Trustees' Annual Report
All Saints Danehill With Chelwood Gate
2020
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FROM THE VICAR AND CHURCHWARDENS
Our goal at All Saints Danehill with Chelwood Gate is to ‘know and share the love of Christ’. This fits closely with the diocesan vision for all churches in Sussex; to know, love and follow Jesus. We work towards this goal as we reach people for Christ, build them up in faith and send them out in His service.
In recent months we have been praying specifically that visitors will feel welcomed and loved; that there will be thriving services for all; that we will be passionate about our faith; for plenty of leaders; that we will be a hub for outreach, and for growing home groups. Progress in these areas is described briefly below.
All Visitors Welcomed and Loved. A warm welcome has been extended to many through Noah’s Ark parent and toddler group, the Youth Clubs, Christmas services and social events including the well-received Christmas tree festival and Burns supper. Coffee between the services and summer events have added to this sense of community, as have our services for families attending church for baptisms, weddings and funerals.
Visitors regularly comment on the friendly atmosphere and as regular members we aim to see ourselves not primarily as guests, but as hosts looking out for others.
Thriving Services for All. We continue to provide a wide range of service types to meet the diverse needs of our parish. These have included Worship@4, a service aimed at 18-30s and the young at heart, and the special third Sunday nine thirty service, among many others. We are grateful to God for well-attended Christmas, Easter, Harvest and Remembrance Sunday events, as well as our various school assemblies and services.
Average Sunday attendances have been uncannily similar to last year – 2019 figures are in brackets. 8am: 7 (9). 9.30am: 26 (26) 11.00am: 37 + 9 (37 + 9 under-16s). Worship@4: 18 + 6 (18 + 6 under-16s). This year there were 12 funerals, 2 baptisms and 3 weddings.
Passionate about our faith. The Christian gospel is wonderful news and we have been able to explore it more deeply through the Alpha Course, the Lent Course, and through Sunday Club, Pathfinder groups, home groups (see below), Coffee Plus and Sunday sermons. The different prayer groups play a vital role in fanning the flames of our faith and love.
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Plenty of leaders. We are grateful for the way in which lay people, wardens and retired ministers stepped up to the plate during Paddy’s sabbatical, giving freely of their time and skills in God’s service. It has been encouraging to see new people using their gifts for different roles in church life, from assisting with the Parish Magazine to leading and preaching.
Hub for Outreach. Our parish is blessed with a varied outreach programme, enabling us to connect with our local community. The newly completed Chelwood Gate Church has provided further opportunities to do this, for example with the carols and cream teas during Advent. Other means of outreach have included the engaging Parish Magazine, the popular Ashdown Café, film nights, harvest supper, youth clubs, men’s breakfast, ladies’ craft nights and social events.
Growing home groups. Home groups provide an excellent way to grow in faith and several new people have tried an Alpha group or a home group this year. There is room for new members, so why not contact Heather Heath (01825 790696) to try a group.
Everyday life and church life have felt very different in the light of COVID-19. At this challenging time, church members have shown God’s love to each other and to those in the community through friendship as well as pastoral and practical support. The website and online and live streamed services have provided both information and inspiration.
We had positive feedback from the recent safeguarding inspection and Archdeacon’s visitation.
We are very thankful for the work of the wardens, the PCC, the volunteer youth leaders and all the church teams who do so much to support and to enable the
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practical running of the churches’ activities. We praise God for those who have enabled the church to meet its priorities through generous giving.
And so we give thanks for all who have worked hard in His service over the past year. ‘Not to us O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.’ (Psalm 115:1)
Ashdown Café
Ashdown Café has continued to be successful during the past year, the second Friday of the month has become a time when the community comes together for coffee, tea, cakes and a chat. We have been able to fully appreciate the newly refurbished Hall & kitchen. We were one of the first groups to be able to fully use it and were very pleased to have a photographic exhibition showing activities which had taken place in the Hall over the years.
Village organisations have provided us with cakes & biscuits and Danehill Primary School entertained us on Valentine’s Day with songs accompanied by a very talented trumpet player.
The café does not set out to make a profit we only want to cover our expenses, but due to people’s generosity we have taken £753.90 since last April.
We donated £200 to the Macmillan coffee morning in September. £50 to the church Christmas tree festival. £100 to Danehill School which is going to be used for music and £100 to Ashdown Forest. We are discussing other organisations which could benefit from a donation and when the pandemic emergency is over we will be seriously considering where to send money.
The café is successful thanks to a very hard-working committee of ladies who are helped by husbands putting up banners and putting tables & chairs away and by Steve & Meg who have put up tables for us after TNT & ICE on a Thursday evening. We are grateful to Rob May who comes to help us take down the large tables after the café has finished.
