Special Meeting Warning

The Waterbury Congregational Church, United Church of Christ of Waterbury, Vermont is called to a special meeting, following worship on May 16, 2021, via Zoom, to decide whether to release funds from the church’s endowment for two maintenance projects.
Article 1: To approve $32,000 to remove, restore, and reinstall two stained-glass windows.
Article 2: To approve $41,000 to paint the exterior of the church.

Here are the details:
Stained Glass Windows
In 2013 a stained glass window committee was formed in order to get some opinions on the state of our windows from various stained glass window professionals. One artisan said, “In very good condition for their age. . . Reinforcement and cement is good . . . do not need re-leading for 50 – 75 years.” But he did recommend doing some minor restoration work to fix cracked and mismatched pieces.” On the other hand, a few suggested that they windows were past due. The last specialist to visit, said “in serious need of attention. Especially the ones in front. Lead well past prime, the cement is powdery, lead cracked and splitting.” We came close to hiring one local restorer in 2014, but after more exploration into him, decided against it.

At a recent joint meeting of the boards of finance and trustees, we decided to hire Kathy Chapman of Corinth, Vermont. She will, provided we approve the project on May 16, begin by removing two windows this summer, starting in June. The windows will be removed, placed on a flatbed truck and transported to her studio where she will take them apart, clean the glass, replace broken and mismatched pieces, re-cement and lead with new lead and install the proper horizontal and vertical support bars. If Kathy Chapman and we the church agree that the project went well at the end of the year and are interested in going forward together, we would work toward a fixed price for the rest of the windows.

The boards of finance and trustees have suggested that we use the undesignated gift of the Nathaniel Gage Fund for this project, thus memorializing the family and gift. We would place a small plaque under one of the windows.

Church Painting
The last time we hired RussWood Painting was to paint one side. We had a follow-up discussion and they recommended re-painting the entire church in one summer. It would save us several thousand dollars. Given that the condition of the original paint job on the addition is looking pretty shabby, and that some of the work done two summers ago has only had a prime coat, we’ve decided to do the work this year. We have used RussWood since the major restoration and addition work in the early 2000’s. They were in the ballpark of the other quotes we received, and a known entity by members of the committee. We sought another estimate this time around, but the painter was unable to provide a quote because of the steeple.