United Church of Warsaw

Sandy Corey has been hard at work as the church’s treasurer since August, updating all our financial records and transferring them to a new computer system that will allow us to track all our income and expenses much more effectively. Please express your thanks to her for the many hours she is spending on this work.

We will have a complete financial report at the end of the year, of course. The bottom line is that our general fund continues to be healthy, with over $10,000 to the good at the end of October. Our regular contributions are down from the projected budget, but our expenses are also down about the same percentage. So we’re holding even there.

Thank you for your continuing generosity.

The trustee board continues to work on several maintenance projects, including:

• The elevator – Marv Putney and Dick Neeley have it operating well again.
• The roof – A leak around one of the towers on the north church building is in the process of being repaired. When the ceiling dries, we will repair the ceiling in the sanctuary.
• The windows – Several stained glass or colored glass windows in the church needed repairs, and that has been done.
• The phones – Some new office phones and a new phone system should be installed by the end of the year, helping us answer the phones in a more efficient manner.

The trustees are also reviewing all of our investments to be sure we are getting the best
investment income possible. And they will soon begin a process for creating a long-range plan for needed maintenance and improvements on the building for the future.

Two important goals will be accomplished this fall. One goal was to expand our ministry to the community, and we are doing that through a new community program to help people get better jobs and lead better lives, made possible through a faith-based initiatives U.S. Labor Department grant. The other goal was to update our computer and telephone system in the church offices to make our daily work more effective.
We Can! is the name of the community program we are beginning as partners with Angel Action and the Community Action Program of Wyoming County. Jeff and Linda Thomas are our church coordinators for this program. Our goal is to help people find employment that will provide adequate income and a chance for advancement while increasing their ability to be responsible for themselves and their families. Some of the ways members of this church can volunteer to participate in this ministry are these:

• Provide training and mentoring in life skills, including household management, budgeting, and parenting skills

• Assist with emergency transportation, child care, and clothing needs

• Help give leadership to support groups

• Provide leadership and professional development skill training and mentoring

• Help people develop skills for writing resumes and going on job interviews

• Offer employment to participants in the program when they’re ready

For a few weeks we’ll give you an opportunity on Sundays to fill out an interest survey to tell us you are interested in at least learning more about how to participate. Or just call Jeff and Linda at 786-5735 or call me at the church.
Every day at the church office we use the telephone system and the computers to accomplish our work. Both systems and the equipment have been outdated and inefficient for a long time. The trustees have been working on changing that. Recently Joe Hess helped us change our phone and internet service so that we have access to high speed internet and wireless computer technology. That is already going. We are still in the process of updating the phones themselves to make life easier and more efficient for all of us.

We also desperately needed new software for our financial accounting work. We decided to purchase software that will also allow us to manage information about our church membership that will all be interactive with financial records as well (with password-protected access, of course). When it’s going, and when we have the information in the system, our daily work of doing mailings and contacting people for various needs will be more efficient. That new software requires newer computers. One will be donated, and the other will soon be purchased. A special to thank you to Sandy Corey who (as our new treasurer) researched software and helped get this project underway.

Our actual expenses through May were over $8,000 below what we anticipated in the budget. Our regular contributions are $5,000 below what we expected by now. So we’re in good shape, but we want to continue to work toward the kind of generous giving that will allow us to meet the full budget by the end of the year.
The trustees are working now on several major maintenance projects which have been delayed by the financial shortage of recent years. We need to pave the parking lot. The Memorial Garden wall must be replaced. The southeast entrance to the building needs some kind of repair or renovation work done to make the entranceways safe throughout the winter. And we are looking at updating our phone and computer systems to make our daily office work much more effective. We budgeted $2,000 toward those projects, but they will cost much more than that, of course. We have some reserve funds to draw upon, but we will be looking to the church family to help complete these projects as we know what the costs will be.
Note: Bob Cummins has resigned as treasurer for personal reasons, and we are looking for a new treasurer. Please keep this in your prayers.