rehab’ed. A very big thanks to Bud Coccodrilli for his help to me  in completing this project.

3. We have made significant progress in rehab’ing the Church Office in this time of transition between Barbara and Kim. All electronics have been moved into the closet nearest the inner wall. Shelves have been added to properly hold each piece of equipment. Additional shelves have been added in this closet for storage of copier paper. This is in anticipation of moving the copying equipment to a new location within the office. Our plan includes new carpeting to be installed in early January to be followed by new integrated office furniture. The office will take on an entirely new look & feel when this project is completed.

4. All brush created by our early snow storm a few weeks back has been taken to Yorktown Recycling. A total of 24 trailer loads have been picked-up and taken to Recycling.

Dick Seymour for the Operations Commission

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