Among our various projects for improving the church plant, at some stage it would be good to come up with a “storage concept” – especially if we are thinking in terms of using the “garage” space got other activities.
Various people have commented that various parts of the church buildings are “a mess”. In particular, I have heard comments about:
- the garage
- the garage annexe (the current second copier room, former freezer room)
- the upper and lower hall cupboards
- the notice boards and table in the hall vestibule
- the “book cellar”/”crypt” (the former boiler room)
- the book stand
- the vestry (not the mess but the lack of storage)
- the vestry passageway
- the church porch
- the second office (“Sam’s office”)
- the two side attics under the eaves
- the upper landing (“the Ethiopians’ office”)
Obviously a certain amount of tidying would alleviate some of the problems, but it seems there is a lack of storage space (and not only when we need to move the chairs out of the church for bazaars!).
This also bears on the question of meeting space (room above vestry, garage conversion), and of what we want to store, too. But that, too, will come up eventually when we consider the building proposals. This posting is just to provoke thoughts.
Having just fought my way into the garage this morning it is obvious that we are storing a lot of things that could be thrown away, the most obvious the pulpit. Taking the fact that we have an official rubbish dump just 100 m from the church surely it must be possible to clear things quickly leaving plenty of space. The ladder which fell on my shins could be hung on the wall where the 20 year old remains of a puppet theatre still hang. Perhaps the manpower group for the bazaar could find time to clear some of the mess this coming Friday.
By the way Brian, the pulpit I said that I was going to take away, so it is now a matter of weeks, for the rest I do agree there is a lot to throw away but I believe we shall organize a day in the near future with manpower specially done for this purpose.
We’ve been trying to clear the boiler room, Rolf has bought some shelving so that we can store the new toys there, I’ve also contacted the Russians to clear all their books away.
The problem – as ever – is that as soon as a space is freed up, someone will dump stuff in the gap.
I will do my annual sort out of the “middle” bit of the green attic in the new year once I’m a bit more mobile. The rear though has loads of archivy stuff which no-one wants to make the decision about throwing out – just in case it’s important.
Jana’s comments illustrate the need for a co-ordinated approach – we should decide which areas are used for storing what, what extra space is actually needed, and what the best form of storage is: shelves, cupboards, racks…. And areas should be labelled if necessary.
And some areas, like the far ends of the two attics, are only accessible by lithe midgets, and since the Chimney Sweepers’ Act of 1875, it has been impracticable to hire Junior Church members to help identify what is lurking down there. (That’s my excuse, as I know there are some Treasurer’s files down there.)