Not Quite What I Expected

Somehow, last March, I found myself agreeing to be on parish council. (I still place most of the blame firmly on Beck!). Anyway, I go to the meetings, and try to contribute some sort of opinion at least once during each. This fall, when I joined the advanced flute choir, I realized I would be missing some meetings because they are on the same evening. So, I miss every other parish council meeting (they are once a month). Last night, I planned on missing the meeting and attending next month, because it was our first flute choir rehearsal of 2008. That was before I found out that in the budget proposal, there was a plan to slash the music budget by $1000. Not on my watch!

Overall, the meeting went well. As with most churches, there are budget issues, especially when the church is as large and old a building as ours. It is also in the downtown core, with quite a high turnover of parishioners. Anyway, there is an attempt to put forward a balanced budget, which is all well and good until you look closely and realize that it's only balanced because our priest retired and we are in the process of hiring a new one. Until Sept, we only have the curate's salary to pay (and she is currently the priest in charge). Anyway, it looks like we may be starting a new stewardship campaign (basically, trying to get people "on the payroll" - with weekly planned giving instead of loose donations), as well as adjusting both the music and Christian Education budgets (which was also cut by $1000). The revenue from both the facility rentals and the community shop are higher than expected, so projections for 2008 for those will be adjusted accordingly, which should offset the music and Christian Ed cuts. Seems like the Vestry meeting may actually be exciting this year. Well, as exciting as Vestry can actually get.