## **ANNUAL TRUSTEES REPORT FOR THE SQUARE METHODIST CHURCH**
September 2021 - August 2022
**Name of Church:** The Square Methodist Church, Dunstable
**Address:** Ashton Square, High St South, Dunstable LU6 3SN
**Correspondence address:** as above
## **Name of person to whom correspondence should be addressed:**
Rev Nina Johnson (Rev Claudia Lupi from Sept 2022)
## **Names of those who have served as managing trustees in the year (Church Council):**
Rev Nina Johnson **[Minister]** (Rev Claudia Lupi from Sept 2022 – accounts sign off for 2021-22 performed by Rev Lupi)
## **[Church stewards]**
Lisa Foster
Maria Simon **[Treasurer]** Vacant post **[Pastoral committee secretary]** Council Rota **[Council secretary]**
## **[Council members elected by the AGM]**
Sharon Andrew Bridget Calvert Pearl Mathieson Barrie Wells Jenny Smith Stephen Parkinson
## **[representatives from areas of church life]**
Ian Ellis [Property team] Carole Pratt [S Club] Stephen Turner [Musical Director] Janet Robinson [Safeguarding Officer] Ivor Mitchelmore [Local Preacher] Wendy Armiger [Worship Leader] Terry Sissons [Circuit Steward]
## **Structure**
The Square is part of the South Bedfordshire Methodist Circuit. The decision making body is the Church Council but all members are involved in the running of the church and setting its strategy at the General Church Meeting.
## **Aims and Mission**
## Our church mission statement:
_We are a town centre church aiming to radiate God’s love, as revealed in Jesus Christ, for the local community and the wider world. We seek to help people in their search for God through our worship, prayer and action._
## **Review of the year** (September 2021 – August 2022)
## _**Sunday worship services**_
- Since re-opening post-Covid, our weekly attendance has settled currently at about 5055 (compared with 60-80 pre-Covid) including the children and their leaders. However our traditionally formatted services are now live streamed, which many have found to be a huge blessing.
- Since lockdown, S Club (Sunday School) has been driven mainly by 3 families who attend regularly with attendance from other families being more erratic. The number of children present on any given Sunday is usually between 4 and 10. We no longer have an under 5s group or crèche.
- The most regular attendees are predominantly in their 70s and 80s although some in that age group have not returned as they are still reluctant to come out and mix with others.
- Some of our congregation have found alternative ways to worship including our online provision either live-streamed or later at a more convenient time.
- Our current pattern of worship, continuing from pre-pandemic, is a Cafe Worship on the 1[st] Sunday in the month with more traditional worship every other Sunday. We are moving towards having a second Cafe Worship on the third Sunday of every month in the church hall at the same time as a more traditional service in the church. This is being offered by a team who want to develop it into a form of outreach to which the non-churched can be invited.
- Pre-Covid we had 4-5 evening services a quarter. We have been unable to return to any form of evening service because of insufficient volunteers to man it.
## _**Other forms of mission or ‘church’ (e.g. church-led community groups, etc.)**_
- Our building, with all its halls, is widely used by the community including various uniformed groups (Scouts, Beavers and Cubs, Brownies, Rainbows and Guides), a church-based drama group, the local Mind charity, Slimming World, various U3a groups, Street Pastors, a big band who use our hall to rehearse and various church groups. We would very much like to build relationships with all these users of our building and are exploring ways in which we can do that.
- The building is also used by Curlie’s Cafe – an initiative by St Hugh’s Church in Leagrave to feed the homeless of Dunstable on a Saturday evening. As part of our mission, we
allow them to use our building free of charge to offer this service to the people of our community.
- As stated above, we are developing a second Cafe Worship as a basis for outreach and to have informal fellowship and worship to invite non-churched people to.
- This past year has seen the start of our garden project; we have been working with the town council to improve our garden on the north side and are now looking at developing the south side. A small group meet on Wednesday lunchtimes to water and weed and litter pick and have found it an excellent way to engage with the community passing by. We are in the town’s Heritage Action Zone (hence their support) and as such our garden was part of the town’s entry to both Anglia in Bloom and Britain in Bloom – the judging for both of these happened in July 2022, resulting in the town being given a Gold Award.
