In a Facebook group this week there was a thread about the stone circle outside the TCHS Library, which may not be receiving the TLC it deserves. Here is a possible scenario.
Imagine there exists a TCHS Alumni Campus Fund.
Estimate an annual maintenance budget for "The Readers' Circle" (my suggested new name for the gift from the class of 1960, which did not imagine the library only a few meters away). (Image courtesy TC Historical Society via Facebook.)
Suppose 100 of our worthy colleagues (out of about 25,000) should each give twenty dollars to the Fund each year.
The initial year's donations would exceed the need, so into a simple mutual fund goes the surplus.
In each ensuing year, the Fund pays a mason $500 to inspect, repair and re-point the brick and stonework. (If the actual bill is more, then the mason gets a handsome plaque testifying to his accomplishment.)
In the first year there is a surplus of $1,654, and the effective interest on that at 7.5%, based on the growth of the stock market for the past 100 years.
If the pattern is repeated and the number of donors grows by ten percent annually, then in Year 5 a withdrawal of five percent would exceed the repair bill, and the Fund could consider a gift of another improvement, for example, planting more trees on the somewhat barren campus.
In the tenth year, the Fund's assets would be over $30,000, and a 5% withdrawal would yield about $1,800 for various projects, which might be chosen by a committee of alumni and then-current students. (The latter would, of course, be invited to join the Alumni Assn.)
Basic Econ 101, brothers and sisters. All we need is a skillful manager, drawn from our 25,000 living alumni. You know she's out there!
An oversight and steering committee of three to five plus representatives of the school administration and student body would be a good idea.
At 82 and 1,000 miles away, I'm not the one to make it happen. Are you?
—RC
