rAe ￿e￿Con sAurcA Belong together, grow together, reach out together ANNUAL REPORT THE BEACON CHURCH 2021 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Contents** **Secretary Report** ...................................................................................................................... 3 **Treasurer Report** ...................................................................................................................... 5 **Elder’s Report** ............................................................................................................................ 6 **Children & Youth Work Report** ........................................................................................ 8 **Preschool Report** ................................................................................................................... 10 2 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Secretary Report** Rejoice and sing, our Lord reigns. Welcome to this year’s annual report for the Beacon Church (Canford Heath URC). Like last year, due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic this year’s report is much simplified and reduced. As we reflect on the year of 2021 our thoughts go to those who have lost friends and family. In particular we said goodbye to a beloved friend and stalwart of the Beacon Church in Ray Chipping. Ray was a faithful member of the church for many many years, and with his wife Mary, was always keen to be involved in the life of the church. He will be missed greatly; however, we can find solace that he is now at peace in Heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, for the first half of 2021 our church buildings remained closed, with services and groups continuing online. We thank God for the ability to meet virtually and the people with the skills to make this happen. A particular big thanks also needs to go to Daniel Piggott-Genge who faithfully edited Sunday morning services week in week out, making sure that everything held together cohesively. As with all previous reports let me encourage you to read all that is contained in this year's report. It may be shorter but no less full of what God has been doing in the Beacon Church this year. We serve a God who is not dead, but fully alive through our Lord Christ Jesus. I also want to take this opportunity to thank all those who help with the Admin of the church, and all who help on the many serving rotas we have. Things have been a challenge this year with lots of ups and downs. When we were able to meet in the building again it felt odd not being able to sing and having to socially distance ourselves from each other. However, what a joy it was when we were able to lift our voices together again in rejoicing and praise for our Lord and Saviour. As the year went on and Covid restrictions were lifted we were able to welcome more of the church family back into the building, whilst also having the blessing of still being able to stream our services live on YouTube. This meant that for those who still needed 3 ## ANNUAL REPORT 2021 to self-isolate or who were just not comfortable coming out to church that they could access continued church services. In October we welcomed Canford Heath Baptist Church in joining us for Sunday morning services as they were unable to host their own. This meant that the church was fuller than ever with many voices joining together in worship. As a church we have been really blessed by the enthusiasm of the Baptist Church and hope in turn that they were blessed by our welcome. Right at the end of the year we were able to host our usual Family Nativity service on a Sunday morning and then our more reflective Carol Service in the evening with refreshments after. We also had the privilege of hosting a wedding for Rob and Sam, this was such a wonderful event and I know was a blessing to them at a particularly difficult time. Membership numbers have reduced a little this year, mainly due to the removal of folks whom we haven’t seen for some time. We haven’t added any new people to our membership but hope to do so in the new year. One final thing to share is that this is the last Secretary report from me as I step down as a serving Elder and Church Secretary at our upcoming AGM. It has been a wonderful privilege to serve the Beacon Church Family for the past 6 and a half years. I know that God has so much planned for us all over the coming years and that He will continue to bless us as we trust in Him. _Martin Woolley – Church Secretary_ 4 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Treasurer Report** As we approached the end of 2021, I cannot believe how quickly this year has gone. God has been very gracious to us this year, we have been able to fulfil our financial obligations this year despite an increase in the cost in utilities and other additional costs. We could not have achieved this without the faithfulness of each person who have contributed in some way through the tithes and offerings. Again, we would ask each person to consider before God the amount of your tithe as we seek to continue the work of the church in 2022. This year, we have said goodbye to our old accounting system, and we are trying to get to grips with a new system, this is taking longer than expected! More importantly, I would like thank on your behalf Carol who after many years taking care of the ‘day to day’ work has now stood down, I am greatly missing her input and hard work. I would also like to thank Fiona also for her hard work in respect of the ‘Gift Aid’, again without her hard work the refund for tax would not be possible. During this year we have been able to maintain and refresh our buildings, particularly the coffee bar and corridor of the Beacon Centre. We have also been able to replace the electronic drum kit with a gift for this purpose. As we look towards 2022, I am sure that God will again be faithful to us, all He asks of us is that each one of our Church Family plays their part. _Mark Maidment - Treasurer_ 5 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Elder’s Report** ## I was reading an article from Joyce Meyer, and she wrote: _One of the names of God is Jehovah Jireh, which means "the Lord our provider" or "the Lord will provide." It's so wonderful to know that God is our source for everything we need, and He cares about everything we care about. There's no need so small that He doesn't know about it, and nothing too big that He can't provide for us._ _The Bible says He's…_ - _Our shelter, refuge and hiding place (Psalm 91)_ - _The one who comforts us (2 Corinthians 1:3)_ - _Our healer (Psalm 103:3)_ - _The source of wisdom (James 1:5)_ - _And everything else we need!