Most of you know that the Pinelands Commission has required us to conduct a trapping study to rule out the possibility that the threatened Northern Pine Snake forages on our land. After services on October 15, some of us from the congregation had the opportunity to tramp through the underbrush to see the drift fence and traps set up as part of the study. This sort of study normally is conducted over two seasons, autumn and spring. The autumn study period ends on October 31 and, as our consultants expected, no pine snakes have so far appeared.

Meanwhile, Home Team members, at the urging of the Board of Trustees, are using the time-lull to revisit the issue of how large our building needs to be. The dramatic growth in our membership in the past two years suggests that we may need to allow for more seating in the main meeting room. This, of course, would entail more construction costs. But it also might ultimately be more cost-effective than building a too-small building now, and having to add an addition shortly afterwards. Stay tuned for the committee’s recommendation on expanding sooner rather than later.

-- submitted by Jon Luoma