Christ Church Stamford
Annual Report & Accounts for the Year Ended 31[st] December 2020
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Contents
| GENERAL INFORMATION .................................................................................................. 3 |
|---|
| ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PCC ......................................................................................... 4 |
| Administrative information ......................................................................................................4 |
| Structure, governance and management ...................................................................................5 |
| Objectives and activities ...........................................................................................................5 |
| Church Attendance ...................................................................................................................5 |
| Financial review ........................................................................................................................5 |
| Operations Report .....................................................................................................................6 |
| STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PCC ........................................................ 8 |
| STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES ...................................................................... 9 |
| BALANCE SHEET 10 |
| FUND MOVEMENT BY TYPE………………………………………………..…………..11 |
| CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………..………….12 |
| EXAMINER’S REPORT……………………………………………...…………………….13 |
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PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL OF CHRIST CHURCH, STAMFORD
GENERAL INFORMATION
| Charity name | The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical |
|---|---|
| Parish of Christ Church Stamford | |
| Charitable status | The Parochial Church Council is a charity |
| registered with the Charity Commission, | |
| registration number: 1139222 | |
| Principal address | Christ Church, Green Lane, Stamford PE9 1HE |
| Principal contact | Mrs Lisa Garwood, Administrator and Treasurer |
| Telephone no. | 01780 766446 |
| admin@christchurchstamford.com | |
| Website | www.christchurchstamford.com |
| Bankers | Barclays Bank plc, Broad St, Stamford |
| Independent | Michelle Feasey, Stamford |
| examiner |
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PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL OF CHRIST CHURCH, STAMFORD
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PCC
YEAR ENDED 31[ST] DECEMBER 2020
Administrative information
Christ Church Stamford is situated on Green Lane Stamford. It is part of the Diocese of Lincoln within the Church of England.
Parochial Church Council (PCC) Membership
Members of the PCC are either ex officio or elected by the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) in accordance with the Church Representation Rules.
PCC members who have served from 1 January 2019 until the date of this report are:
| Ex | Anthony Laotan | - Vicar (from Aug 2020) |
|---|---|---|
| Officio | Nigel Garwood | – Warden |
| Jason Nicholls |
– Warden | |
| Paul Darley | - Reader | |
| All 2020 | Lesley Foulkes | |
| Lesley Nicholls | ||
| Lisa Garwood | ||
| Jessica Randall Carrick | ||
| James Mitchell | ||
| Brian Ogden (until Sept | 2020) | |
| Peter Christmas | ||
| Dawn Field | ||
| Co- | Lucy Capstick | |
| opted |
Committees
The PCC operates through a Standing Committee which has power to transact the business of the PCC between its meetings subject to any directions given by Council and to limits of delegated authority.
The Building Committee oversees the stewardship of the Church building and ensures that repairs are dealt with.
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Structure, governance and management
The method of appointment of PCC members is set out in the Church Representation Rules. All Church attendees are encouraged to register on the Electoral Roll. The full PCC met 11 times during the year. Committees have met between meetings and items from these were included in the PCC discussions as appropriate.
Objectives and activities
Christ Church PCC has the responsibility of promoting within the Ecclesiastical parish the whole mission of the Church – pastoral, evangelistic, social, and ecumenical. It also has maintenance responsibilities for the Christ Church building. The church operates five social outreach projects covering new born to elderly, vulnerable, disabled and marginalised individuals, including the operation of a community transport scheme.
Church Attendance
The church holds a weekly morning service at 10am. This year has been exceptional due to the pandemic. As soon as we went into lockdown we began livestreaming services. Attendance at these is hard to quantify but an average of 20 devices were watching during the live stream with at least 15 more watching during the week following the service. Since we have been able to re-open we have around 30 people in attendance and around 15 devices watching the livestream.
There are 58 members on the Electoral Roll.
Financial review
Regular financial reports have been given to the PCC throughout the year.
The total income for Christ Church was £57,299 a decrease of 35%. However, expenditure also decreased to £76,742, a decrease of 31%.
Our regular giving increased this year by £1704. We have seen a reduction in Open Plate giving of £3000 which is to be expected as the church has been closed for much of the year. A large part of the reduction in giving, and indeed expenditure, is the suspension of most of our activities due to Covid-19 restrictions. Most significantly we shut the Transport Scheme in March in line with government restrictions. This gave us an opportunity to review our outreach activities. The decision was taken to close the Transport Scheme permanently and sell the minibus (sold in 2021). We began a new project, Anchored, to reach out into our community. With full PCC agreement funds from the transport scheme will be reallocated to this project which will be reflected in next year’s accounts. Day Centre and StartaFresh now fall under the umbrella of Anchored.
