St John’s Weekly Bulletin – Sunday 26 August 2018

The Parish Council is very pleased with progress towards the restoration works for our Church and Hall. This work has been made possible by very generous donations from our congregation, the One K Club fund raising, which was matched dollar for dollar, by a Heritage Council grant of $55,000.

In our last update four weeks ago, we advised the lodgement of approval requests with local council and state heritage offices. These offices have both advised approvals will not be processed within three months and may even take longer. This means November at the earliest before we see any builders activity on site.

Over the last four weeks considerable effort has gone into seeking three tenders for both roofing and drainage and working through issues arising from this process with the architects and engineers. The scope of the work has been clarified and we now have a clear plan which we worked through with our preferred contractors at an on site meeting this week. A final detail, arising from this meeting, is the design of the fifteen proposed rain water heads for down pipes and leading on whether they will be appropriate at all from a Heritage perspective.

The hall will have new Zincalume custom orb roofing and matching gutters and downpipes. This is a compromise for Heritage whose first choice was galvanised iron sheeting which would last around ten years in our coastal location compared to Zincalume which should last for thirty years and maintain its “rugged good looks” throughout once the original shininess ages off. There will be no drainage works around the Hall except to join an extra down pipe to the existing storm water on the western wall.

The Church will enjoy new guttering and down pipes in colour bond to match the existing colour bond roofing which is still in fine condition. There will be twelve downpipes, five more than at present, and these will feed in a sealed fashion to new storm water drainage piping running right around the building to existing storm water pits to either side of the main western Church entry and from there we will rely on the existing storm water service. The front lawns and paths will therefore remain undisturbed. Trenches carrying the storm water pipes will also have new agricultural drainage pipes laid along their full length to carry sub soil moisture away from the Church foundations. Along the walls bordering Emily’s Garden trench work will be by hand to preserve the existing raised brick garden beds and the sanctity of the internments.

The roofing work detailed by our engineers is being completed in full. The drainage work has been staged and focussed on preservation of the Church where it is most needed.

Together the contracts will come to around $100,000 and allowing also for consultants fees and contingency we should have just enough to cover it.

Thanks again for all your financial support, we will continue with patience knowing we have made solid progress over the last few months.

Grace and Peace,

Fr. Ken Youman

This bulletin was emailed to members of the parish on Thursday 23 August 2018 – if you would like to join the Weekly Bulletin email list, please call the church office on 02 4927 5399 and we will happily arrange this.

For many months 4 cake stands have been left in the hall kitchen, do you own one ?

Please contact Jennifer Benson 4952 6279