Annual Report for 2022
Registered Charity Number 1131765 Address: Kirkley Park Road Lowestoft Suffolk NR33 0LQ
Trustees: P Axon (Church Secretary) R Dorling W Graham J Read A Smith (Church Treasurer) F Tucker I Davies Appointed January 2023 L Scott Appointed January 2023
Bankers: CAF Bank Limited
The trustees present their Annual Report and financial statements for 2022.
Structure, Governance and Management
The Charity is governed by an Approved Governing Document. Members of the Church are accepted in accordance with the Constitution which requires them to be or to have been publicly baptised on the profession of faith in Jesus Christ, or following other modes of baptism to renew their public profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
The members meeting normally take place four to six times per year and have responsibility for the overall policy of the church. The members appoint the Trustees, who together with the Minister, Church Secretary and Treasurer (who are also appointed by the Members), are responsible for the day to day running of the church’s work and witness, and the financial and legal aspects of the charity. All members are encouraged to take an appropriate part in the spiritual and practical tasks involved in the furtherance of the charitable objective. Relevant matters may be submitted to the Church meeting by the Trustees for guidance, or may be raised by members in Church meeting for further consideration by the Trustees. Though the Constitution permits decisions to be made at Church meetings by appropriate majorities, the Church seeks to work by consensus wherever possible.
Objectives and Activities
The principal purpose of the charity is the advancement of the Christian faith according to the principles of the Baptist denomination to include the advancement of education, community service and such other general charitable purposes in such parts of the United Kingdom and the world as the Church shall determine. In order to achieve the principal objective which is set out above, the Church provides a variety of activities both to its membership and to the community generally. The aim is to show the love of Jesus Christ in both word and deed and to bring people into a closer relationship with Him as living Lord. Central to the work and witness of the Church is the provision of regular public services of Christian worship. These services normally take place each Sunday at 10.30 am.
2022 saw a full return of youth groups in person following the Covid-19 restrictions. The Friday evening youth group welcomed approximately 20 young people every week, who enjoyed snacks,
activities, games and trips. Our Youth Football group, which shares faith through football welcomed many young people from within the community who would not usually attend church. During the transition to High School period, we gifted year 6’s with a resource to help ease anxiety, this was well received. During the Summer, we took a group of 20 children and young people away on a residential. During October we welcomed young people in to our church building for a Light Party as an alternative to Halloween. In collaboration with our Children and Families team, we gifted back to school and advent packs to over 50 young people throughout the year. Relationship building and pastoral care remains important, and as a church we connected with 60 young people regularly through our usual weekly groups. Contact with schools increased, and we welcomed a local primary school into the building for their nativity play. As part of this outreach we were able to gift each child a Christmas story and chocolate. All-Age services were re-introduced which saw our young people taking responsibility of planning a delivering a Sunday morning service. It was a blessing to baptise one young person during 2022.
Girls Brigade : Sessions were held during spring and summer. Unfortunately, due to the retirement of the GB Captain and a helper and no successor available, it was decided to close the group at the end of the summer session.
Boys Brigade: Sessions were held during spring and summer. Efforts were made both within the Church and Boys Brigade community to recruit leaders for the forthcoming Autumn session. Sadly, there were no willing helpers to replace those current leaders who were retiring and so reluctantly the group closed in September.
The Church operates systems to ensure that all people working with children and vulnerable adults are appropriately vetted with regard to the Disclosure and Barring Service. The church has read the Charity Commission guidance on public benefit, and is satisfied that the activities outlined above clearly demonstrate that the charity is providing a benefit to the public.
Achievements and Performance
The Church does not measure the success of its programmes only in numbers, including financial numbers, but also in less tangible areas like fellowship and encouragement. The Trustees recognise that these are difficult to measure, but believe that 2022 was a positive year in the life of the church, although early in the year our Minister, Rev Neal Smith announced he would be retiring from ministry with effect from 1[st] March 2022. The trustees were previously aware of the impending retirement and had made preparations for this interregnum period. Rev. Danny Pritchard was appointed as moderator to assist the Church and trustees during this period. Applications for a new Senior Minister were invited, and applications were scrutinised by the trustees. Following on from this several meetings between the Trustees, the moderator and Rev. Lou Webber took place. Rev. Webber met with the church family in November and following this a meeting of the Church membership voted overwhelmingly to invite Rev Webber to become new senior Minister. Rev Webber accepted the appointment and a start date during 2023 was agreed. During 2022 we were delighted to baptise five people. Five people joined the membership during the year and four people left. The membership stood at 125 people at the end of 2022
During 2022 we were able to work with Children and Families fully. We continued to give out packs for events and special days, such as Valentines, back to school and Mother’s Day, whitton After School Club, Toddlers and Kidz Church were the main recipients. We held all age services with family tables in the Sanctuary and activities three times during the year with all groups invited. In October half- term, we held a family event inside the church for all our families and community with over 100 people attending. Our groups, two toddler groups, Kidz Church, After School Club and special
events started back in September with about 80 families. Contact continued with families via email and face to face. In the summer we had 3 family events in the garden with 140 people per session attending with games, crafts and food. We were also able to be involved in the county children's music festival with packs going out to children and staff, also Phoenix St. Peter school nativity event and The Grove school visit and talk. We held a party aided by the children and youth for all the helpers in December.
