UPDATE - APRIL 2010 

In 1957, the first committee was appointed to study the matter of having a new church.

October 13, 1957 a congregational meeting approved going forward with a new church
Two committees set up, finance and building, five on finance, four on building, six were added to finance at the December official board meeting.

At a congregational meeting in April, 1958 the official board was given approval to enter into a contract with the Wells Organization to raise $75,000. toward the new structure.

Interestingly another congregational meeting in June 1958 appointed a building committee consisting of all the previous committee plus others, chaired by Raymond Sellars.  He called his first meeting for June 18, 1958.

October 6, 1958 a congregational meeting approved letting the contract go to Harbour Construction.

Sept 12, 1958 OB minutes state that Wells Organization had been paid off, on October 6th it was moved that pledges of the congregation be pledged to the Bank of Nova Scotia as security to borrow up to $75,000.  It appears the Wells Organization came through.

At a Stewards meeting on February 25, 1959, Raymond Sellars reported $24,500 raised through the sales of bonds for the new church.

May 14, 1959 the Official Board set June 21 as the date to lay the corner stone and September 20 to dedicate the building.

Cost for building and furnishings, about $120,000. There were 442 families on the roll as we entered the 60’s.

1962 / 63 heard suggestions of church expansion, a Christian education Center.

1969 / 1970 the matter of a new Christian Education Center surfaced, `the committee reported in February 1970 that the estimated cost would be $149,000.  This was deemed to be more than the congregation could afford.

January 1973, a motion was passed to renovate and maintain the current Christian Education Center for the foreseeable future.

January 1975, UCW turned over paving fund money to Official Board to be reviewed every two years.

1978 saw the burning of the bonds on the church.  At that time the committee for evaluating present and future needs of the church reported that there was not such need for expansion as there was for new or better suited facilities.

1980 the official board agreed in principle to an expansion of our existing facilities.  A church facilities expansion committee was set up to address themselves to this and prepare an assessment of the situation.

1980 the manse became the staff house.

January 1984 the congregation approved a motion by Dorothy Sams for the UCW to form a kitchen facilities committee of men and women to make serious study of the expansion and renovation of the kitchen.  This resulted in the dismantling of the concrete block  wall that separated the kitchen and ladies parlour.

1987 saw the paving of the parking lot.

We have been told that Don Robb, while chair of the Trustees, had detailed plans drawn for attaching the staff house to the brick church.  Several people have seen those plans but to date we are unable to locate them.  We understand this was in Andrew Stirling’s term with us which was the late 80’s. There may have been another set of plans for an addition of a chapel to the Staff house.  We have not been able to determine if there were two sets of plans nor have we found any.

2001/2002 found the Trustees searching for ways to include an elevator and accessible washrooms in our building.  This led to drawings by the Sperry Group for an addition to either front corner.  These included an elevator and washrooms. Those drawings were presented to the Official Board for information.

As you can see we are not the first committee to explore expansion, we are perhaps the most tenacious.

The Accessibility Committee is formed

At the March 2003 meeting of the Official Board all members were invited to participate in role playing to learn first hand, the challenges facing persons with mobility issues.  The overwhelming feeling was that accessibility at WUC needed to be addressed.  The Official Board recommended that any study should be conducted with accessibility and the long term needs (eg. programs, community growth, aging population, etc.) as its focus.  It was also noted that accessibility challenges were to include but not be limited to mobility challenges.  It was moved that the Official Board authorize Executive Council to establish an adhoc Committee of 6-8 persons representative of the congregation to:

a) continue to explore the feasibility, ways and means to solve the accessibility challenges of WUC for the 21st century.

b) report to the Official Board in October, 2003

Ralph Sams volunteered to find such a committee.  Invitations were issued via the weekly bulletin and from the pulpit.  The following persons stepped forward: Alan Ellis, Peter Woods, Joan Ross, Adelia Trenchard, Ernie Nickerson, Janet Major, Chris Riehl, Janet Perry, Paul Lindsay and Barry Zwicker.
The two Janets resigned for health reasons and Chris due to a change in work pattern.
In the spring of 2005 Stephen Pace of the Stevens Group and a member of WUC joined the committee.  Steven’s experience in the building industry as well as his nursing home management and development experiences have been a welcome addition. We lost a valuable member when Paul Lindsay moved to Halifax.  His computer skills, age group perspective and his boundless energy contributed much to our group.  Gordon and Dianne were constant supporters and contributers to our efforts.  Joan Ross now resides in Digby but continues to work in Metro and remains a valued member.

Two sub Committees were formed; Friends of Accessibility and a Sanctuary Committee.  Friends of Accessibility is a rather loose knit group that seeks out and has brought us such fund raising events as; Judy Savoy, Clary Croft and Friends, Caledonian Orchestra, Cole Harbour Dinner Theatre, Paul Rumbolt, The Burke Family and  The Men of Note Choir as well as several fish chowder luncheons.  We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who have assisted in any way in these events.

The Sanctuary Committee were instrumental in getting permission to cut four pews for wheel chair spaces.  They have also spent considerable time and effort in looking at ways of making our sanctuary more user friendly in many ways including sound, projection, chancel area changes, control board location etc.

