A good couple of guys who run the place. This was the first time we'd met in person, all the rest of the business having been taken care of over the phone. Everything looks fine on the survey except for one odd problem over on one side where a road was cut several years back--some overlapping ownership issues. Luckily nothing close to the building, but it's still something that needs to be seen to.
As for the whole process about the new addition, Jim Smith wanted an update of all that's been going on. Well, the best thing was that a couple of the building committee members went and visited a building up in Florence to look at their new addition, and came away with a plan drawing showing the layout. This helped them more than anything else because it gave them an idea of how much room stuff took up, and how big things needed to be to hold it all. A couple of weeks back, I took that diagram and figured on some square footages and the rooms we're going to need and came up with a preliminary program. Basically, a list of the rooms, and how big they need to be. A multi-use space (i.e., an eatin' room) for about 300, a kitchen, two classrooms (one disguised as a reception room), restrooms, storage for tables and chairs, and utility space. Probably going to come to around 6,000 square feet.
Our building committee sat down back at the end of last month and I explained what I had done, and how big the whole thing was going to be, and we hashed out and discussed all the various pros and cons, and finally I got them to all agree on something. (I think it helped to have the meeting on a Saturday afternoon.) In any event, now that we have a survey in hand, and have finally figured out what we think we need for rooms, it's time to go start shopping for an architect.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at May 6, 2005 01:57 PMWoo hoo - let the fun begin! I've been through this - twice - in the 18 years I've been at this church. We are congregationally governed, so the final plans need to be approved by the membership. Yikes. If you go to all the meetings, you hear the same questions multiple times, as the people who can't be bothered to come to preliminary meetings ask questions that were answered long before.
Bless you for your patience!
Diane
Ours is a bit different in that we have an eldership who is charged with making these sorts of decisions, but my part in this was to get them to appoint a qualified building committee and bend over backwards getting input from the congregation. I think I've mentioned in past posts that we've done a membership survey along with two informational meetings. I need to get out an update for everyone about the decisions that have been made subsequent to those meetings, but everyone is upbeat and looking forward to what comes next, and aren't miffed about being left out.
Having done church projects when I was on the outside, the one thing that's worse than dealing with a church building committee is having to deal with congregational input. That's why I tried to get us to do all that preliminary groundwork ourselves rather than tieing up paid professional time with it. I'm hoping whoever we hire appreciates it.
Posted by: Terry Oglesby at May 6, 2005 02:13 PM