Since last I contributed a note to these pages we have had both the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (on 21 April) and the first meeting of the new Parochial Church Council (13 May). At the APCM we thanked Doris Asher who was retiring after many years service, including four as Churchwarden, and we welcomed three new members: Nicholas Braimbridge, Georgina Godwin and Seka Graovac.
Although the PCC concerns itself with the Mission Action Plan, and the strategies and targets that underpin it, much of the more detailed debate and nearly all the hard graft of implementation is focussed in the various Working Parties – on Worship and Liturgy, Buildings and Fabric, Finance and Stewardship, Outreach and Social Action, Children and Young People, Pastoral Work, and Communications, which report regularly to the PCC. It then falls to the PCC itself to debate priorities among the various projects which the working parties have identified, against a background of limited resources.
In terms of capital expenditure, the Fabric Reserve and the Parish Development Fund have both been substantially depleted over the last two or three years to pay for the crypt refurbishment and the curate’s flat respectively. The next projects, on a relatively modest scale, will be the refurbishment this summer of the parish office, to make room for our new curate, Emma Smith, to work alongside Katherine, and then the creation of a clergy vestry in the north aisle of the Lady Chapel, to be financed largely by the legacies left by Sarah Knight and Diana Raymond. But In addition to the regular spend on repairs, there is also the need to extend our vestry space to make more room for our work with children, and in the not too distant future to redecorate the inside of the church. The PCC has begun to debate these medium-term priorities, but it is already clear that we are going to need a lot of generous benefactions in due course.
The more immediate issue, to which our Treasurer rightly draws attention at every meeting, is the pressing need to increase our regular income from committed giving to cover growing expenditure. The Diocese needs about £4000 more from us next year to meet the costs of (mainly) clergy pay and pensions, but income tax relief on gift aid is set to fall by £3600 next year, £5000 in 2012, as a delayed consequence of the benefit many of us have received since income tax was reduced to 20% in April 2008. Meanwhile the Vicar urgently needs a part-time PA, to set him free to focus more on his pastoral and leadership responsibilities, and the growth of our work with children and young people is beginning to make an ever stronger case for the appointment of a youth worker, possibly in association with another parish. There is already a likely deficit of about £9000 in this year’s budget, and next year looks worse. So the Finance Committee has been looking at a new approach to our committed giving scheme, of which you will be hearing more soon, and the PCC has decided to have pew collections at all our main services. Not only will this increase the income we receive from visitors and others who are not yet members of the committed giving scheme; it will also give more visible expression to the culture of regular and sacrificial giving that needs to be part of our Christian witness.
As a community there is so much that we already do, but so much more that we could and should be doing with additional resources, both capital and revenue. The PCC looks to all of us for support and understanding as we try to make adequate and responsible provision for our mission tasks.
Parish Meetings
Handley Stevens