The Stevens Group through their President Mr. Thane Stevens very kindly offered to assist with some architectural drawings at no cost.  He was up front in saying that they would let us know when we had reached their limit of freebies.  Over a period of several months they provided us with five sets of drawings, considerable advice and suggestions.  The final set of drawings was presented at an open house in March of 2006.  In general those plans were accepted but believed to be quite expensive. The feedback from that open house and dialogue within our committee convinced us that we needed to begin again to find a more economical solution.

Over the six years we have had many outside distractions to contend with; the resignation of Rev. Kelly Hudson, the loss of our ministerial team of Gordon and Dianne , the interim ministry of Sarah and Ray for one year and the interim ministry of Rollie and Bob for another 10 months and then the arrival of Valerie and Phillip.  It was difficult for either of the interim teams to become involved with this project, they were too busy seeing to the day to day operations as were Valerie and Phillip for the first year.

If we look back on our history we will note that strong clergy leadership ( Rev. JDN MacDonald) led to the building of the Brick Church and (Rev. Ronald Dempsey) the paving of the parking lot and our stained glass windows.

Our committee members feel that we now have the clergy team in place and the most economical and feasible plan to go forward with.

This plan was presented at the AGM in March 2009 and the committee instructed to dialogue with the congregation via three information sessions, then bring it back to a congregational meeting by end May 2009 for action.  We held two sessions in the sanctuary, two in the hall and one in Patterson House for a total of five.  Two were held on Saturday mornings, two on Wednesday nights and one on a Tuesday night.  At each session a powerpoint presentation was made of the proposed front elevation and the rear addition.  Questions were fielded, rear addition drawings and comment cards were handed out.

Approximately 125 persons in total attended these sessions, 11 comment cards and five emails were received.  8 cards were signed, 3 were not, 4 emails signed, 1 not.
In general the comments were supportive, some changes suggested but often the change one person suggested negatively affected something another liked.  Security concerns were raised by a couple of people, we feel that can be easily handled with today’s technology.  There was not a common thread running through the comments received.

The following page outlines what we feel are the key attributes of this plan.  The next three pages are the drawings for each of the three floors. The last page of this package contains our recommendations which will be presented as motions.  

• Raising the front elevation to the level of the top step of the brickchurch will allow for barrier free access to the brick church and Patterson House.
• This will provide accessible parking at the front of the church.

Rear Addition

• The three story rear addition will extend 32 ft. toward Morash Pond then 67 ft. toward the cemetery,  92 ft. across the rear of the building and 32 ft. back to the corner facing the white church.
• The entrance will be at grade level same as now.
• A full service elevator will stop at four levels, raised entry, basement, sanctuary and third floor.
• Accessible washrooms will be located at the basement, sanctuary and third floor levels.
• The added basement space will provide; a large multi purpose room for youth activities, additional kitchen space, storage space for tables and chairs, storage for garbage and for maintenance equipment.
• Office space will be located on the sanctuary level.  This will allow for the retirement of Patterson House which will allow for more accessible parking near our front entrance.
• Nursery space is located on the sanctuary level.
• Combined library and board room is also on the sanctuary level adjacent to the offices.
• The third floor will contain; much needed meeting space, two large rooms that will be separated by good quality folding doors which can be opened to accommodate large gatherings.  This space could also be used as a chapel for small weddings or other occasions where something smaller and more intimate than our sanctuary is preferred.
• This floor will also feature a decent sized choir room, storage for records and a large area for seasonal storage.

The most energy wasting area of our current building is the rear because of all the single glazed windows.  Wrapping this end in a well insulated addition will certainly improve that situation.  We will likely end up with additional parking spaces and certainly more accessible ones.  With both ends of our building accessible at grade level and accessible washrooms on each level we believe this offers the most economical and efficient way to solve our accessibility as well as space issues.

Preamble
It is understood that the Accessibility Committee will confer with stakeholders prior to having professional plans drawn for the rear addition.  This will include but not be limited to the following: UCW re kitchen, Nursery leaders re Nursery, Staff re offices, Music Committee re choir room, music storage area etc., Chancel Committee re seasonal, banner and other storage.

1. That the concept as shown:  a three-story addition around the Morash Pond corner and across the back of the brick church, containing approximately 12, 200 sq. of floor space be approved in principle.
2. That a raised front elevation, with proper walkways to the parking areas, be incorporated and form part of the overall concept.
3. That the Accessibility Committee and the Trustees do a study to determine if it is more feasible to do the front elevation phase prior to, during or after the rear addition.  If these committees deem it feasible, to move at once on this phase, and have a designed a plan which costs will be presented to a duly called congregational meeting.
4. That a budget of 2.5 million dollars for the total project be agreed to.
5. That our church council be asked to establish a Finance Team of ten or more persons with, but not limited to, the following mandate:
• Bring forward a plan for an every-person financial drive within the congregation.
  
• Search out government sources of funding.
  
• Search out United Church sources of funding.
  
• Search out potential sources of fund-raising from foundations.
  
• Search out potential sources of fund-raising among the current groups within the congregation and assist with scheduling of any proposed events.
  
• Report back to Council by end September 2009.
6. The Accessibility Committee be authorized to invest the necessary funds to obtain detailed professional plans for front and back design and to report back to a congregational meeting by end October 2009. 
7. That a target date of June 2010 be set for construction to begin on the rear addition.

The congregation, on May 24th, accepted the first six recommendations
as presensted and made a slight amendment to #7

Letter from the Accessibility Committee