The Property Committee spent the usual amount of time working on and in the church yard. The normal work is cutting the grass and removing the grass clippings. Removal of the clippings helps keep our French drains in the front yard free of grass so they don’t clog up. Even after a heavy rain you never see standing water on the front yard for more than a day. The drains takes care of it nicely.
We trimmed shrubs about the property as well as trimming lower tree limbs to allow more sunshine on the Bermuda grass as well as the parking lot islands for better visibility. We maintained the Remembrance Garden and had help from some members of the congregation not involved with the property committee.
We drained the retention pond and performed our annual maintenance. That includes cutting and poisoning the weeds along the edge of the pond. We also removed as much trash as we could. We also added dirt on parts of the banks to level it off for better cutting of the grass inside the retention pond fence. The pond was refilled with water starting in February.
In the spring we added sod to several spots on the yard that had become bare or at the very best had only a small amount of grass on it. This was in both the front and back yards. We had a tree fall on the retention pond fence twice in a month during the Spring. We had repaired the first damage and a week later the second tree fell on the fence, in the exact same spot as the first tree did!
There were a few items that we had planned to do but did not get around to doing last year. One was replacing some of the landscape timbers that have rotted out and need to be replace. along with other work on the yard involving timbers and lumber. Secondly, the Preschool was told to get mulch for the playground area. Due to the rainy weather near the end of the year, that did not get accomplished. That should be a priority so that Epiphany does not get cited by the government.
The Committee also modified the church sign in the front yard. It is now much stronger. When signs are mounted on the frame they stand out and can be read.
Starting in late spring and running through until the Fall, we will be fertilizing the grass and adding herbicides to it to kill weeds. Of course we will be cutting and trimming as we usually do that time of the year.
During 2018 the Yard Crew portion of the Property Committee spent a total of $1,341.That was down from previous years. Again, due mainly to the fact that we did not have any major equipment repairs to deal with.
In 2019 we plan to do pretty much the same as we did in 2018. There were other issues that the Property Committee dealt with inside of our buildings. Two 6 foot storage lockers that were originally used by the Boys Scouts have been modified for storage of older church records. They are equipped with locking hardware and are awaiting a transfer of records which will free up space inside the church building for more current records and important papers.
Currently there are three or four pieces of furniture that are taking up a lot of space in the rear of our storage building. They have not been sold during the last two garage sales held by our youth. They need to be given to someone like the Goodwill or some other 501C3 charity. That will require us to move them charities will not pick them up. One piece will require 4 people to lift it on to a pickup truck and deliver and off load it at the charity. We hope to get that done early in 2019.
The second floor of our the storage building was cleaned out during the year. It had acquired a lot of items that were no longer being used. It is now mostly Christmas decorations and other stuff belonging to the Pre School. We hope to keep it clean and tidy.
The Committee would like to thank the church members who participated with the work outside. The grass and weeds never seem to stop growing. Special thanks to Bruce Heffner, Don and Deb Buckner, Evelyn Brown and Margaret Hill. These people put in a lot of time. If you look around the property it clearly shows. The Property Committee is always looking for people who would like to help out. You can work at your own speed and at any time you want to. Projects are listed and available from Barb Drasher in the church office. Large projects are normally well advertised in the church bulletin with plenty of notice. They normally occur on a Saturday.
Listed below are some of the projects that can be done by individuals on the church property at any time they have the courage to get involved. They can do it any day of the week and at any time of the day. A function going on with a lot of cars in the parking lot would be a bad time to volunteer!
Pull weeds from the islands in the parking (leave weeds at end of island Yard Crew will remove)
Pull weeds in any of the shrub beds around the property we have 7 or 8 bed (ibid above)
Rake trash (bottles, paper, rubber gloves, wood, dead animals, etc.) on the edge of the retention pond and put in plastic bags and deposit in trash barrels by kitchen door
Blow off the entrance to the Narthex and the walkway between there and the Fellowship Hall doors
Respectfully submitted,
Bruce Ahlstrand