## _**Activities aimed at young people**_
- Our S Club is our Sunday school – please see information under Sunday services.
- Following Covid, numbers attending the ‘Inters Youth Group’ had declined and a decision was taken to close the group at the end of July 2022.
- We used to have a mums and toddlers group but this had ceased to meet 6 months before the pandemic. There are no plans to try again.
- We have Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, Beavers, Cubs and Scouts based at the church. We plan to appoint a church council member to liaise more closely with them in order to (re-)build a better relationship with them once again. We have a second Beaver pack we are hosting while their new clubhouse is being built.
- We have an amateur dramatic society, Square Drama Circle, who have one family of young people amongst their members; they would welcome more.
## _**Resources**_
- Our church is entirely manned by volunteers and is heavily reliant on a few hardworking people. Unfortunately we have struggled as we come out of the pandemic to recruit volunteers for essential church roles.
- Our property team do a wonderful job, doing as much maintenance as they can themselves.
- We are blessed with a committed core of mostly older members who play the organ, operate the sound system for services, manage the heating and energy operation/usage of the building, help with some of the cleaning and any catering, and have more recently recruited a youth member to assist with live streaming services, which has been ably taken on during and post-pandemic by a community volunteer linked to the Scout group who also manages our website for us.
## _**Looking forwards:**_
- We desperately need more manpower as we are limited as to what we can do by a lack of volunteers. We have come up with good ideas in the last 2 years but have had to either abandon them or scale them back as we were unable to carry them through because of lack of people to help organise them. The week by week management of the church has been more than enough without introducing new initiatives.
- We are looking forward to the arrival of our new minister in September 2022.
## **CHURCH RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS ACCOUNTS**
# **THE METHODIST CHURCH STANDARD FORM OF ACCOUNTS**
## **THE SQUARE METHODIST CHURCH DUNSTABLE**
**Church**
FOR THE YEAR ENDED
## 31 August 2022
|**Circuit**
**SOUTH BEDFORDSHIRE**|**Circuit no.**|**34/04**|
|---|---|---|
|**Registered Charity - Charity Registration number**|||
|||1126936|
If not a registered charity **Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs Gift Aid number**
(The HMRC number is equivalent to a registered charity number in terms of evidence of charitable status and may be used to give to donors or grant funders wishing to see evidence of the organisation's charitable status. Methodist charities in England and Wales that are not registered charities are excepted from registration under Statutory Instrument 2014 No.242)
## Minister:
## REV. CLAUDIA LUPI
## Church Stewards:
MRS L FOSTER
## Treasurer:
DR MARIA SIMON
Church R and P 2015.xls
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**THE SQUARE METHODIST Church CHURCH DUNSTABLE**
## **ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 AUGUST 2022**
||**SECTION A**|||**Unrestricted**
**Funds**
**Restricted**
**Funds**|**Unrestricted**
**Funds**
**Restricted**
**Funds**|**£**
**63,974**
**92**
**11,195**
**21,203**
**Totals this**
**year**|**£**
**63,974**
**92**
**11,195**
**21,203**
**Totals this**
**year**|**Totals last**
**year**||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|||||**£**|**£**|**£**||**£**||
|a1|**RECEIPTS**||**Note**|||||||
|a2|Offerings and Tax recovered|||**63,974**||**63,974**||64,831||
|a3|Bank and CFB interest and
Investment income|||**92**||**92**||45||
|a4|Lettings|||**11,195**||**11,195**||2,210||
|a5|Other receipts|||**15,326**|5,877|**21,203**||4,665||
|a6|**TOTAL RECEIPTS**|||**90,587**|**5,877**|**96,464 **|**(a7)**|**71,751**||
|||||||||||
||**SECTION B**|||||**56,386**
**751**
**7,584**
**15,319**
**3,409**||||
|b1|**PAYMENTS**|||||||||
|b2|Circuit Assessment or Share|||**56,386**||**56,386**||57,854||
|b3|Donations|||**751**||**751**||||
|b4|Repairs and Maintenance|||**5,856**|1,728|**7,584**||9,689||
|b5|Utilities (Insurances, water
charges,heating& lighting)|||**15,319**||**15,319**||9,844||
