Anniversary Letter to the Congregation of St. Mark's

504 Bernard Street
Port Hawkesbury, N. S
B9A 2V1

May 24, 2008
Dear Friends:

We are including our Anniversary letter in the Spring Contact this year. It should be in your hands a week or two before Anniversary Sunday. It is customary for this letter to contain a short recap of the state of our finances, and to include an envelope for a special offering. We will include envelopes with the bulletins the week before Anniversary Sunday for those who read the Contact on the blog.

The manse mortgage was reduced by $20,000 transferred from the Building Fund and $215 from the Manse Fund. With those payments and the other payments we have made, the balance owing was $37,474.48 as of March 31 this year. The interest rate is to be renegotiated in 2009 so the lower the balance owing at that time, the less we will have to pay in interest.

At the end of April, the General Fund was in the red by $1,763.51. The Ways and Means committee has a couple of projects planned that should reduce this deficit, but summer time is slow for envelope givings so we may well slip back into the red. A good response to this Anniversary Offering will minimize the overdraft situation this summer and minimize the cost of servicing the overdraft.

The Anniversary Service will be held on June 15 this year. The Congregation of St. David's will be invited to join us and the service will be at 11:00 a.m., followed by a pot-luck dinner.

Please join us on this occasion. Summer is coming, believe it or not, and this will be one of our best chances to get together before then.

Yours truly,
ST. MARK'S UNITED CHURCH
Dave Chapman,
for the Trustees, Property and Finance Committee


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