Canberra Region Presbytery - Uniting Church in Australia

A Canberra business woman has come to the Marymead Auxiliary with a proposition that if the Auxiliary can sell a Yamaha E075 electone organ (original cost $15,320) to a suitable parish/organisation/facility, the Auxiliary can have the purchase price as a donation to Marymead.

The donor paid a very concessional price to the original owner (who was moving to assisted living) to assist with her move, on the basis that the organ would go to a home where its elegance, sophistication, sound and capacities would be appreciated and used.

So, the Marymead Auxiliary is looking for a congregation that is looking for an organ that is much better than the one they can actually afford.

Fund raising this year is proving to be very hard, so we want the best price we can achieve. But obviously that would be a big discount for the purchaser. So the price is negotiable.

For those outside Canberra, Marymead Child and Family Centre provides a wide range of support services for families and children in difficulties. It assists parents to care for their children and themselves through family skills and relationship courses. It works to prevent family breakdown by providing family support, intensive therapeutic intervention, respite and crisis care for children. When families do break down or children are removed by authorities, Marymead is the provider of foster care programs for the ACT government. It supports separated families that are in such conflict they require contact and changeover arrangements for children. Marymead runs one of the very few support programs in Australia for grandparents raising their grandchildren and the Indigenous Children’s program in the ACT. Marymead also provides residential care and respite care for children with disabilities and support for their families.

While most of these programs are funded on a purchaser/provider basis to the ACT or Commonwealth governments, little or no funding is available for our early intervention programs.

The Auxiliary, of which I am Treasurer, has existed as long as Marymead, to raise funds to assist Marymead’s work. Over 40 years it has raised some $2m to support child and family services in Canberra. While Marymead is affiliated with the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra Goulburn, the Auxiliary has no religious affiliations.

I await your response.

Libby Amiel

Treasurer

Marymead Auxiliary
02 6296 6596
0429 496 208

NB: Photographs of the organ can be provided by the Presbytery Office.