When I first came to Pohick six years ago, one of the main topics of conversation was the need for the expansion of our facilities: the Search Committee and the Vestry both raised this concern, and it went on to become a central feature of our Strategic Plan.
 
           It wasn’t just that after twenty years our parish house had begun to look tired. It was the realization that we had outgrown our facilities. And so parishioners had also become tired: tired of hunting for distant parking spaces, tired of groping to hear each other in crowded coffee hours, tired of their children marching off for classes in “temporary” trailers. More importantly, our facilities had begun to limit our potential for growth. Newcomers would see filled parking lots and head off somewhere else less congested.

            These problems have continued, of course, as can be attested by the capacity crowd we had at this past summer’s Vacation Bible School. While we didn’t have to turn anyone away, we curtailed our advertising because we were filled to capacity two weeks in advance!

            Over the past five years our Vestry and Building Committee have quietly been working through the important preliminary steps to address these concerns. This planning phase turned out to be more involved than originally envisioned, and included: 1. Choosing a Fundraising Consultant after interviewing nearly half-a-dozen candidates; 2. Selecting an Architectural Firm from a similarly sized group; and 3. Working through several rounds of building proposals and phasing scenarios. The last of these tasks was further complicated by our need to be sensitive to the contours of our historic site and to keep the costs within what we thought we could reasonably afford as a parish.

            Now, after all these years of discernment and negotiation, we have reached a point where the Architects, the Vestry and the Building Committee are ready to present the Master Site plan to the congregation. That will take place at a special forum to be held during the Sunday School hour (10:15 - 11:05 am) on Sunday, September 23. At that time, our Architectural Firm (the Kern’s Group) will give a detailed briefing, complete with visuals, rationales, and, of course, a price tag. I want to stress that the focus of this presentation will be on the general concept of the expansion, not the specific details (e.g., exact classroom configuration, brick manufacturer, etc.), as such refinements will be worked out at a later stage.

            I’d like to take this opportunity to again thank Roberta Fede, Chair of the Building Committee, for her hard work and devotion to this project through all its many twists and turns. In addition, I’d like to express my appreciation to all those who were involved in the early Fundraiser interview process and, more recently, to the other equally devoted members of the Building Committee: Bill Poad, Paul Peterson, Oscar Wells and Pete Kind.

            I hope that many of you will be able to attend the presentation on the 23rd (written information will be available for those who cannot), and that you will be as excited as I am about the fruits of all these many labors!