Our biggest challenge remains to increase our income to support the payment of our Parish share and our other commitments. Our new vicar, Rev Anthony Laotan, joined us in September 2020 and as we emerge out of the current restrictions we are confident we will be able to make significant strides towards this. We intend to increase our giving to Parish Share from £3700 this year to at least £10,000 next year.
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Christ Church Ministry
Christ Church was in interregnum until August 2020. We were then delighted to welcome our new vicar, Rev Anthony Laotan and his family. We held online services throughout the lockdown period which were broadcast to YouTube. In October we began to hold weekly socially distanced services in the building, these services were also livestreamed. We have received a generous legacy of £5000 to enable us to upgrade our audio-visual equipment to cope with these new opportunities. These hybrid services are well attended and we have been able to maintain good contact with all our church family. Open plate giving has reduced this year by around £3,000 which is unsurprising given the length of time we were closed. However, regular giving has remained stable and was showing an increase by the year end. As restrictions lift further we will be engaging and employing all means to move forward collectively as a church.
Operations Report
Christ Church has at the heart of its outreach programmes a desire to welcome people, meet their pastoral needs, and draw them into fellowship together. We aim to bring the Christ Church Values and Vision to life by drawing people into fellowship and ultimately a relationship with Christ. Rev. Anthony formed a working committee to begin to review our outreach programmes and some significant changes have been made. The implementation of these changes began in 2020 and will continue into 2021.
Day Centre
Our Day Centre was flourishing under new leadership until we had to close it down completely in March due to Covid-19 restrictions. At that point we furloughed our member of staff as no members meant no income. A team of volunteers continued to contact members by phone to check on their wellbeing and offer practical support. At the end of the furlough scheme with no prospect of being able to re-open we decided not to renew the contract of the temporary staff member. We launched a new programme, Anchored and we see our existing Day Centre membership very much as part of this outreach. The member of staff responsible for StartaFresh is now heading up Anchored and we very much intend to continue to minister to this group of people as part of our new programme. We are grateful for continued financial support from the Reiss Trust.
Children and Youth
We made the decision not to furlough our Children and Youth Minister as there was much work still to be done ensuring a regular connection with our children, young people and their families. Our Tots group and Youth Group, The Den, both moved to an online presence. These have enabled us to continue to engage with our members until were are able to resume. Our Children and Youth Minister has produced weekly videos for Tots to watch and run an online Zoom session with The Den young people. For our children’s church we have created weekly craft packs which have been delivered to families. They can then use these whilst watching our online services. In December we ran a taster session for a new face to face support group, Lil’ Cherubs, for Mum’s and their babies. This proved popular and we will continue this provision next year. We have maintained contact with our local primary and secondary school and look forward to visiting face to face as soon as restrictions allow. We had a commitment of £5,000 of funding from The Ark Trust in December which will be received in the next financial year. We will need funding next year and plan to use some of the proceeds from the sale of the minibus to enable us to commit to this provision for a further 18 months.
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StartaFresh
We had to close down StartaFresh in March 2020 and a team of volunteers kept in touch with the members whilst the member of staff was furloughed. In October we brought the staff member back to head up a new project Anchored, and StartaFresh forms part of this new ministry. Zoom calls have now replaced our regular meetings until such a time the group can meet again. We were grateful to receive £3,000 from the Burghley Family Trust and a commitment to £6000 of funding from Kiwani’s and Stamford XT. These generous donations allow this important work to continue.
Transport Scheme
In March we had to close down the Transport Scheme due to Covid-19 restrictions. This gave us an opportunity to review and reflect on this area of our operations and ministry. We have seen a steady decline in the number of volunteers, bot driving and in the office. We have been blessed with a wonderful team of dedicated volunteers but it was becoming increasingly difficult to offer a good reliable service to our membership base. Almost all of our volunteers were over 70 making it difficult to see how this situation could be turned round, at least in the short term. Whilst the scheme was never intended to be profitable it barely covered it’s costs for the last two years and with the pandemic that was set to get worse. We furloughed the employed member of staff and in October took the decision to permanently close the scheme and sell the minibus, whilst retaining the wheelchair car. Monies from the scheme, and the bus sale, will be redirected mainly to the Anchored programme and this will be reflected in next year’s accounts.
