Vernon United Methodist Church
Our Newsletter

SEPTEMBER 2008

APPLE FESTIVAL
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4TH
10:00 A.M.-4:00 P.M.

The annual apple festival is just five weeks away. I know that I can count on everyone to pitch in and make this year's festival another rousing success. The Apple Festival offers so many different ways for us all to help our church. We need everyone: bakers, shoppers, organizers, cooks, people to set up, work at booths, clean up and (my favorite job at the festival), EAT! Any and all help and suggestions will be greatly appreciated. The sign-up sheets in the narthex are just waiting for your name.

Pies: Sign up on the sheet in the fellowship hall. We are permitted to bake the pies in our homes though the church kitchen is available for those who would like to use it. Plan on bringing your pies to the church Friday October 3rd or the morning of the 4th. Please indicate on the sign-up sheet the number of pies you plan on donating. We appreciate every single pie that is donated, but will gladly accept as many as you can bake. All kinds of apple pies are welcome.

Apples: Dave Howe has gotten apples and pie tins at a reduced price for anyone who wants them. There is a sign up on the table in the fellowship hall. See Dave for advice regarding the quantity to order if you are making multiple pies.

Attic Treasures: Early fall cleaning is the perfect time to find items to donate to the attic treasures booth. We will schedule times for the church to be open on Saturdays in late September so you may drop off your donations. The attic treasures booth can always use volunteers to help with pricing the items. If you are an experienced tag saler- think about spending a few hours helping to sort and price our "treasures".

Food Booth: We sell a few side dishes in addition to the hot dogs and hamburgers. We will need volunteers to make potato salads and apple crisp in the church kitchen the week before the festival. Please see me if your schedule will allow you to do this.

Shopping: There are a number of food items and paper products that need to be purchased for use at the festival. Please check the list in the narthex and indicate if you are able to provide any of the items. If you find it easier to donate a few dollars rather than shopping yourself, I will gladly accept donations toward the Shopping List.

Baked Goods: Every year our talented bakers make a exceptional selection of cookies, pies, breads and other delicious items. Consider baking your specialty and spending an hour staffing the booth.

Booths: In years past, individuals have come up with unique ideas for different booths at the festival. Let me know if you have an idea for a booth and I will do whatever I can to help with your idea.

Please see me after church, call me at home or email me with all suggestions and questions. Thank you, in advance for all your help! Prayers for a mild, sunny day, will be appreciated.

Kathy Jo Winters

FINANCE COMMITTEE

It's That Time Again:

Wow! Summer's almost gone already and we're about to start another Fall of church activities. We seem to have weathered the summer reasonably well on our financial plan. We did experience a shortfall in pledges in July, which led to deficits in our Program & Ministry and Mission & Outreach funds. This is not like our 100% club members, so I expect that they will come through in the coming weeks and the deficits will disappear.

We have received our loan check of $70,000 from the Methodist Foundation and you can see that we have nearly $140,000 available for the roof project. Work has begun and we are beginning to expense against that fund. We will be working closely with the Trustees regarding the proposed sale of the church property and the financial aspects related to that.

It is not too soon to be thinking about the Fall financial campaign and how God may be calling each of us to respond to Him with our gifts. I expect that He will encourage us to stretch a bit more; not because He wants to burden us, but because He is waiting with rewards for those who follow His promptings. That sounds exciting to me and I hope it does to you! Let's 'stretch' together!

Fund balances at the end of July, 2008, are as follows:

Dave Howe: Chair

PRAYER WARRIORS

The Natural Church Development team of Prayer Warriors offered our church family a prayer for daily use as we proceed with the NCD process: We encourage everyone to adapt that same prayer to the decisions surrounding the possible sale of our church property. They may be both exciting and challenging!

Dave Howe - CPW

WORSHIP COMMITTEE

Where has the summer gone? Vacations are coming to an end, school is starting soon, if not already for some, and even the weather has hinted at the fall season that is just around the corner. Don't look too carefully at the maples with tinges of orange along the edges of the leaves. That also means that our worship activities will be changing modes soon. We have enjoyed singing some of our favorite hymns throughout the summer.

Now is the time for the committee to begin planning the upcoming church calendar of special Sundays and various worship programs. As always, we would like to hear from you as to what you find uplifting and of course also what you may not like either. Feedback is always important. If you have some special music you would like to share with us (remember that "dorothy" can play tapes or cd's), let us know and we can make arrangements. Our goal is to provide ways in which each of us can worship and praise the lord and celebrate the fellowship that we share with each other.

Thanks to everyone during this time of change. The transition of worshipping in the sanctuary to now being in the fellowship hall has gone well overall. It would appear that we will be here a little while longer.

Towards that goal, let us look forward to worshiping together throughout this fall season.

TRUSTEES

Roof project status report:

I met with the builder and the new structural engineer, Bill La Pointe, on Monday 8/25/08 and we reviewed the status of the project. The engineer is willing to come on board and pick up where the previous engineer left off. He will charge hourly with the monies being paid out of the remainder of the fee that had been set aside for the design process.

We discussed the situation regarding the possible sale of the property but the need to get the sanctuary repaired to the point where we can use it once again in a safe and weather tight condition.All parties felt that we have come up with the solution to the connection of the new roof structure with the existing that will allow us to stabilize the structure, put a new roof on and would last for the 5 years plus that the congregation discussed. The fix is more labor intensive than originally thought, but all felt it could be done within the overall budget allocated to the project. We will need to delete some of the other portions of the project we had hoped to tackle.

