St. Paul's Epistle - March 2011 ECMAEF Article
East Carolina Musical Arts Education Foundation
Our Fisk pipe organ is an enormously complex instrument. It is infinitely more than an ingenious system for blowing air through 3,000-plus organ pipes; it is, in fact, a mechanical and electronic marvel. It was built with the finest workmanship and is intended to last for many generations—and it will, provided we take great care of it. This month’s article will take the form of a short story that I believe will illustrate the seriousness with which The East Carolina Musical Arts Education Foundation takes its responsibility for the care and maintenance of this fine instrument.
About two years ago, we installed instrumentation throughout the organ case that measures and records temperature and humidity once every 15 minutes, 24/7. This gives us a picture of the instrument’s vital signs, much like your family physician taking a reading of your blood pressure, pulse, temperature etc. It provides a snapshot of your general health, and that is what our instrumentation does for Opus 126. At the end of each month, we clamber around in the organ case to retrieve the instruments and download the data contained therein. Over the past month or so, we’ve noticed very low humidity readings in the organ case. Now at this time of year, the relative humidity is usually at its lowest, corresponding to the lower winter temperature; however, we have a humidifier installed that is supposed to correct for this. In investigating, Mike Bell discovered that the water line feed valve to the organ had been turned off. The line had frozen and then burst; subsequently, someone had closed it off thinking that it served only the lawn and shrubbery irrigation system. It’s been repaired now at ECMAEF’s expense, and we should begin to see corrected humidity readings from now on. Without our instrumentation and diligent review of the data, we would not have detected this problem.
Separately, and although not strictly a maintenance issue, Andrew Scanlon is working with the Solid State Electronics company to resolve a computer malfunction within the organ which has been with us for a long time; all efforts to find the glitch have so far been unsuccessful. The fix is likely to be expensive, and again, it will be underwritten by ECMAEF. The good news for St. Paul’s is that these expenses are borne by the foundation; the bad news for the foundation is that our budget does not provide for these extraordinary expenses,
and we will likely finish the year with a deficit in our operating account.
As we look ahead, we must find ways to generate sufficient income to balance our budget. There will always be unanticipated expenses—that’s the way things are—but we need to build our balance sheet so that we can absorb unanticipated costs such as these with monies that have been accumulated in the previous, financially favorable, years.
Thank you!
Robert S. Gennings, president
ECMAEF
To view St. Paul's entire March 2011 Epistle, click here!
About two years ago, we installed instrumentation throughout the organ case that measures and records temperature and humidity once every 15 minutes, 24/7. This gives us a picture of the instrument’s vital signs, much like your family physician taking a reading of your blood pressure, pulse, temperature etc. It provides a snapshot of your general health, and that is what our instrumentation does for Opus 126. At the end of each month, we clamber around in the organ case to retrieve the instruments and download the data contained therein. Over the past month or so, we’ve noticed very low humidity readings in the organ case. Now at this time of year, the relative humidity is usually at its lowest, corresponding to the lower winter temperature; however, we have a humidifier installed that is supposed to correct for this. In investigating, Mike Bell discovered that the water line feed valve to the organ had been turned off. The line had frozen and then burst; subsequently, someone had closed it off thinking that it served only the lawn and shrubbery irrigation system. It’s been repaired now at ECMAEF’s expense, and we should begin to see corrected humidity readings from now on. Without our instrumentation and diligent review of the data, we would not have detected this problem.
Separately, and although not strictly a maintenance issue, Andrew Scanlon is working with the Solid State Electronics company to resolve a computer malfunction within the organ which has been with us for a long time; all efforts to find the glitch have so far been unsuccessful. The fix is likely to be expensive, and again, it will be underwritten by ECMAEF. The good news for St. Paul’s is that these expenses are borne by the foundation; the bad news for the foundation is that our budget does not provide for these extraordinary expenses,
and we will likely finish the year with a deficit in our operating account.
As we look ahead, we must find ways to generate sufficient income to balance our budget. There will always be unanticipated expenses—that’s the way things are—but we need to build our balance sheet so that we can absorb unanticipated costs such as these with monies that have been accumulated in the previous, financially favorable, years.
Thank you!
Robert S. Gennings, president
ECMAEF
To view St. Paul's entire March 2011 Epistle, click here!