_ _The Lord is your Provider. He loves you and He has a good plan for your life. He wants to bless you, so you can fulfil His plan and purpose…so you can really enjoy your life. And in His Word, He tells us who He is and how we can access everything we need through Christ._ I am sure there are times that we all have taken for granted what we have and even at times wanted more. We have often looked at our Youth work and the premises and asked the question what we could do differently? As you may know some of us are part of the Hants & Dorset Christian Youth camps and at one of the meetings a comment was made “why would God give us more if we don’t look after what we have” On reflection this is what we have with the Beacon Centre. A brilliant sports hall and coffee bar, that just needed tender loving care. So, a small team set to task to give the centre an uplift with freshly painted walls, a television fitted to the wall and a lower level 6 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 coffee bar. Oh, and not forgetting the new lights that are not only energy saving but can be changed to any colour to fit the event. In reflection no major changes but an appreciation of what God has provided. The reward should there be a need for one is the increase of young people attending the groups and the creation of a freshly painted friendly, safe environment which the young people love. It’s about the simple small things in life that to others can have a big impact. As a leadership team we have often spoke about numbers on a Sunday morning and when the opportunity to “outreach” to a fellow church on the heath it seemed the right thing to do and invite the Baptist fellowship to join us. Not forgetting Nigel and Val in our prayers as Nigel recovers but to provide support to their fellowship during this time and for the two churches to come together and worship and serve God. Again, it is a good example of the use of a provision that has been given by God for His people without doing a lot but simply coming together as one. As we reflect over the last year in this report and the trials and tribulations that we all have faced not only as individuals but also as a church family but as we look forward we are reminded of scripture in Jeremiah 29 11:14. _For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord._ What an amazing God we have!!! _Keith on behalf of The Elders_ 7 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Children & Youth Work Report** Well, I think that it is fair to say that we have had yet another interesting year in the children’s and youth work during 2021 – almost the opposite to 2020 in that we started online and ended in person – which has been such a joy! Between the beginning of the New Year and the May half term all groups continued to be meeting online rather than face to face. We were still able to have a lot of fun, we continued our journey through the bible with Energise, did Alpha with Ignite and a couple of prayer courses and bible courses with Restart. It was really great to actually be able to look really deeply at the bible together, in different ways – with conversations about faith and Jesus – WOW! What a challenge and a blessing. We were really keen to get the groups back together and so – slowly but surely we began meeting back together, to play games, have fun, learn more about Jesus and generally get used to being able to see each other in real life – not just on a screen! After the summer – having spent a lot of time making sure that the Beacon Centre was just as fresh and ready to go as we were, all groups began meeting in person again – for our toddler group, this was the first time we were back together since the beginning of the pandemic. And that first Monday morning, when the parents and their children came, I was so moved at what joy people came into the centre. The same was true of the other mid week evening groups too. It was such a joy to be able to hear the fun, and laughter and games, and chatting again, filling the building – it was a real reminder of why we do what we do. As I have shared many times, we have been blown away by what has been happening in our groups since the summer holidays – all the way, right up until the last week before we broke for Christmas, we had new people joining ALL GROUPS every week. Our numbers, for all groups, but in particular for Restart our oldest group – haven’t been this strong in a long time. Sunday mornings, have taken on a new look – which will hopefully be temporary, but is working at the moment none the less. With the children being out in their age 8 ## ANNUAL REPORT 2021 appropriate groups some weeks, and then others either taking part in the service or having activity trays, has been a good thing I believe. It’s not been what we would have chosen necessarily, however, the side effect of it, is that the children and adults in our church are growing closer together and really learning about Jesus together as a whole family – which is lovely. Our Thursday morning coffee drop in again has been another really good place to share life and Jesus with each other, and we have had more, different parents joining us, so far this term, than we have had since we started! I