Dear St. Francis parishioner,

As many of you may be aware, Christ Church in South Barre recently closed its doors. We are truly grateful that a number of their members have since joined us at St. Francis.

At a Newcomer Event on a Sunday in March, several members spoke with us about how welcome they feel at St. Francis but also shared their sadness in losing their church. But then our conversation took an amazing turn as the members expressed their hope that maybe the Christ Church organ could be given to us at St. Francis.

And so began an energetic conversation that has since included Steve Abdow at the Diocese, a visit to St. Francis from Mr. John Bishop of the Organ Clearing House, and a preliminary discussion at our April 11th Vestry meeting, followed by a field trip with our Minister of Music Charles Nwachukwu and several members of St. Francis and Christ Church, South Barre to hear Charles play the organ at Christ Church. So far we see this as a rare, wonderful and exciting opportunity that we are pursuing and we wanted to share with you what is happening and the information we have to date.

First, the instrument was built by Hook & Hastings of Weston, Massachusetts in 1914 - their Opus 2344. It has two keyboards and seven ranks of pipes - three on the Great (lower keyboard), three on the Swell (upper keyboard), and one independent pedal stop. There are four couplers. While nearly a hundred years old, the organ is in excellent condition. It has been carefully and skillfully maintained, and with some simple renovation as part of a relocation project, it would provide reliable service for the next generations.

This opportunity comes to us at a time that is particularly fitting for St. Francis. We have known for some time that our current organ may fail at any time and without warning. Our current organ has a life expectancy of about twenty years. Since we have owned it for about twenty five years, it is on borrowed time. In fact, when we began the Capital Campaign, some of you may recall we had hoped to set aside money then for a replacement organ knowing that day would be coming when we would need to replace the organ. While we did very well in the Capital Campaign and covered a lot of territory, we did not raise enough to set aside funds for a replacement organ. Over the past few years the Vestry has been talking about "what do we would do when..."

All of this is important as background information as we will soon need to replace the organ. And the truth is what we have is not a pipe organ but rather an electronic instrument that does have a limited useful life; as mentioned we are past that useful life.

To replace the instrument we currently have would likely cost more than the cost for us to refurbish, move and install the Hook and Hastings organ in St. Francis. The preliminary costs estimates are approximately $50,000, which includes refurbishing, moving and installing the Hook & Hastings organ in "play ready" condition.

The Vestry is praying about this unique opportunity and is in the process of gathering additional information. We hope to vote on the Hook & Hastings at our May 9th Vestry meeting. In the meantime, however, we wanted to invite your feedback and prayers as we consider this rare opportunity. We believe that this instrument would enhance our music program and our overall mission to God's people, and we also believe it is a lovely and yet modest instrument that fits well with the simplicity of St. Francis. If we vote to move forward with the Hook & Hastings organ, we will of course be asking the parish to financially support this decision.

One question often raised is the cost of maintaining pipe organs. This is an important consideration because if well maintained, such instruments will indeed provide beautiful music for generations, well beyond a couple of decades. The estimates we have received so far indicate that the maintenance costs would not be significantly higher than what we have been paying for maintenance with the current organ. We expect that we should be able to absorb these costs in our annual budget. If, however, we found ourselves raising more than $50,000 to acquire the organ then certainly we would begin an "organ fund" to help with maintenance costs.

In any event, we are not there yet but ask you to be reflecting on this and invite you to talk with us or any vestry member. If we do proceed we will be asking for your financial support. In the meantime if this possibility excites you and you are considering a more significant financial contribution prompted by this wonderful opportunity, then please speak with one of us, as it would be very helpful for us to have a better sense of the financial support for this.

Faithfully,

Craig Stanovich and Bev Giarusso

Wardens