From Our President
Dear Fellow Countryside Members and Friends –
Hopefully, you’ve already seen the exciting announcement of the Board hiring Dr. Emma Farrell as our Contract Minister beginning August 1. Thank you to the search committee: Pat Wydell, Elizabeth Van Orden, Judy Ball, Michael Lunter, and Amy Zukoski.
As you may remember, our Treasurer, Rick Rayborn, has been leading an ad hoc capital projects team to install a second array of solar panels on the church roof. Prior to installing the solar panels, the roof needs some upgrades. Work on the roofing upgrades will begin this week, weather permitting. There will be some large equipment and materials stored on the parking lot for several days, so please be patient during this construction period. We are still awaiting the results of a review by Commonwealth Edison as to whether our existing electrical equipment will support the new solar panels. We are cautiously optimistic that the review will conclude that our existing equipment is sufficient or that the upgrades necessary will not be prohibitively expensive. If all goes well, the roofing enhancements will be completed in a week or so, and the solar panel installation will begin shortly thereafter. I understand that once the new solar panels are installed, we will have doubled our solar generating capacity. That’s impressive.
Finally, we have completed our annual stewardship campaign (pledge drive). While we didn’t attain our aspirational goal, pledges exceeded last year’s pledges and that’s encouraging. Thank you to everyone who pledged! Rick is now working on a budget that will be presented to the congregation during our annual meeting in May.
Thank you,
Gary LaBedz, Board President