For this Tidings contribution I want to feature an aspect of Property Team work that can easily go unnoticed. Nearly every Thursday morning, property team volunteers work on a variety of tasks to make our building, inside and out, as neat, tidy, and presentable as can be reasonably done given time and people resource limitations. I know that many of you assume these matters are taken care of by the congregation's professional cleaning service, but that is not the case. Many cleaning tasks are outside the scope of our cleaning service. Thursday Group volunteers regularly clean up discarded paper and other items left in the Sanctuary, clean furnishings in the Sanctuary, clean the glass doors at the Sanctuary entrance, clean doors and windows at the main church entry, and the entry doors on the office side of the building. The group also targets cleaning of all windows, inside and out, twice each year. The Thursday also regularly does what is needed to keep the kitchen, kitchen cabinets, refrigerators, stoves and other items neat and tidy. From time to time the group does cleaning in other parts of the building that are not in the scope of the cleaning service (stairwells, basement, classrooms, offices). In season, some of these same volunteers also work outside on plants, flowers, and other grounds tasks.
We are a group of equal opportunity volunteers. We do not have a list of work for men and a list for women, although some types of work seems to fall more heavily on one or the other. In the spirit of full disclosure the vast majority of work in the cleaning category discussed above has fallen on the women and we all need to thank them for their service and ongoing contributions. David Mercer, Property Team Leader (Pro Tempore)