Bellringers
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Danehill Bellringers have had another busy year and manage to ring for the 9.30 service on most Sundays as well as for special services such as weddings and Christmas services.
We now have a local band of 10 ringers and our Wednesday practices are well attended with regular visitors from Hartfield and Fletching. It can be quite a squash in our ringing room – not good for social distancing!
Our bells continue to be popular with visitors and I receive many requests from groups of bellringers from far and wide who would like to ring them.
We had our usual handbell ringing at Christmas when we visited all the local nursing homes plus some new ones in Haywards Heath as well as ringing at the Chelwood Gate tree lighting. We rang for our own service of Nine Lessons and Carols and also the Christingle service in Horsted Keynes and the carol service at Highbrook.
Although Bellringing is an enjoyable, if challenging team activity our main purpose is to call people to worship and remind them that we have a very active church in our neighbourhood.
Susan Hollyman
Chelwood Gate Church Helpers
We are grateful to those who care for Chelwood Gate Church, performing different voluntary tasks to ensure that it is ready for use by parishioners in their worship. Flexible rotas for cleaning, brass polishing and flower arranging duties assist with this.
Help is also provided by those who maintain the outside of the church and grounds. We are thankful to all these wonderful volunteers and to those who have helped to recruit them.
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Chelwood Gate Project
We are thankful to all those who have made it possible to install a disabled toilet and a beautiful and well-equipped kitchen at Chelwood Gate Church. This was marked by a special service in December with the Archdeacon of Hastings, Ven. Edward Dowler
The work has improved our capacity to serve both church and community with a number of different events. These have included Carols and Cream teas, Christmas events, prayer meetings, school revision training and the Lent Course with soup lunches. We are looking forward to making further use of this excellent facility once the current health restrictions have been lifted.
Our sincere thanks to the builders for their construction work and to the project committee for their tireless efforts in planning and fundraising. Please see also the Fabric report for further details.
Coffee Plus
Our group has had another positive year of Bible study, prayer and close supportive fellowship. We have been doing an in-depth study of St John’s gospel which we have all found to be extremely rewarding. As well as meeting on Friday mornings during term, we also get together for regular social events: coffee mornings, lunches, and a yearly visit to St Paul’s Catholic Church in Haywards Heath for their Maundy Thursday service. We also decorate the Church Christmas tree every year.
Our members continue to be drawn from a wide variety of church backgrounds and neighbouring parishes and we value the richness that this diversity brings to our discussions.
As a group, Coffee Plus has made regular donations to charity, first supporting Women of Action and now Barnabas Fund. We have also supported Samaritan’s Purse, Toilet Twinning and Crawley Open House. Since 2010 we have donated almost £4800 including Gift Aid, and we felt it might be encouraging to make this known to the wider church family.
Elizabeth Forty
Fabric
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This has been a relatively busy year following receipt of the Quinquennial Reports (QR’s) for both All Saints and Chelwood Gate churches plus progressing a few specific projects and urgent repairs. The Quinquennial Inspections were undertaken in April 2018 but the reports were not received until early 2019. Whilst there were only a few repairs identified for immediate action there was a longer list of items that needed attention in the short to medium term. As indicated last year membership of the Fabric Committee was revised and now includes Charles Critchley (Warden), Will Loveridge (Treasurer), Steve Coppin and Tony Blake.
The Fabric Committee have been progressing the routine maintenance and repair works in addition to the items identified in the QR’s such as, testing and repairing the lightning conductor, cleaning gutters, repairing the tower access door, maintaining/testing fire extinguishers, replacing broken flood lights with low energy LED units, repairing the clock (thanks to Paul Marten), reducing draughts and improving security to the north porch, PAT testing electrical equipment etc. Limited repairs are currently also being undertaken to windows and surrounds at both All Saints and Chelwood Gate churches.
The organ suffered a significant problem and became largely inoperable. With todays Health & Safety at Work Regulations this required scaffolding to gain the necessary access for the specialist organ repairers. Fortunately this was carefully erected and dismantled within three days and no impact on services. The ‘problem’ turned out to be a fly stuck in one of the smaller organ pipes!
The Chelwood Gate church extension is now largely complete but this was delayed due in part to identifying the north wall of the existing church to be leaning outwards and putting the whole church at risk of collapse. Following structural assessments it was decided to support this wall with the construction of two brick abutments. Final inspections are still outstanding but are due shortly.
