Building & Grounds Update
The summer is half over, and St. Martin's has been busy with improvements and changes. Inside: The entire church has been repainted. The entire cost of plastering and painting was covered by insurance. Our sextons Mario Costa and David Ely spent two days in the church after the painting was finished washing the floors and light oiling every piece of woodwork. The Chapel window was removed, and new stone work was installed. The stained glass was removed, cleaned, re-leaded and re-installed. If you have not viewed the window since that work was done, please take the time. It is beautiful! We have been busy restructuring the altar and the front pew seating in order to place the congregation closer to the altar. Your input on this would be greatly appreciated. Please email Mark here with your thoughts. Another area that is seeing some change is in the Chapel. After some intense detective work, the altar has been moved forward so that clergy may stand behind it and face those attending worship. This work was done in-house at a very minimal cost. Church restoration, the company that did the interior work, claim that St. Martin's is the most beautiful church that they have ever worked in, and we agree! We have installed over 350 new energy saving light bulbs, which were available through National Grid's Energy Program for churches. The cost to us was only $50 for shipping. We are also working on replacing the lighting in the hanging fixtures in the church. Outside: The bell tower stone work has been re-caulked on the south and west sides to eliminate constant leaks. This repair was required before the Chapel window could be repaired. The external leaks from last February's storms have been repaired and the damaged plaster replaced. The roof drains at the entrance to the Chapel have been enlarged to eliminate internal wall and ceiling damage.
The hand rails at the Atrium entrance have been sanded and oiled. The hedges have been pruned and the grass cut and fertilized by our sexton Mario Costa, in addition to all his other duties. He is greatly appreciated by us all!
There will always be projects and repairs in a church of this size, and we must anticipate them and plan for their repair long before they are needed, so we now have a long range property committee headed by Peter Lofgren, in order to address these projects in the future.
Gordon Partington
Property Manager
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