Anchored
Is our new outreach ministry into our community. Due to Covid-19 restrictions we have been unable to fully launch but our intention is to minister into our locality and also include our existing Day Centre and StartaFresh ministries under this umbrella. Before Christmas Sainsbury’s made us their charity partner and provided us with food to be distributed to local people in need. We have been able to distribute food hampers through partnerships with Bluecoat School and Stamford Welland Academy, we plan to continue with this during 2021. This new ministry is headed up by our StartaFresh Co-ordinator.
Christ Church Grantors
Christ Church gives a huge thank you to the many people who so kindly donate to support the outreach programmes. We have also received generous donations from a range of organisations in 2020, including:
-
Burghley Family Trust
-
Reiss Family Trust
-
The Ark Trust
-
Stamford Kiwanis
-
Stamford XT
-
Sainsbury’s
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STATEMENT OF RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE PCC
Charity Law requires the members of the PCC to prepare financial statements for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the Charity’s financial transactions during the Charity year and of the disposition of the Charity’s assets and liabilities at the end of that year. In preparing those financial statements, the members of the PCC are required to:
-
i. select suitable accounting policies and then apply them consistently
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ii. make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent
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iii. state whether the financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the guidelines set out in the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (FRSSE) subject to any material departures disclosed and explained in the financial statements.
The members of the PCC are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which enable them to prepare financial statements which comply with the Charities Act 2011. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities.
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Christ Church – 1139222
Statement of Financial Activities
For the period from 01 January 2020 to 31 December 2020
| Unrestricted | Restricted | Total | Prior year | Prior year | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funds | Funds | Funds | Total Funds | |||
| Receipts | ||||||
| Planned giving | 13,663 | — | 13,663 | 11,959 | ||
| Collections and other giving | 2,274 | — | 2,274 | 5,287 | ||
| Other voluntary receipts | 12,682 | 12,207 | 24,889 | 18,741 | ||
| Gift Aid recovered | 3,301 | — | 3,301 | 3,419 | ||
| Other receipts | 48 | — | 48 | — | ||
| Activities for generating funds | — | 110 | 110 | 1,877 | ||
| Investment Income | — | — | — | 2 | ||
| Receipts from church activities | 10,631 | 2,428 | 13,059 | 48,214 | ||
| Total receipts | 42,601 | 14,746 | 57,348 | 89,501 | ||
| Payments | ||||||
| Cost of generating funds | 7,101 | 7,368 | — | 14,469 | 31,187 | |
| Missionary and Charitable Giving | 75 | — | — | 75 | 319 | |
| Parish Share | 3,700 | — | — | 3,700 | 6,000 | |
| Clergy and Staffing costs | 18,677 | 23,433 | — | 42,111 | 38,474 | |
| Church Running Expenses | 13,072 | 1,879 | — | 14,951 | 33,966 | |
| Church Repairs & Maintenance | 611 | 151 | — | 762 | 2,028 | |
| Governance Costs | 672 | — | — | 672 | 600 | |
| Total expenditure | 43,909 | 32,832 | 76,742 | 112,576 | ||
| Net income / (expenditure) resources before transfer | (1,308) | (18,086) | (19,394) | (23,075) | ||
| Transfers | ||||||
| Gross transfers between funds - in | 3,540 | 2,777 | 6,317 | 17,085 | ||
| Gross transfers between funds - out | (2,851) | (3,466) | (6,317) | (17,085) | ||
| Net income / (expenditure) | ( 619) | (18,774) | (19,394) | (23,075) | ||
Other recognised gains /losses |
||||||
| Net movement in funds | ( 619) | (18,774) | (19,394) | (23,075) | ||
| Reconciliation of funds | ||||||
| Total funds brought forward | 33,969 | 66,609 | — | 100,579 | 123,654 | |
| Total funds carried forward | 33,350 | 47,834 | — | 81,185 | 100,579 |
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Christ Church – 1139222
Balance Sheet
For the period from 01 January 2020 to 31 December 2020
| Fixed assets Tangible assets Current assets Cash at bank and in hand Liabilities Creditors: Amounts falling due in one year Net current assets less current liabilities Total assets less current liabilities Total net assets less liabilities Represented by Unrestricted Unrestricted - General fund Designated Designated - Audio Visual Designated - Toddlers Tots n Toast Designated - Hardship Fund Designated - Crunch and Mission refreshments Designated – StartAFresh Designated - Transport Scheme Restricted Restricted - CYM Projects Restricted - Transport - Mini Bus (R) Restricted - Mission Fund Restricted - Agency collection Restricted - Childrens and Youth Minister Restricted - Celebrate Holiday Weekend Restricted Restricted - Childrens Church Restricted - Enable Restricted - Day Centre (R) Restricted - StartAFresh (R) Funds of the church |