The successful pew mobilisation programme at Danehill was extended to include all the central nave pews with the exception of the back row. The works were successfully completed, thanks largely to Steve Coppin and Johnny Blake. The benefit of flexible seating was demonstrated at the Christmas Tree Festival and the Burns Night Dinner.
The now generally accepted need to reduce our impact on the environment has influenced the thinking of the Fabric Committee. The proposals to improve the heating at All Saints include using a ground source heat pump with under floor heating in the central Nave area. This is an established technology of high
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efficiency with a low impact on the environment and will allow a reduction in our heating oil consumption.
Finally, Storm Ciara dislodged a number of stone tiles on the north facing roof at All Saints. The time taken to get this repaired, due to access restraints, resulted in water leaking onto the ceiling in the Chancel, staining the timbers and paint fresco. Further investigations are on going but we have been advised that should repairs be required the costs will be covered by insurance.
Tony Blake
Finance Review
2019 review
2019 was the third year since 2011 when the church has suffered an overall loss on its general fund. This loss of £8,047 is slightly smaller than the 2018 loss of £ 8,750 and is not good to see.
The reason for this loss is largely driven by increase in 2 expense lines:
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An increase was £3,770 in Robins upkeep costs where we have had a lot of repairs and renewals, including a new boiler;
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Church Buildings Upkeep have increased by £3,887 due to a variety of work completed as required by the recent Quinquennial.
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Whilst we have seen a decrease of £6,684, or 9%, in general regular planned giving and cash collections at services, plus Gift Aid Tax recoverable, we have increases of £6,136 and a legacy of £7,000 in our general fund.
Though the parish magazine advertising revenue fell by £545, there was a welcome increase in the number of donors supporting this initiative of giving a copy to each household and encouraging donations to help cover the cost to the church.
In line with our pledge 10 years ago to pay the full requested Parish Contribution to the diocese we have now for the sixth consecutive year achieved this. As always this is the largest item of expenditure and was £ 65,401 in the year.
Reserves Policy .
It is PCC policy to maintain a balance on the "Unrestricted Fund" to help ease fluctuations in cash flow and to meet emergencies. Now that the balance on this fund has reduced again due to this year’s loss, we are at an all-time low of only 2 months operating costs (2017 was 5 months).
Youth Worker.
We have been without a Youth Worker since early 2019 so the Youth Worker costs fell by £6,878 from £17,959 in 2018 to £11,081 in 2019. At the same time, due to reduced expenditure and additional income, our Youth Worker Fund increased by £35,698 - from £35,374 in 2018 to £71,072 in 2019.
We anticipate that with the continued support of the Parish Council and Private Donors, we have sufficient funds to pay the youth worker for the next three years.
Endowment Funds
In late 2019, the PCC agreed to sell Robins, our Endowment Property in Chelwood Gate, and bought a property more in the centre of our community. In December 2019 we purchased 41 Oaktree Cottages for £320,000 but, as we have not yet sold Robins, we obtained a Diocese Loan of £320,000 to purchase the property which will be the home of our new Youth Worker from August.
We are still planning to sell Robins when the time is right this year but, in the meantime, the monthly rental income from Robins covers our interest expense on the Diocese Loan and, in addition, we have received some short-term rental income on Oaktree Cottages. When we sell Robins we will have a significant cash surplus but we cannot state exactly how much this is until we know exact sale price achieved.
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Financial Summary
We are grateful to those whose support and generosity has helped the church towards delivering its vision and financial commitments. Please see our website - - for details about online giving. www.allsaintsdanehill.org.uk/for regulars/giving donations To secure the long-term financial future of the Church, we encourage parishioners to join the Diocesan run Parish Giving Scheme. Please take and complete one of the Parish Giving Scheme forms to help with this.
Will Loveridge
Flowers
The past year has followed a fairly standard pattern with weddings, funerals and the usual festivals. Sadly this all came to an end at the beginning of Lent with the advent of the Coronavirus. Therefore we are now unable to decorate the church as we normally would and we are all missing the chance of getting together and having a happy time while we do the arrangements and catch up with each others’ news!
Diana Freeland
Homegroups
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” – stated in the Bible: Hebrews 13v8. Jesus Christ is a constant at a time when large swathes of the planet are struggling with loss, illness, anxiety and loneliness. Our Homegroups have continued to meet throughout the year for friendship and support and to discover through Bible Study and Prayer how Christianity is relevant for society today.
The constraints of the current “Lockdown” have encouraged many of us to explore other ways of communicating. Thus, the term “Home Group” has acquired a new dimension. It has become a meeting of participants from the comfort of their own sofa using computer technology. This of course means that room size, limited seating and distance are no longer a restriction – just the number of participants on the screen at any one time!