|b6|Property related - direct employment
costs|||||||||
|b7|Otherpayments|||**3,409**|1,429|**3,409**||4,010||
|b8|**TOTAL PAYMENTS**|||**81,721**|**3,157**|**84,878 **|**(b9)**|**81,397**||
|||||||**11,586**||||
||**SECTION C**|||||||||
|c1|**NET RECEIPTS/PAYMENTS**
**FOR THE YEAR**
**(a6-b8)**|||8,866|2,720|**11,586**||(9,646)||
|||||||||||
|c2|Total funds brought forward from
last year|||45,565|4,750|**50,315 **|**(c6)**|59,961||
|||||||**61,901**||||
|c3|**(c1+c2)**
**Sub total**|||54,431|7,470|**61,901**||**50,315**||
|||||||||||
|c4|Transfers and adjustments||||318|**318 **|**(c7)**|||
|||||||||||
|c5|**TOTAL FUNDS AT END OF YEAR**
**(c3+c4)**|||**54,431**|**7,788**|**62,219 **|**(c8)**|**50,315**|**(c6)**|
||**SECTION D**|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|d|**FOR INFORMATION ONLY: MONEY RECEIVED AND PASSED ON TO EXTERNAL**
**(these amounts are not to be included in total receipts/payments figures above)**||**£**
**ORGANISATIONS**||**£**
|
|d1|Balance brought forward from lastyear||3,158||7,545|
|d2|Offerings/Gifts - received for external organisations||1,619||347|
|d3|Offerings/Gifts -passed to external organisations||4,459||4,734|
|d4|**BALANCE STILL TO BE PAID**
(d1+d2-d3)||**318**||**3,158**|
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Church R and P 2015.xls
THE SQUARE METHODIST CHURCH DUNSTABLE **Church**
## **SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**
**SECTION E Please follow the Guidance Notes to complete this page** Summary of the Church accounts for the year ended 31 August 2022 and Internal Organisations reporting to the Church Council/Church Meeting. Note that the funds of an Internal Organisation would normally be Restricted funds unless it could be clearly shown that they could be used for any Methodist purpose. This section must be completed to arrive at the gross income and expenditure totals of the Church. If gross income exceeds the Accruals threshold, then the Accruals method of accounting AND A DIFFERENT FORM must be used to report the accounts (see Methodist website). Please refer to the guidance notes regarding transfers between the District and connected District Organisations.
||**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|**SUMMARY OF CHURCH ACCOUNTS AND INTERNAL ORGANISATIONS REPORTING TO THE CHURCH COUNCIL**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**SECTION E**
**Please follow the Guidance Notes to complete this page**|||||||||||||
||**SECTION E**
|||||||||||||
||Summary of the Church accounts for the year ended 31 August 2022 and Internal Organisations reporting to the Church Council/Church Meeting. Note that the funds of
an Internal Organisation would normally be Restricted funds unless it could be clearly shown that they could be used for any Methodist purpose. This section must be
completed to arrive at the gross income and expenditure totals of the Church. If gross income exceeds the Accruals threshold, then the Accruals method of accounting
AND A DIFFERENT FORM must be used to report the accounts (see Methodist website). Please refer to the guidance notes regarding transfers between the District
and connected District Organisations.|||||||||||||
||**INTERNAL**
**ORGANISATIONS**|Receipts||Payments||Net Receipts/
Payments||Adjustments||Opening
balances||Closingbalances||
|e1|**Inters Youth Group (now**
**closed)**|3||244||(241)||||241||||
|e2|**Ladies Thursday Club**|984||1,172||(188)||||901||713||
|e3|**Square Drama**|3,522||3,184||338||||5,193||5,531||
|e4|**S CLUB**|526||283||243||1||475||719||
|e5|**Square FC**|870||1,267||(397)||||510||113||
|e6||||||||||||||
|e7||||||||||||||
|e8|Sub total of Internal
Organisations funds|5,905||6,150||(245)||1||7,320|**(e11)**|7,076|**(e12)**|
|e9|**Church accounts (totals**
**brought forward from page**
**2 - totals column)**|**96,464 (a7)**
**102,369**|**(a7)**|**84,878 **|**(b9)**|**11,586**||**318 **|**(c7)**|**50,315 **|**(c6)**|**62,219**|**(c8)**|
|e10|**TOTAL CASH FUNDS HELD**
**BY CHURCH**|||**91,028**||**11,341**||**319**||**57,635**|**(x)**|**69,295**|**(y)**|
||Continue on a separate sheet
if necessary and bring the
totals forward|**TOTAL RECEIPTS**||**TOTAL**
**PAYMENTS**||||||||||
## **SECTION F**
## **STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES**
||**STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES**||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
