Rev. Megan's Musings Financial Gains

You may have been aware that the congregation has been due for a mortgage refinance this December, and I’m happy to report that we have now successfully refinanced with Revere Bank. This is truly a cause for celebration!

The first cause for celebration is that an outside lending institution believes in the financial viability of our congregation enough to make us a loan. That’s a cause for pride already.

The second cause for celebration is that interest rates are low enough that we were able to roll three outstanding member loans and one sizeable loan to Cedar Lane UU Congregation into our new mortgage. On the downside, that means our mortgage payments will remain the same; in other words, large. On the upside, we now only owe the bank our standard mortgage payment, and we do not have additional debt to worry about or make payments on. That’s a great thing to accomplish for the Little Church That Could.

The third cause for celebration is by far the greatest. You see, mortgages for churches work a little differently than other mortgages. Banks don’t like to foreclose on churches; “it makes us look bad,” they say. So as a result it is very typical to require church members to guarantee the loan that the bank makes to us, promising to pay the mortgage if the church cannot. (If you’ve been around SCUU for a while, you’ll remember this process from past loans.) We have seven SCUU members this time around who provided this valuable service: Jim and Faith S., Kathleen and Tom W., David K., and two others who wish to remain anonymous. Without these Financial Angels, we could not have refinanced. So many thanks from a grateful community to the seven of you.

We also would not have gotten to where we are without so many SCUUers both past and present who donated or loaned substantial amounts of money to the congregation. Three of them will be repaid this week, and one of those is Roy M. Thanks so much to the three of you for your patience in waiting for this debt to be repaid, and thanks for your generosity to your community as well.

Many thanks to the Cedar Lane UU Congregation, who has been so stalwart in their support of SCUU through the years. We’re proud to be able to repay your generous loan from 2009.

And finally: If you’ve ever bought or refinanced a house or another large purchase, you know how tedious the paperwork can be. Deadlines, filings, sending away for statements, getting all the right paperwork where it needs to go, waiting for the mail (!), coordinating meetings – SO much work. Now imagine if you were doing all of this, not for your family, but for your church – and all of the paperwork is spread out among former members and people who have moved away or is buried in the attic or no longer exists! That is what our Treasurer, George P. and our Board President, Kerri B. have been doing this fall. Because of them, we are now financed for another five years. It was a huge amount of work for the two of them, and if I could build a golden litter and transport them all around the church like royalty I certainly would do so. Maybe we can just make it seem that way with all the appreciation we give them. THANK YOU, George and Kerri. We most certainly couldn’t have done it without you.

See you at (newly refinanced) Sugarloaf,
Megan