As at 31/12/2020 £ 29,735 29,735 51,598 51,598 148 51,449 81,185 81,185 11,237 4,187 642 2,425 452 1354 13,050 555 32,452 748 28 2,969 58 495 687 6,448 3,388 81,185 |
As at 31/12/2019 £ 37,169 |
|---|---|---|
| 37,169 | ||
| 63,431 | ||
| 63,431 | ||
| 21 63,410 |
||
| 100,579 | ||
| 100,579 | ||
| 10,025 304 647 2,481 683 - 19,826 2,984 39,820 735 28 9,916 58 663 727 5,535 6,137 100,579 |
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Christ Church – 1139222
Fund Movement by Type
For the period from 01 January 2020 to 31 December 2020
| Unrestricted General - General fund 10,025 24,452 23,962 721 — — 11,237 |
|
|---|---|
| Sub-totals 10,025 24,452 23,962 721 — — 11,237 |
|
| Designated AUDIOVIS - Audio 304 5,000 1,117 — — — 4,187 Visual Crunch - Crunch and 683 215 465 20 — — 452 Mission refreshments Teen - Teenzone — — 15 15 — — — Start - StartAFresh — 1,354 — — — — 1,354 Transport - Transport 19,826 11,530 18,307 — — — 13,050 Scheme SCCP - Stamford — 48 — (48) — — — Childrens Christmas Party Toddlers - Toddlers 647 — 5 — — — 642 Tots n Toast Hardship - Hardship 2,481 — 35 (20) — — 2,425 Fund |
|
| Sub-totals 23,944 18,149 19,947 (33) — — 22,113 |
|
| Restricted CYMPROJ - CYM 2,984 — 2,428 — — — 555 Projects CYMREST - Childrens 9,916 200 7,147 — — — 2,969 and Youth Minister Child - Childrens 663 — 216 48 — — 495 Church ENABLE - Enable 727 — 40 — — — 687 DayR - Day Centre (R) 5,535 6,179 4,516 (750) — — 6,448 StartR - StartAFresh 6,137 8,366 11,115 — — — 3,388 (R) Mini-BusR - Transport 39,820 — 7,368 — — — 32,452 - Mini Bus (R) Mission - Mission Fund 735 — — 12 — — 748 Agency - Agency 28 — — — — — 28 collection |
|
| Sub-totals 66,550 14,746 32,832 (688) — — 47,776 |
|
| Totals 100,520 57,348 76,742 — — — 81,126 |
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CONCLUSION
Before closing it is appropriate to thank most sincerely our staff and the many volunteers who give so much of their time and energies to ensure the efficient running of our projects and community activities. We are very grateful for the financial support we receive from sponsors, grantors and charitable organisations, trusts and businesses - and the people who just give, even when they themselves struggle to make ends meet. We also thank the many other groups and partners who collaborate closely with us in a multitude of ways.
This report dated:
Signed:
x-----------------------------------------Anthony Laotan (Vicar)
x------------------------------------------
Nigel Garwood (Church Warden)
x------------------------------------------
Jason Nicholls (Church Warden
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INDEPENDENT EXAMINER’S REPORT TO THE PCC OF CHRIST CHURCH, STAMFORD
I report on the accounts of the church for the year ended 31[st] December 2020, which are set out on pages 1 to 13.
Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner
The church’s trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The church’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act)) and that an independent examination is needed.
It is my responsibility to:
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examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act;
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to follow the procedures laid down in the General Directions given by the Charity Commission (under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act); and
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to state whether particular matters have come to my attention.
Basis of independent examiner’s report
My examination was carried out in accordance with the general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking explanation from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair view’ and the report is limited to those matter set out in the statement below.
Independent examiner’s statement
In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention;
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which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements
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to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act; and
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to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act have not been met; or
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in which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
Michelle Feasey 1 West Street Business Park Stamford PE9 2PL
15[th] April 2021
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