With the arrival of spring the Property Team's emphasis will be shifting to outside work. We will be working with Scott Carson again to coordinate a spring workday to tackle some of the normal spring tasks to get the winter debris off the grass, clean up the various garden areas, trim some bushes, do some mulching and other typical spring grounds work. More information about the workday will be provided as we get the details pulled together.
There is more on the spring to-do-list as well. It will soon be time to put up the tent again. We will be putting away the snow shovels and salt buckets, breaking out the water hoses, de-gassing and storing the snowblower, and putting our lawn mowing equipment back in service for the season. As soon as the ground around our church sign at the Spaulding will support truck traffic, we will have a contractor in to complete a routine interior and exterior inspection of our sign. We will ask our snow removal contractor to come in and do some repair and seeding of turf damaged during the winter plow season.
Over the past several weeks we have been able to make some significant progress to address clutter and storage issues in a couple of locations in the building. A significant quantity of unnecessary materials has been removed, and the basement and one of our attic spaces are neater and safer as a result. As part of this work, we donated three sets of roll-away bookcases to the Restore. There is always more work to be done inside, including window washing, various tasks in the kitchen area, resolution of some lighting issues in the sanctuary, and other things as they arise. We will continue with the inside tasks as time and resources permit.
Once again, we are in the process of gathering bids to clean and paint the steeple, clean and stain the exposed exterior wood around the sanctuary and main entry, and to pressure wash the exterior siding around the entire building. The first of four expected bids has been received and all bids should be received in the next week or so. You may recall that we obtained some bids for most of this scope last year and funds were approved for the work. Those bids were not accepted and are no longer applicable. The previously approved funding may or may not be sufficient, given the passage of time and new bidders. The goal is to complete this exterior building maintenance work this summer.
We would like to replace rain gutters and down-spouts to the right of the main entry. Historically, gutters in this location have been a problem because of the steep roof and winter ice buildup on the gutters. Many years ago, the gutters in this area were severely damaged by ice loading and were removed. Thereafter, substantial water collects along the building foundation after heavy rains and often results in water intrusion in the basement. Contractors tend to have little interest in small gutter jobs such as this, so we have gathered information on material costs and availability and plan to do this work ourselves. If weather cooperates, we plan to complete this work before the end of March and, hopefully, before we are challenged by April rains. I consider this work to be an interim solution that may or may not solve the problem. The cost for the interim work is very modest, probably $400 or so, and is worth trying.
I was made aware that we have recently had all of our available handicap parking spaces filled and another vehicle seeking handicap parking. We will be looking into providing more spaces near the main entry. David Mercer, Property Team Leader (pro-tempore)