Passing of Kathy Mambourg

Former member and dear friend Kathy Mambourg passed away on March 12, in Columbus. While she was at St. Matthew's, she contributed on all levels: as a choir member, member of Vestry, gardener, and organizer of the youth group.

Here is a link to her published obituary.

Passing of Rev. Ransom

We have recently heard of the unexpected death of the Rev. Charles W. (Chuck) Ransom last week from an aneurysm. The funeral service will be held on Saturday, February 24th at 1:00 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 100 E. High Street, Mount Vernon, Ohio. A reception will follow in the Parish Hall.

For additional information, you may contact St. Paul's or the Rector, the Rev. David Kendall-Sperry.

Please hold Chuck, his wife, Daryl, and their family in your prayers. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Passing of Carolyn Young's Father

Carolyn Young's dad, Brig. General James Eddy Young, passed away on Feb. 11th 2018.

Carolyn is a fairly long time member of St. Matthew's church. She has been residing in NJ taking care of her parents for the last 8 or more years. However, she has remained a member of St. Matthews and has helped support both our church through pledging and giving to the Capital Funds (which has allowed a lot of our recent upkeep on our building and grounds). Carolyn hopes to return to Ashland and St. Matthew's after everything is settled in New Jersey.

The vestry will let you know about contributions to our memorial fund in memory of her mom and dad.

Passing of Loretta Gibbs

Loretta Gibbs, mother of David Gibbs, passed away at about 11:30 on Monday night, August 7. The memorial service was held Friday at the church.

MAC Thanks

Along with seven other churches, we are part of the South Central Mission Area Council (MAC). Recently, we were able to distribute funds to respond to several requests for grant money. Here is a thank-you we received from Mount Vernon:

Your very generous donation to St. Paul's Hot Meals program in Mount Vernon will provide the matiching funds requited to purchase a processed steer, which will supply beef for about five months of meals.

Program changes at Mid Ohio have made meat virtually unavailable to us. This gift is a God-send!!

Sincere Thanks,
Sharon Blaydes

New Church Website

Today, after about a week of intense work, the new church website went live. I got started on this project when I realized that some of the web links in the old version didn't work any more. Then a visitor commented that she liked the welcoming language, but it was extremely wordy. Then a friend commented that the whole color scheme of the old one was very dreary, especially the picture of the church exterior. Then I realized that the thing simply didn't work on most cell phones.

It's going now, and my main worry is that Google will have trouble indexing it. (That's a common issue.) The main aim of the site is to introduce newcomers to our church, and I think the new design is more appealing.

Parking Lot Business

Tomorrow we are getting new lighting for the parking lot, which will make winter meetings much safer and more pleasant. The old lighting system was about 40 years old and simply didn't work. Every time someone tried to turn on the lights, the circuit breaker would trip. A local electric contractor is putting in new lights and wiring, the whole thing to be paid for by Capital Campaign funds donated by the members of the Parish.

A little later this summer, the parking lot itself will get repairs and new paving. If you have come by in the middle of the week, you probably have noticed that we gave our next-door neighbor permission for their staff to park on our lot, and the Montessori school in our basement has a regular parade of parents dropping off children and picking them up later. Both groups have agreed to help with the cost of the lot because they get benefit from it and we will make up the balance from the Capital Campaign.