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ANNUAL REPORT BUILDING AND GROUNDS COMMITTEE FEBRUARY 4, 2007 The Building and Grounds Committee of Newtown Monthly Meeting is comprised of a group of energetic, talented and thoughtful people who individually put a lot of time and effort into the physical environment of our facility to keep it in good working order. This year we have shortened the “to do” list created by the addition considerably as well as addressing a number of areas of ongoing care and maintenance. Specifically we have dealt with the contracting of outside help in a much more business like manner developing written contracts and procedures which better meet the needs of both the Meeting and the contractor. We continue to be very pleased with the cleaning work that Kathy Mebs provides and we are pleased with the work Jesse Guokas provided on our lawns and hedges. The building is improved by the replacement of more than 20 broken window panes; the addition of new track lighting in the library which has the potential to make that area more attractive and useful; a new cover was made for a radiator in the balcony adding both to the aesthetics and the safety of the children; and the kitchen was cleaned and the annual inventory of that area recorded. At the urging of the Peace and Service Committee, we continue to consider how we might further increase our energy efficiency. We continue to replace incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs; we chose to replace the worn out bathroom hot water heater with an “on demand” system; we have made all of the building thermostats programmable so that they are not inadvertently left at a higher setting than needed. Outside we have painted the end of the shed; installed lighting under the shed eaves which is activated by a motion detector providing more adequate parking lot lighting and security while being much more neighbor friendly by not having more or prolonged light than is needed as well as being more energy efficient. The new gutter system is in place and at the northwest corner, is tied into the run-off piping we installed to insure getting the water away from the foundation where excess moisture has been a problem in the past. A missing shutter keeper had to be custom made for a left shutter. Safety issues continue to be a top priority which we have addressed by having five annual inspections: the sprinkler system, alarm system, boiler, fire extinguishers and fire department survey. We have developed an Incident Report for recording any situation incurring injury to have a record for our insurer, and we are working with the Religious Education Committee to have a fire drill with the children so that everyone will know what to do and to assemble in the graveyard as a meeting place. Hazardous tree limbs have been trimmed, a small tree blown against a neighboring house has been removed and additional trimming done as needed. There were two wildlife incidents of interest. A squirrel was found during the week running around inside. Fortunately it left when invited by Bob Appelbaum. Neighbors complained of raccoons living in the attic of our shed. We continue to try to invite them to leave. Our committee includes our spouses from time to time, Carol Richardson providing pizza for the leaf rakers, Kati Sowiak making the attractive new sign by our entry doors with framing by Lew Woodman, and Ken Burton making steps and a hinged door in the basement access area under the addition and applying weatherproofing to the sill of the west door. We continue to deal with the problem of our neighbors parking in our driveway and hope that negotiation will prevail so that we will not have to involve the police. We organized our annual Fall and Spring clean up days and continue to be lucky with the weather on those designated days. We invite you all to this Spring’s clean up on March 31st. Marjorie Burton, clerk |