Judy Robertson joins Council as Secretary
The Church Council approved the appointment of Judy Robertson as church Secretary during the 2007-2008 year. Judy brings organizational other needed skills to this important job. Many thanks to Judy for agreeing to serve. The Council's Executive Committee consists of:

Chairperson: Susan Rathgeber
Vice Chairperson: Mike Gorzoch
Treasurer: Sylvia Lucas
Secretary: Judy Robertson

The Council met on September 4th with a full agenda as there is much going on at our church.

Capital Campaign Follow-up Committee - Mike Gorzoch and Maria Simao reported on follow-up activities. They are working with our new Office Manager, Karen Cables, to integrate information on annual and capital pledges, to make it easier and more informative for us. This will take a little while as Karen is new. Please direct questions to Mike or Maria.

Capital Projects Report - Steve Csinsi, property Committee Chairperson, reported that nearly every capital project in "phase I" has been finished. The last major part includes a much needed upgrade to the electrical system, which will also accommodate AC in the parlor, an automatic handicapped door off the patio and other improvements.

Search Committee: Glenn Anderson reported on plans for Jack Cook's visit the weekend of September 23rd. The Committee continues to meet weekly in preparation. They have attended to uncounted details for his visit and hope to have a time for members to meet him prior to Sunday morning. Stay tuned?.

Christian Education: Sharon Chamberlain announced plans for the fall that revolve around themes based on people from the Bible. Sunday School will include various interactive and role-playing activities designed to make the children active participants.

250th Anniversary Celebration: Carol North outlined preliminary plans for the celebration of First Church's 250th Anniversary. It will take place on April 19 and 20th, 2008, so mark your calendars.

The council encourages all members to attend church on September 23^rd to meet and hear Jack Cook preach. There will be a special congregational meeting directly afterward to vote on The Call for Rev. Cook.

We're back! We're back from vacations, camp experiences and days resting in God's wonderful creation.

This week has been busy with the start of Church School, Youth Groups and regular board and committee meetings. We've ?Celebrated the Roof" and other construction projects financed by our Capital Campaign, and eaten ice cream as we do each year with the beginning of the program year. The Art Gallery has it's first of the season show. Charlie Slate's started his Monday evening Bible Study series and this week's Sunday Light makes its Fall return. We're back to ?full steam ahead'.

But, wasn't there something else? Oh, and the Search Committee has a candidate for the Senior Minister position. Please plan to be here on September 23rd to meet and greet Rev. Jack Cook. This will be an auspicious occasion in the life of this congregation. You have already received some details and will be hearing about this in many ways over the next few weeks.

Make sure you take out your calendars and mark them with all the dates you'll need to be here this month. There's lots to do and you don't want to miss out on any of them.

Looking forward to a full and rich fall program as we live faithfully God's plans for us for the coming year.

Keep the faith,

Sue

Dates for the Bible study are: September 10, 17^th, 24^th, October 1^st, 8^th, 15^th, 22^nd and 29^th.

On April 19, 1758, seminary graduate John Smalley was ordained and installed as the very first settled pastor of our church. And what will we be doing on Sunday, April 20^th, 2008, 250 years later? Stay tuned for further developments, as they used to say on TV.

Before we sign off for this week, here's a question for all you history buffs: Whose father was responsible for replacing the pointed steeple with the rounded steeple on our previous church building? This son would love to tell you all about it. The answer can be found elsewhere in this newsletter.

• On Sunday, September 16^th, Sunday Light will kick-off for the fall with a pizza dinner starting at 5 PM and the service starting at 6 PM. Guest preacher is Rich Dunn from Lighthouse Christina Church in Springfield, MA. Fellowship & dessert follow in the parlor.

Rich Dunn- Again, we welcome Rich to First Church, he spoke here last year about the mustard seed, a very memorable sermon!

Rich grew up overseas in Africa and Europe a missionary kid for 18 years. He went to University of Florida and felt a calling to move to New England from the Tampa Bay area. Rich is married with 3 children all under 5!! He's the Senior Pastor of the Lighthouse Christian Center since 2003. Rich is ordained through Dove Christian Fellowship International. Rich has been an energetic guest speaker in the Hartford area at a youth retreat there and at the Student Discipleship conference in Avon. Not to mention the hard work his Pioneer Valley Youth Network has done with the yearly Fall Quest, a Christian concert at Six Flags in Agawam, MA.

Mark your Calendars!

Church History Query- While reading through some newspaper clippings at our public library's Local History Room, I came across an article describing someone's visit to our church when it was down on Main St. The writer described having seen case after case of trophies down in the basement rooms. Does anyone remember seeing those trophies there? Does anyone know what happened to them? If you have some idea about this, call me at 612-0692 or email me at carolnorth@usa.net.

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