In 2022 Chaplaincy continued to visit independent shops offering breakfast alternate Mondays and Fridays, also local cafes and pop up Chaplaincy's on the alternate weeks. We also began to trial a new expression of Church community and have had friends and chaplaincy guests join with us. We ran a Chaplaincy tent at the First Light Festival offering hand-massage and prayer, supporting 100s of people over the couple of days. We also ran an Alpha course for 6 people which resulted in two people coming to faith
We loved 2022 at Whitton Life, this was the year of change for us. We finished 2022 by changing the sign on the front of the building. We changed the sign to Whitton Life Community Hub. This almost had an immediate impact for us, we saw lots of new people coming through the door in all of our groups. It has been great to see all of our groups grow through something so simple changing. All of the new people have really settled in well and enjoy coming along and have gone to some of the other groups we run too. We have also had some of these people come along to Church on a Sunday and it has been great to see them there. We have continued to work with FISH, which is alongside other Churches in the local area and it’s been really good to see great relationships and trust forming within the families that we see. We have had more requests for prayer and answers to prayer from these families as they get to know the teams better. We have had people from the local authorities coming in and giving us advice which they have all found to be really helpful and beneficial.
We are continuing to work with individuals from the estate and we feel that our relationship with them has been better this year and we will work to continue to improve that as each year goes by. We want nothing more than to see them have a personal relationship with God.
Financial Review
The Church continues to raise the funds which it needs to carry on its activities from within its own membership and congregation. No wider public appeal was made for funds during the year. The Church expressed its part in the life of the wider church by making grants to national and international Christian organisations and societies with Christian aims and objectives compatible with the church’s own charitable purpose. The Church is heavily dependent on its membership working as volunteers in all aspects of the church’s activities, many of which run with little or no impact on the church’s expenditure, but nevertheless contribute substantially to the achievement of the church’s objectives. Early in 2022 a new heating system was installed in the Church building at a cost of £54,000 The membership was particularly grateful to receive a legacy of £10,000 which helped with the financial cost of the replacement heating system together with gifts from the membership. The flat at the Whitton premises was refurbished largely funded by financial gifts with a view to renting it out during 2023 to create additional income for the Church. The financial results for the year, together with a summary of the accounting policies adopted are set out in the accompanying financial statements. The church is a participating employer within the Defined Benefit section of the Baptist Pension scheme and has been making ongoing deficit payments to cover the costs of past service of its employees within the scheme under a recovery plan.
LRBC Church Accounts for the Year 1st January - 31st December 2022
| 2022 Assets at the start of year Staffing Fund 6,883 Maintenance Fund 436 Mission Funds 34,755 Legacy/Capital Fund 121,964 Youth Minister Fund 26,230 Total 190268 Income Legacies/Capital Gifts 21861 Furlough Payments 0 Weekly Offerings 39,093 Gift Aided Offerings 69,468 Income tax recovered on gift aids 19,456 Other income (Lettings etc.) 1,450 Directed Income 30,160 Interest Received 2,371 Total 183859 Expenditure Property 30219 Admin 7454 Staffing 85065 Capital Fund 63500 Wider Mission 18131 Mission Training 9632 Local Mission 21618 Total 235619 Total Cash Assets at start of year 190268 Plus Income 183859 Less Expenditure 235619 Cash Assets carried forward 138508 Non Monetary Assets Insurance Values 2022 Church buildings Church contents Manse Minibus Whitton Life Centre Whitton Life Contents Total |
2021 7676 8753 37509 115793 38230 |
|---|---|
| 207961 | |
| 49338 7748 27883 78227 21663 191 24145 346 |
|
| 209541 | |
| 25269 8274 102250 55500 12928 9908 13104 |
|
| 227233 | |
| 207961 209541 227233 |
|
| 190269 | |
| 4,424,882.00 £ 164,861.00 £ 250,641.00 £ 9,000.00 £ 386,090.00 £ 94,418.00 £ 5,329,892.00 £ |
| Expenditure Property Property upkeep Church utilities Insurance Manse Maintenance Whitton Life utilities Minibus Total Administration General Admin Computer Costs Bank Charges Affiliations Total Staffing Salaries Staff support Advertising and interviews Youth Minister Fund Internal Mission Fund Total Capital Asbestos and Heating Sound System/PA Sanctuary Refurbishment Whitton Flat Refurb Basement Refurbishment Total External Mission Ukraine Refugees Leprosy Mission TWAM BMS Appeal (Ukraine 2022) BMS Birthday Scheme BMS Home Mission Open Doors Tearfund Pakistan Appeal Total Mission/ Training Ministry Training E Day Ministry Training J Dorling Total Local Mission Total Expenditure |
2022 9,950 5,965 3,947 3,754 5,547 1,056 30219 6,480 148 104 722 7454 63,682 5,783 0 12000 3600 85065 53,600 0 9900 0 63500 519 750 0 1,143 405 7,200 7,200 750 165 18,132 5032 4600 9632 21,618 235,620 £ |
2021 9466 4509 3735 2656 3664 1239 |
|---|---|---|
| 25269 | ||
| 7166 279 98 731 |
||
| 8274 | ||
| 83974 3276 0 12000 3000 |
||
| 102250 | ||
| 2000 6500 45000 0 2000 |
||
| 55500 | ||
| 0 0 350 118 410 6200 5500 350 |
||
| 12928 | ||
| 4258 5650 |
||
| 9908 | ||
| 13104 | ||
| 227,233 £ |