Fundraising for the church again........

However this one is a little different as its the diocese we are raising money for this time.    The church I go to belongs to the Diocese of Toronto and covers a huge area encompassing 26,000 square kilometres.  The diocese want to raise $50 million over a period of 5 years for various projects.  Each parish church is asked to try and raise a certain amount depending on how big their congregation is.  The church I belong to has been asked to raise $65,000, the other church in our parish is being asked to raise $25,000.  As you may have guessed we have a very small congregation.

The thing that is different about this though, is we are only asking each parishioner to donate and are not asking anyone outside of the church to donate.  Now when I first heard about this I thought it was a stupid idea and why should we give the diocese more money, but if we raise our $65,000 we get 40% of those funds back to do things in our parish.  If we raise over $65,000 we get 75% of those funds back.

Where do I fit into this, well I refused point blank to go visiting the parishioner's to ask for money, so I am co-ordinating the volunteers who will visit the parishioner's.  Despite being brought up not being encouraged to give to the church we will personally be making a monthly donation for the next five years as what they want to do with the money if we raise our goal is very worthy, including many renovations to both churches that are well overdue and also giving some of the money to some local causes.

This fund raising is completely separate to any other fundraising we do for the churches and is completely voluntary, and is above and beyond what we would normally give to the church.  We technically start fundraising as of yesterday, but already we have reached 38% of our goal for the church I attend, St. Luke's and I think around 10% for the other church St. David's.  The campaign is technically only being held for 5 weeks, but will probably go until the end of August.

What are your thoughts on fundraising for the church?  As I said before giving to the church is something that doesn't come easy for us, as we weren't brought up to give to the church.

Cross Stitching.......

I got a new to me magazine when I was out the other day, called Cross Stitch Crazy. It's of course a British magazine, I think the British have the best magazines in the world.  I signed up for the newsletter and entered all the competitions, other than the ones for the sewing machines, as they won't work over here.

It had a lovely little free project in it, for a bookmark, so I have been busy doing that. (right of photo)

One tip that all experienced cross stitchers know, but if you're new to the craft, these kits have a habit of coming with no identification of what colour is what.  Make sure you go through the colours in the day light, and get a piece of cardboard and write down the colour and the symbol used, and put a hole in for each colour.  That way it's easier to find the right colour threads.  In this case there are 4 different mauve colours and a pink, which is similar to the light mauve!!

I love doing cross stitch as much as I love sewing.

By the time you read this on Monday morning, the workmen should have arrived (9am out time) to start on the drywalling/plasterboarding. I of course have signed up to be their chief supervisor, and a fine job I will no doubt do!!  Not sure how lon they will be here, but I have cleared my week to be at home, other than on Friday when I have a meeting at 2pm at the church.  I am putting forward a motion to be in charge of organizing a cookbook for a church fundraier.  Should be fun and pretty simple to do.  Just have to print out some figures, got my sample cookbook and I am all ready to go.  Think it should be a relatively easy thing to persuade the members to sign up for.

I still have a list of things to do sewing wise this week, so want to work my way through that list; as when these guys have gone, I am going to be busy deocrating.

Did you remember to put your money in your Daily Savings Pot today?

Today's Money Saving Tip:

Eat less meat. For the nutritional value, meat is very expensive, especially as compared to vegetables and fruits. Simply change around your regular meal proportions to include more fruits and vegetables and less meats – eat a smaller steak and a bigger helping of green beans, for example. Not only is this a healthier way to eat (saving on health costs), it’s also less expensive.

One of those days not sure what to talk about................

(THIS POST SHOULD HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED ON SATURDAY, SORRY)

so I guess I will just chit chat about this and that.


Friday was a dreary wet day and very foggy.  However on a positive note the temperature was above freezing and at least the snow is starting to melt.  Mind you with the rain comes the mud, and that is one job we must do, get a load of gravel for the driveway to cover up the dirt.  I still haven't seen any of my bulbs popping through the dirt yet, but at least I can see nearly all the gardens now.


We finally got the quotes in for the work we want done in the house this year.  Dh is working six/seven days a week at the moment, and that will continue until at least June.  So we are getting a company to finish drywalling the attic, and do the taping, mudding and sanding.  They will also be sorting out our bedroom ceiling as well at the same time.  We have given them the go ahead with that, so that should be done in the next week or two.


The other main job we want done is some work in the old basement and two new windows in the new basement.  We haven't given the go ahead on that job yet, as that is a big and expensive job that is labour intensive and although we need to do the work, spending that amount of money frightens me.  I do think we will go ahead with it, but that work won't be done until sometime in April when the weather turns a bit warmer.


Now I am not sure how many Ontario readers I have?  If anyone in Ontario shops in the Zehrs grocery store's would you mind saving your grocery store cash receipts for me.  We are fund raising at the church I go to and one of the fund raising things is collecting the Zehrs receipts.


It's March break here in Ontario this coming week, so I saw on the news that Toronto airport was super busy with people escaping the winter for more sunny destinations.

Also on Saturday night/Sunday morning the clocks move forward, as its Daylight Savings Time.  We used to be a week behind Britain, but the USA decided to change that, and of course we Canadians followed suit......

I took this photo of a wall in Meaford last September, just thought I'd show you it.

Did you remember to put your money in your daily savings pot today?

Today's money saving tip:

Make Homemade Organic Fertilizer using this recipe  Bit of an ususual combination but it may work........

By the way, I have a question for you all.  Do you actually like the Money Saving Tips, and the Daily Savings Pot reminders?