know that I say this every year, but I really do need to give a massive shout out to the amazing team of volunteers who turn up – either on their computers, or in person – week in, week out – giving up their time – not just for the groups, but for time, prepping and planning and working things out. They are so amazing with the children and young people in the groups and it’s been a real privilege to see how the children and young people who choose to spend time with us have begun to open up to us as leaders, to trust us with their worries and what’s going on in their lives. The leaders have earned respect and trust from the children and young people, but beyond that. This year, since September (and probably from before – when thanks to Zoom we were practically in people’s homes) we are building, not just a children and youth ministry – but a whole family ministry – with parents asking us to pray, sharing their family news, taking time to message thanks. God is really blessing this ministry and we are so very thankful to be part of it – and I’m so very thankful for the amazing team of people who give pf themselves so much. Thank you so much for your prayers and support over the year – I know that myself and the team have really felt them holding us up. _Vicky Piggott-Genge - Youth and Children’s Pastor_ 9 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 ## **Preschool Report** We have 11 permanent staff in our team and 3 support staff helping us to provide extra care and bank cover. They attend our rolling programme of training some through the borough attending alongside other local preschools as well as in house training. Our Stars class leader Aunty Clair left in April, continuing to support families but working for the Local Authority. We were lucky to be able to promote from our team and Aunty Jasmine is doing a great job leading a happy Stars class in all sorts of adventures. We also employed Aunty Becky who has been a joy to be around, we are hoping to be able to support her through Early Years training. Aunty Helenka from Rainbows class left during last term to develop her own craft business which is growing wonderfully and we wish her every success. We look forward to welcoming a new Aunty in January to join Rainbows class. Julia will not only join Rainbows as a key person but develop into the role of the preschool Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator taking some of those responsibilities from our Managers. Aunty Sue from our bank staff will be leaving in January with our many thanks for all her care and support. We will be looking for more bank staff in the coming months who would be happy to work on a casual basis stepping in when cover is needed, this is particularly important at the moment when staff are having to self-isolate and we have to operate with in particular ratios of adults to children. volunteer We would like to offer our thanks to Carol Bull who stepped down as treasurer this year, after many years of support particularly to Anne and Heather who have missed her care and encouragement. We are thankful for Mark Maidment stepping in and fulfilling this vital role. Fees remain £6.50 per hour for all the children and there is a consumables charge of 50p per session. These costs are very favourable compared to other settings as we try to keep costs affordable to our families. We continue to take children entitled to the 15 hours a week funding which is available to all children the term after their third birthday, and also the 30 hours a week funding which some of the children are entitled to. We also take children from 2 either those entitled to free funding or those who wish to start earlier and are able to pay. We will need to look again at costs in April as the rising costs 10 ANNUAL REPORT 2021 of everything is not covered by the small rise we will receive in the funding from BCP for the children with 15 or 30 hours. We have 42 children on our roll and 3 children booked in to join us in January, so numbers of children are ok, but we have spaces available that we would like to fill. This is dependent on being able to keep our staff teams well and out of isolation from the Covid-19 virus. Covid has been challenge for us all this year and preschool has certainly had its battles with the virus. We have followed the ever changing rules diligently and tried to apply good old common sense in our understanding and application of them. Some of the practices we have put in place to stop the spread of the virus include: keeping our classes and staff teams separate, robust cleaning routines, risk assessed activities, twice weekly lateral flow testing for staff, support for staff who have needed to self-isolate, no visits or visitors to the preschool etc. Several staff and children have tested positive for the virus at different points through the year and twice we have had to close one of the classes for a period of time. Our two class teams have been separate for most of the year and have missed the joy of being together and sharing our successes and frustrations. We have also missed having families in the preschool, and although we did succeed to have some visits in September e.g. individual consultations, coffee mornings, nursery rhyme challenge, when numbers of Covid locally were rising we had to stop visits again. We hope to restart these as soon as possible. Our preschool Committee consists of a parent from each class and church members. Currently Rebecca Holmes from stars class (who is our secretary) we also have Angie Halfhide from stars class and a space for a parent from rainbows class. The church representatives are Mark Maidment chairperson and treasurer and Vicky Piggott-Genge we continue to be blessed by their support and encouragement. We continue to use email, phone calls and our online learning tool Tapestry to keep in touch with our families when they are not able to come into the preschool. This has helped particularly when we