||**CHURCH - CASH FUNDS HELD at 31 August 2022**
Central FinanceBoard
Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes
Other funds
Total funds held by Internal Organisations (the closing
balance total from above) (e12)
Bank DepositAccount
**SUB TOTAL - Church accounts**
**TOTAL CASH FUNDS HELD BY CHURCH**
Cash in hand
BankCurrentAccount|**OPENING**
**BALANCES**
41,391
8,924
**50,315**
(c6)
**7,320** (e11)
**57,635**
(x)|**CLOSING**
**BALANCES**||
|f1|Cash in hand||||
|f2|BankCurrentAccount||38,829||
|f3|Bank DepositAccount||||
|f4|Central FinanceBoard||23,390||
|f5|Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes||||
|f6|Other funds||||
|f7|**SUB TOTAL - Church accounts**||**62,219**|(c8)|
|f8|Total funds held by Internal Organisations (the closing
balance total from above) (e12)||**7,076**|(e12)|
|f9|**TOTAL CASH FUNDS HELD BY CHURCH**||**69,295**|(y)|
||||||
||**SECTION G**
**OTHER ASSETS and LIABILITIES**
Other Assets
Other Liabilities
Investments (includeEndowments)
Land &Buildings (seenotesreInsurancevalue)
Loan(s)-showamount outstanding at yearend|At
1 September 2021
8,269,580
153,900
114|At
31 August 2022
8,873,321
165,136||
|g1|Investments (includeEndowments)||||
|g2|Land &Buildings (seenotesreInsurancevalue)|8,269,580|8,873,321||
|g3|Other Assets|153,900|165,136||
|g4|Loan(s)-showamount outstanding at yearend||||
|g5|Other Liabilities|114|||
f4 Include only Funds held at the Central Finance Board
f5 Include only Funds held at Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes
g1 Include any other investments (not the cash element of TMCP trusts accounts this is included in line f5
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2015 Church R and P.xls
Name of Church: THE SQUARE METHODIST CHURCH DUNSTABLE No: 1126936
## **Declarations and Scrutiny**
I confirm that these Receipt and Payment based accounts for the year to 31 August 2022 have been prepared from the records of the Church and that they include all funds under the control of the Church trustees.
Signature of treasurer ……………………………………………………… Date……01.10.22…..
Name and address of treasurer ……Dr Maria Simon…………………………………….
…34 Clarige Close, Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire…………………. Post Code…LU7 4TW……
## **Presentation to the Church trustees**
I confirm that the annual report and accounts for the year ended 31 August 2022 were/will be* presented to the meeting of the Church trustees held on ……31.10.22…..
Signature of the Chair of the meeting ……………………………………………
Name of the Chair of the meeting ………Rev. Claudia Lupi……………… Date ……19.10.22……
## **Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of the**
## **The Square Methodist Church**
## **Charity Number …………..**
## **Responsibilities and basis of report**
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the The Square Methodist Church for the year ended 31 August 2022 set out on pages 2 to 3 As the Church’s trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (‘the Act’).
I report in respect of my examination of the Church’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the Act and, in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
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Name of Church: The Square Methodist Church Dunstable No: 1126936
## **Independent Examiner’s Statement**
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination (other than that disclosed below*) which give me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
- the accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act; or
- the accounts do not accord with the accounting records.
- [the [the
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
I have not obtained independent verification of all investments with the Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes or held in other trusts, bank balances and funds at the Central Finance Board of the Methodist Church which are individually in excess of £10,000 (ten thousand pounds) at the balance sheet date.
## Signature of independent examiner
## CJSheehan
Name of independent examiner C J sheehan
Relevant professional qualification of independent examiner Chartered Accountant
Name of firm (where appropriate) ………………………………………………………………………
Address 88 Goswell End Road, Harlington, Beds
……………………………………………………………………………….. Post Code LU5 6NX
Date 30/11/2022
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