A productive Annual General Meeting took place on June 8 (2018). A highlight was a two part audience partipication questionnaire, filled in on the spot. (Many thanks to Paul Wharram for a brilliant concept and execution.) The first part tasked us with ranking in importance ten areas of interest to members from 1 to 10, with 10 being the least important.

This is how it tabulated:
1 Developing young organists
2 Education and development
3 Organ concerts/recitals
4 Resources and repertoire
5 Choral Music
6 Liturgy and Worship through music
7 Information about/interest in pipe organs
8 Socializing/intereaction with others
9 Conventions/conferences
10 Organ maintenance/repairs

I value and respect these combined rankings by our membership.
Indeed, they are similar to my own rankings. With one exception. Organ maintenance/repairs came in tenth. TENTH! As a group we are less interested in organ maintenance than anything else. As your Organ Advisor, I can only respond with, “Oh my!”

Time for us to eat our broccoli. I agree that the subject of organ maintenance can be off-putting to some. OK, nearly everone but me! And I do appreciate that. But it is a very small but necessary part of working with pipe organs.

What would happen if we never changed the oil in our cars, or never repaired a house roof, or never brushed our teeth. The car would eventually stop, the roof would eventually cave in, and our teeth would fall out. I know of several cases where churches decided to forego regular maintenance. Eventually a regulator or reservoir starts to leak. A note goes dead. A stop ceases to work. The swell pedal becomes defective and so on. These issues gradually become worse and more numerous. Eventually, all of this deferred maintenance becomes so great that the organ’s repair becomes unaffordable, as the organ also becomes unusable. If these maintenance issues were dealt with on an ongoing basis, the cost would not have been so burdensome.

I know of several organs in the area where this has taken place. One regulator developed a fist-sized hole that leaked so much air the blower became imperiled. These alone can tally over $10,000. These organs sound terrible and are only partly functional, on the way to outright failure.

The bad news is that neglected organs can in fact soldier on faithfully for many years with no maintenance, but this only hastens the days when repairs will come fast and furious at an unaffordable level.

The good news is that a smaller amount of spending on a regular basis largely mitigates such jackpot situations.

More good news: good organ maintenance is not even time consuming. It can even take no time at all. Just have a relationship with an organ maintenance firm. It can be arranged so they call your church to schedule tuning/maintenance visits. The firms who support our Centre by advertising with us are all reputable and personally recommended by me. It helps them if you note and date any issues with the organ in the service book they leave near the console.

I do respect our lack of interest in organ maintenance. It is not exactly an alluring subject. But too many organs are on a road to perdition that is easily avoidable with a little TLC that all mechanical devices require. The King of Instruments deserves it, one would think.

With that all said, have some dessert!