have needed to close to self-isolate and we have been able 11 ## ANNUAL REPORT 2021 to send ideas and activities to them at home to complete, for sharing reports and for families to send us pictures and things their children have been doing at home. One of our parents has recently commented “thank you for all your efforts, they are very much appreciated.” Receiving these comments are a real boost to the staff. Our children are happy and settled, they are very confident hand washers, can leave parents at the outside door and follow the class routines. Some come to us with very little experience of mixing with others and we have noticed a difference in both many of the children’s talking and social skills. These are a priority for us this year along with their well-being. We are undertaking two big training programmes this year starting in September. Congratulations to Aunty Tracy who has successfully completed the Elklan programme to support children’s language development and is sharing her new knowledge and skills with the rest of the team. Aunty Leighanne is leading the Healthy Movers programme not only to promote and develop physical skills, but confidence and working together. We are lucky that both courses have been funded by BCP. The children have been on many walks, and really enjoyed posting their snowman cards in the snowman post box recently. They love being outside and we are very lucky that Tesco Community team have chosen to come and help upgrade our garden space. They started with painting the fence but the cold/wet weather has kept interrupting their progress, so hopefully soon the white fence will be a rainbow of colours. We are very grateful to them and look forward to each step of our new garden space. We have been lucky to be able to take the children into the church for a harvest service and for a Christmas service. Stars class have really enjoyed their music and dancing and learning lot’s of new songs. They enjoy all the physical fun in the sports hall, running, climbing, riding bikes, moving like animals. They have also particularly engaged with activities we have themed using stories such as “Shark in the Park”. This class are becoming very good at role play and this is really helping them make friends and build relationships. 12 ## ANNUAL REPORT 2021 Rainbows class have really enjoyed being outside and accessing lots of messy play e.g water, sand. A focus has been developing their fine motor control and they have enjoyed lots of threading, filling, and pouring activities and exploring dough disco activities. Favourites for them have also been dinosaur activities and especially going on a dinosaur hunt. _Anne and Heather – Preschool Managers_ 13 CANFORD HEATH UNITED REFORMED CHURCH CHARITY TRUSTEE'S REPORT AND UNAUDITED ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31st DECEMBER 2021 Registered Charity No 1134115 CANFORD HEATH UNITED REFORMED CHURCH CHARITY CONTENTS Paze Statement of Financial Activitie5 Balance Sheet Notes to the accounts Independent Examiners Report Canford Heath United Reformed Church Charity STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACtIVlTIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2021 2021 2020 Intomlng resources Tithe5 and offenngs Fundraising and donations Groups income Gift aid tay repayments Pre-school lees and vouchers Property income Other income Sponsorship and otherfundinl Grants received Bank interesi ActlVl¢y income 43.937 51,476 650 1,043 7.019 10.160 2,170 106 225 160.085 12 394 1.332 7,066 13,239 265 128.698 S09 Total IncomlnB resour¢e$ 195.046 233,340 Resource5 empended URC Ministry Mlssbn fund 26,010 9.678 7,748 2.417 164.661 2,096 25,500 15,578 3,486 1.022 IA3.438 2,302 1,572 456 979 7,185 1.476 3,446 58 Repairs tynd malntenance Printin& posta8t and statlonery staff expenses Caterin8 and sundrles MSssion Iivlng Accouniancy fees Acisvity expenses Other resources Subscriplions and membefship5 Pre-school consumables Pre-school partles and Kifts 456 985 6.350 454 2.777 Total resour￿ eMpend•d 224.436 206,498 Net mo¥emeht In funds 129.3901 26.842 Recon¢lllatlon of lunds Total fiJnd5 brought forward 79.228 52,386 Tot81 funds carried tor*Tard 49.838 79.228 Canford Heath United Reformed Church Charity BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31 DECEMBER 2021 2021 2020 Notes Flxed assets Tangible lixed asset5 CurrÈAI a55ets 1158C Current Account HS8C Savings Account HSBC Beacon Centre Barclays 979 3¢XI 48.SS9 796 3.519 4S8 74.455 49.838 79.228 Net ass•t5 49.838 ,228 Funds ol the tharftv Retained profits 49,838 79.228 49.838 79.228 Approve¢J by the trustees on anij slgned on thelr behaL4 by.. Mark Maidment (Church Treasuferl Canford Heath United Reformed Church Charity NOTES TO THE ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2021 l Affj7untlnG pollcles The financial Statements are prÈpared on a r￿eIpts payments b34sin a(cr*dafice ￿ the Charit*skt 2011. thestattment of Recommended Practice'A£countinE and Reporting by Charibe5" ISORP 2OJ51 and applkab* aCCOtsntinB Standards. The partlcvlar accounting polKios adopted by the trustees are describod bolow. Z Flxed assets The church and manse buljdirby are owned bythe URC synl￿ who hold them Oh trust lorpurpos¢s ￿¥￿ette￿ ￿thc•nfo1d H¢•th URC. Canford Heath United Reformed Church Charity INDEPENDENT EXAMINER'S REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2021 I report on the accounts of Ihecharliy fL¥theyear ended 31 Defts￿r2021 whth ares*tyJton pace5 1 to3. Re$JJE(tfv4 mswrAiblltht501th• tvusiws Thechaiiiy's trusloes are ￿$￿nSIble lot the pre￿rat￿￿￿oI theacctyhts. The tharit*strumeeswn￿der thatan aui*tj51KI¢ req￿re0 far th15 peri￿j unde¢ sethon 144121 ol theChariUesAci 2011 lthe 2011*￿Ia￿j tkn anindeFeThlenteyaminatian tsrteded. It Is my re5POrtsibility to . exèrnSne thé 3ccount5 under stttirffi 14S ofihe 2011￿. - to follow the procedures lald in theGenoral t*"re(Ik*s8kn) ￿the0*ll￿ Commisslon under sertkin 14515llbl of the 2011 A