Unfortunately the builder had to send the job superintendent to another project for several weeks. So Rich should be back in 2 weeks and start the work in earnest. One thing this means is that the scaffolding will be up around the church during the apple festival. So we will have to do some things slightly different this year, but change is a good thing I am confident that it will work out just fine.

I like what Heidi said to us in that the challenge ahead of us is never greater than the power behind us - so remember to keep praying for discernment and direction and we will all get to be where God wants us to be.

Jim Haag

MISSIONS

Over the summer

Tri-Town Pantry/Cornerstone soup Kitchen:
We have begun harvesting from our garden and both the Pantry and the Soup Kitchen are/will be recipients of the fresh vegetables. VUMC served at Cornerstone Soup Kitchen on August 30th. They are currently serving around 50 each evening - not a good sign for the economic well-being of our community! Remember that if you have a garden that is producing more than you can use, either of these facilities would welcome your extras.
You may need to call ahead to be sure someone is there to receive your donations -the phone numbers are: Cornerstone Soup Kitchen (860)871-1823, Tri-Town Pantry (860)872-7890

Heifer Project:
In addition to the monies from the coin jar, we received separate gifts for: 2 collections of bees, a trio of rabbits, some chicks, and a flock of feathers.
We compiled all of your "votes" and in an effort to come up with a distribution that would serve as many families as possible, came up with the following gift list.

1 - Share of a Heifer
1 - Goat
1 - Pig
1 - Sheep
2 - Flocks of Ducks
1 - Flock of Geese
3 - Flocks of Chickens
3 - sets of Tree seedlings
2 - Hives of Honeybees
1 - Trio of Rabbits

The coin jar is now open for our new Heifer Project collection so keep on bringing in those empty refundable bottles & cans! We are trying for a heifer this time ($500) or maybe a couple of water buffalos ($250 each).

Back to School Clothing:
Three children- an eight year old boy, a seven year old boy, and a five year old girl -in one family were able to send their children back to school in new wardrobes thank to the generosity of VUMC members.

Speaking of Back to School---
Two of our VUMC young people are joining the college crowd this fall:
Michael Cappiello will be at the University of Hartford and Stephanie Curtis is off to the University of Vermont, Burlington. Remember them (and our other college coed-Jes Ebrahimzadeh) in your prayers.

Mission Garden:
The garden is growing! We have tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, carrots, yellow squash, acorn squash and lots of beans!
If you could give a little time as a weeder, waterer, or picker, please let me know.
We can work around anyone's schedule -even an hour of your time is appreciated. (Help with the flower gardens is also appreciated)

Floods - Tornados - Fires - Earthquakes:
Over the summer, a large portion of your mission dollars went to UMCOR for supplies for health and clean-up kits to help in the many areas devastated by the forces of nature.

God's Creation Calendars:
It's that time of year again! There is a sample of the new wall calendar on the table in the Jerusalem Room. The pocket calendars are also available again. The cost on the calendars is $6 (either wall or pocket). Not only is the artwork on the calendars absolutely beautiful, each week starts off with a message of inspiration. The pocket calendars also include a notepad as well as a section of inspiration, lists of birthday gemstones & flowers, traditional gifts for anniversaries, pages for special dates & phone #'s. There is a pre-sale sheet with the sample calendar. We need to order in quantities of 25 so we do need to know how many cartons to order.
As a note-the profits from last year's calendars helped with sending local youth to summer camp and filled in a little gap on the Heifer Project.

Red Cross Blood Drives:
For an appointment to donate, call 1/800-GIVE-LIFE (448-3543)
Summer is the time when blood is needed the most and the hardest time to collect it.

The next meeting of the Mission & Outreach committee will be Thursday, September 11th, at 7PM at VUMC. These meetings are open to everyone.

Lydia Dingle

OTHER NOTES:
One of this church's "in house" missionaries is leaving us. Margaret Allen will soon be in South Carolina and living near her son and daughter-in-law, Jim and Carol Allen (who were members of VUMC for some time before they left for those Southern climes). Margaret is one of those whose strength, like David's, is not in the size of her body but in the size of her faith. In that, she is indeed a giant. Her participation in VUMC will be sorely missed. We know, however, that space is not a factor in thoughts and prayers so she will always be with us. Margaret, know that you leave with a part of us traveling with you and that your part of your spirit will remain here with us. Many, many blessings go with you.

BASIC LAYSPEAKING COURSE

The Basic Course includes a study of what it means to be God's called people and how we may be at work for God in our own communities. The guide for this course is practical, including checklists, outlines, and step-by-step plans. Exercises draw on the individuals' personal experiences and on what they know about their communities. The course provides learning opportunities in three areas of service for lay speakers: leading, caring, and communicating.

Note:
Students enrolling in the class are to provide a letter of recommendation from their pastor and the chair of the Administrative Board of their church. In addition, they need to write a short essay stating their reasons for wanting to become a lay speaker.

For Registration Form, Scholarship Application and additional information CLICK HERE.

SEPTEMBER SCRIPTURES

SEPTEMBER WORSHIP ATTENDANTS

LAMPLIGHTER DEADLINE OCTOBER ISSUE

Please submit (preferably by e-mail) any articles you have for the October issue by Friday September 26th. Anything not received by 6:00 p.m. on that date will not be included in the newsletter. Thanks for your cooperation

Roger White - editor, pro tempore

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