by Lucas Hess, for the Center Committee
Property and enterprise management
Our lease with our current tenant, the Diamante Montessori School, expires on May 31st. Fortunately, negotiations in mid-April have resulted in signing a new lease, with the school reopening when possible. This is a very positive event, both for the Center and the school.
We continue to face some maintenance issues due to four foul fowls tearing up our flower gardens in front of the building. They rip out plants and the drip system, scattering bark over a very wide area. We found out the owners, when their lease ran out, simply opened their coop and let them go. Not kind of the owners and certainly not kind to the chickens. We’ve ordered a large trap and hope to be able to relocate them with someone who needs or wants chickens.
Our new vinyl tile floor was completed on April 8th, at no cost to us (due to prior installation errors). The COVID-19 situation made this possible, as if the school had not shut down in mid-March we would not have had the floor the 10 days and 2 weekends needed to finish the installation. Everyone who’s seen it is happy and satisfied.
In addition, we hired repair crews to fix both our rental housing unit (a duplex) and the Center. At the duplex, the porch overhang was replaced, along with a 25-foot facia section on the building. At the Center, the rear crash door and a very bad 30-foot facia section over it were replaced. We also replaced and grounded all the electrical plugs and replaced all interior lighting fixtures, 25 total, with LED versions. We expect savings to be around 30% per year on an ongoing basis.
We are currently engaged in restoring our outdoor flower beds and drip system with several different varieties of fresh plants grown from seed in the backyard of the duplex.
Center Life
As with all centers, we are not meeting for latihan at the hall but doing latihan at home generally at the same time as our normal latihan schedule. We have on hand an abundance of self-manufactured hand sanitizer (Everclear 140 proof alcohol, aloe vera gel, and 3% Clorox), available to any member who needs it by simply coming to the center to pick it up at the yurt.
Helpers and Committee were meeting regularly. The helpers added an active women helper, Aminah Herrman, and two active men helpers, Latief Dewes and Reynold Weissinger. We have no candidates at this time. We had scheduled a weekend kejiwaan gathering to explore how to accept getting older and explore the inner journey of aging. That has been postponed until we are able to again meet.
Our best to all of you with sincere wishes for all our health to remain as good as possible.