St Margaret’s Parish Church Organ Fund

Following 116 continuous years of giving joy and pleasure to generations of Olton families, our Church organ is in need of some significant TLC!

Please take a few minutes to read the following article on the Organ and find out why its restoration is important to us and the wider community.

The St Margaret’s Church organ was built in 1900 by Norman and Beard to the specification of Mr. C W Perkins, the Birmingham City Organist.   The current organ has been used continually for weekly worship, weddings, funerals and recitals over the last 116 years so is now badly in need of major restoration work.   The organ is a complicated mechanical and electrical instrument so if you compare this to continually running your car or a toaster then you can see why after 116 years of continual use the instrument now needs major work.

We are currently at a crossroads with our organ as it is limping along with various bits not working. We either need to replace it with an electronic organ or have it restored.   As a Church we have decided collectively on the latter option.

We have many reasons for wishing to restore and keep the traditional pipe organ, these include:

• The organ is an integral part of St Margaret’s worship and is used weekly for services, weddings and funerals.
• We have a strong choral tradition which continues to flourish.
• St Margaret’s Church is affiliated to St Margaret’s VA Church of England Primary School.  We consider restoring the organ to be our legacy for future generations.
• We use the organ to help fundraise for good causes.  For example, this year we are having an afternoon organ recital to commemorate the Queen’s 90th birthday enabling us to raise money jointly for the Royal School of Church Music Fund and our Organ Fund.
• Once the organ is restored we are hoping to make the organ more accessible to young people by holding open days for them to come along and try their hand. We look forward to widening the breadth of instruments available to keen young musicians in our borough.

Having obtained quotations from reputable organ builders we know we need to raise £83,675 plus VAT to fund the repairs required.

We have already raised £26,654 towards the Organ Fund through a variety of methods including a sponsored hymn sing, cheese & wine evenings and individual’s donations (significantly boosted by a gift aid tax rebate).  We have established that we do need to pay VAT, so in total we need to raise a further £73,756.

Once we place the order with the organ builder we will need to wait at least a year before Henry Groves Ltd can start the work.  Once the work starts it will take about another year to complete.   During this time part of the quote provides loan of an electronic organ to keep us singing.

Funnily enough the current quote equates to the original amount that St Margaret’s Church had to raise for the original organ back in 1900.  We therefore know that with a lot of support and generosity it can be done!

If you feel you could contribute your time and/or finances to support this worthy cause, please email us at office@stmargarets.info and we’ll be in touch!

St Margaret’s Church [Norman and Beard] Organ dating from 1900
Courtesy of Birmingham Organists’ Association