Parish Expenses
Every year it is the donations from generous parishioners, through the means of the weekly Offertory envelope, that pay the running and maintenance costs of the churches and other parish buildings (maintenance only, in the latter case). Over the years we have never had to look for extra donations or hold an extra collection even when major work has had to be carried out. Again, it is your generosity, given on a regular basis, that has enabled this to be the case. That means that we have always had some funds in reserve so as to make it possible to undertake necessary works as they arise.
Today we still depend on your donations. Maybe an outline of what has had to be undertaken since mid-2019 might help to explain, along with a summary of the costs incurred.
A lot of work had to be carried out on Askeaton Church.
The windows and doors were in bad shape, so a lot of expert work had to be undertaken in restoring and repainting them. The external work on them was completed in 2019. However, the restoration and the painting of the windows on the inside has yet to be tackled.
We had several damp spots on the inside of the church and one leak in the valley between the roof of the main aisle and the roof of the East transept. These were addressed over a period of some weeks.
So, the outlay since mid-2019 is:
Repairs to church roof (Askeaton) €13,365
(You probably remember that, in addition, there was storm damage to the roof on the West transept in May 2019. The repairs cost a further €5,748. Our insurance covered most of the cost of those repairs.)
Outdoor restoring and repainting of church windows and doors €8,470
Repairs to outhouses, especially the roofs €6,242
The work on the graves of the two former parish priests buried under the main aisle of Askeaton church was largely completed in November 2019, though the glass covering was not put in place until January 2020. There are some further minor issues to be addressed. The final expenses around all of this work have not yet been ascertained.
One of the greatest expenses every year, and often the greatest expense, is what we call, ‘Ordinary Expenditure’. Last year this came to over €67,000. All of the day-to-day expenses such as, heating, lighting, secretarial work, missalettes, etc., are included in this. (The expenses should be somewhat less this year due to the lengthy church closures, though I expect not hugely so, e.g. heating the church buildings was necessary, as usual, up to mid-April; missalettes had already arrived).
As I mentioned above quite an amount of work still needs to be carried out on the windows on the inside of Askeaton church -repairing, restoring and repainting. We hope that we will be able to begin this soon.
Apart from this there are also some other major necessary projects that were being considered by the Finance Committee, though we will have to assess now whether we have the finances for them.
Finally, thank you again for your ongoing generosity.