On Tuesday November 17th, our corporation and the corporation of All Saints' Westboro met with Michael Herbert, the Diocesan Director of Administration, to talk about next steps in our ongoing amalgamation talks. We had a number of questions for Michael concerning what must be done to leave this building. Michael indicated to us that we are on the right track establishing the various committees we have, the Sacred Objects Committee, the Furnishings Committee, and the Liturgy Committee. In addition we will need to have a meeting between the incumbents and treasurers of the two parishes to finalize the budget figures for the new parish. Once decisions have been made about what features and furnishings are to be moved, the rest can be left here, at least for the time being, and becomes the responsibility of the Diocese.
We had some discussion with respect to what happens to the building and property of St. Matthias after we leave it. Initially the Diocese will become responsible for the building, and to finance this the parking and our renters will continue as before. The Scouts and our renters will be able to use the facility at least until the end of the current school year. For the time being Kathy Laffin will continue to work out of St. Matthias to finish up the necessary work of noting bequests, saving archival material, and working on the Memorial Book for the Parish. In terms of the long term disposition of the property, the Diocese has established a property committee to look at these questions. Some diocesan properties will be sold, perhaps to another denomination looking for a building, others will be redeveloped for ministry and perhaps to create ongoing income for the future health of our diocesan life and ministry. This will depend on cost benefit analyses done on various properties. We will be meeting with this Diocesan committee on November 30th and will be taking to them the work we did on redeveloping our property to give them a head start on considering all options
Over the next two weeks our Sacred Objects Committee and Furnishings Committee will take up their work and we will have more to report before too long.
One of the items which needs attention fairly soon is how we continue our financial giving. If you currently give through envelopes, this will not change in 2016 as St. Matthias's envelopes have already been ordered. Your envelope number from St. Matthias will simply be counted at ASW as a St. Matthias envelope. So please continue to use your St. Matthias envelopes for 2016. New envelopes will be issued for the amalgamated parish for 2017.
Automated giving is another thing. We use a different provider for automated offering than All Saints' Westboro. When we looked at the two systems we felt that theirs is far more versatile in that it allows for giving to be scattered over the course of a month rather than the single fixed date deduction which PAR allows. As a result we are going to move to their system effective Jan. 1, 2016. To this end there will be new forms to fill out and these will be sent to current PAR donors as soon as possible. When we
receive your new forms we will remove you from PAR effective Dec. 31, 2015 and begin your donations to the amalgamated parish on Jan. 2, 2016. As with PAR, these amounts can be changed or stopped at any time.
It is planned that from now on our corporation and theirs will meet as one for most decisions. As we plan for vestry we will be choosing officers from both parishes to try to create a balance of leadership for the new year of 2016. The Vestry meeting for the amalgamated parish will be held on Feb. 28th, 2016 (as would have been the case here anyway) and we will vote as one vestry for things which effect the new parish and as individual congregations for motions which pertain to the individual life of St. Matthias or ASW.
Respectfully Submitted,
John Wilker-Blakley