The Finance Committee is a group of interested individuals who's primary function is to determine how we can best meet the financial demands placed on the Church and to make recommendations to the Vestry.  This is an ongoing challenge because our overall costs have been steadily increasing while the amount of money pledged by our parishioners has stayed roughly the same.

As tempting as it is to think of Church as a place where we can get away from to concerns of our material world, the fact is that the Church can't exist without the money.  Money is necessary to pay for basic things like heat, and electricity - not to mention materials for the Sunday School or the salaries of our clergy and staff.  Many churches have built up an endowment which can be used in difficult times (like the current economy) to make up for a reduced income.  Unfortunately Trinity has very little in the way of investments.  We rely almost exclusively on the contributions of our parishioners and a handful of fundraising events that occur throughout the year.  This means that we frequently find ourselves having to make hard choices between the "right" course of action and the one we can afford.  Occasionally we need to borrow money to handle our more pressing issues.  We try to avoid this because it only makes balancing the budget more difficult in future years.

Right now we have a number of issues that we are watching closely.  Among these are leaks in the Church roof and the roof of the rectory, repairing the lovely stained glass windows at the front of the Church and helping to determine whether we can afford another full-time rector, to name just a few.

You can help in a number of ways.  First and foremost, please make a pledge. We won't lecture on the necessity of this (but you should go to Stewardship for more information).  Suffice it to say that it's a lot easier to project how we will pay for these various item when we know how much money we can expect to receive.  On a related note, when you do pledge please don't forget Trinity in the summer months.  Attendance at Church tends to dwindle during the summer while everyone is enjoying the warm weather.  Unfortunately, this also means less income for the Church and puts a big strain on our finances.  Try to be consistent with the timing of your donations.  Our treasurer deserves to enjoy the summer too!

Lastly, if you have an interest in financial affairs, you are welcome to join the Finance Committee.  We could especially use some people with a talent for investing to help us oversee what few funds we have to see that they are invested wisely.

Contact the Treasurer for more information or to volunteer.