We welcome anyone who would like to join such a group. If this idea appeals, do
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get in touch with our vicar Paddy MacBain 01825 790269 or Heather Heath 01825 790696. We will be happy to link you to a group.
Heather Heath
Ladies’ Craft Evening
We are very thankful that we (a bunch of church and non-church ladies) have been able to enjoy lots of laughs together, making fun and hopefully useful stuff. We are blessed with artistic people so we could create spring sugar flowers, a new brand of ‘Pritt Stick’, Christmas biscuits, hand creams and a lot of other weird and wonderful things. Even more than this, we have been greatly inspired by visiting speakers and wonderful ladies in our congregation telling us about their walk with God.
We were touched by their life stories, sharing their art, their experiences with God in times of trouble, their call to come near to God when they were far off, sharing fond memories of a parent by showing us their late mother’s Bible and other wonderful moments.
A massive ‘thank you’ to all who helped at different points and we look forward to future get- togethers when things have returned to normal. Meanwhile, we are toying with the idea of getting something online. We acknowledge with the apostle James that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” Please pray for us and dare to join us in future whether you would like to discover a new gift, improve a skill, share your gift with us or simply enjoy a night out.
Sue Hicks and Gabriela MacBain
Missions and Charities
Our church has supported Off the Fence, the charity for homeless people, and the Diocesan Association for Family Support Work. We have also supported the Blind Veterans charity and Beachy Head Chaplaincy Trust. We have given to ChildAid, supporting children and young people in the poorest parts of Eastern Europe, and the Salvation Army. We have also made donations to the Sussex Gospel Partnership.
Music
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At the 9.30am service we are grateful for the ability of Barbara Beedle and David Usher, Katren Bishop on the organ, and for Jenny Virtue who organises the hymn choices and for the singers.
We give thanks for the 11am singers and musicians. Interest from additional organists, singers and musicians is welcomed in order to boost the teams.
Noah’s Ark
Most Tuesday mornings during the last year All Saints Church has seen and entertained an average of 10 families at our popular parent and toddler group. In the last few months before lockdown we had much needed help from Emily, a trained children’s worker from Scaynes Hill church. As well as taking on the Christian story and sing along time Emily was a real godsend helping with the setting up and getting to know the parents/carers, plus arranging a phone WhatsApp group to keep us all in touch.
We have celebrated Harvest, Fireworks night, Valentine’s Day and also entered a sparkly animal themed tree at the All Saints first Christmas Tree Festival. The Noah’s Ark Annual Nativity Service was well attended with many parents carers and their families taking part.
The toddlers have had much pleasure in making new friends, tucking into snacks, creating puzzles and enjoying craft time. Seasonal cards and vegetable printing were popular and crawling on the floor to sponge paint sky and grass for a huge picture was definitely a hit, this topical village collage will eventually be displayed at the back of church.
Unfortunately we weren’t able to finish the spring term because of the global virus but we look forward another fun year, hopefully starting again in a few months time.
The Noah’s Ark team.
Parish Magazine
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This year we have had a major change in the group running the magazine. We have lost Michael Bentley (lately advertising manager) and Ingvar Svenson who managed the finances as part of his Treasurer role.
We have been most fortunate to recruit Will Loveridge (Finance) and Stefan Mercado (Advertising). Stefan has made his mark quickly and effectively and we can be assured that advertising is in good hands for the future with a more streamlined system and hopefully increased revenues. We will investigate the details of our finances when time allows. Emma Gilliam was a breath of fresh air on the editorial front, we are grateful for her work as an Editor and we hope to bring in even more fresh content ideas over the coming year.
After a pause during lockdown the plan is that the parish magazine will once again be delivered to every household and is a comprehensive guide to community services, events and local news and views. It has a useful role in helping the social cohesion of the parish.
Chris Drewery - Editor
Prayer Meetings
Parish Prayer
Prayer is vital to the churches’ life as it glorifies God. It shows that we are not just toiling in our own strength, but depending on His almighty power. As Jesus said, ‘Apart from me you can do nothing.’ The informal Prayer Service takes place on the third Sunday of the month at 4pm at Chelwood Gate Church. All are welcome, whether they wish to pray out loud or in the silence of their hearts.
Contemplative Prayer
’God never stops listening to us but sometimes we stop listening to him’ – in our time of contemplative prayer we seek to increase our openness to God.
We meet every third Wednesday of the month at 10am in Chelwood Gate church, spending up to an hour listening to the Word of God from Scripture, and ending with a time using the Word in intercession for others.
Members of the group come from our own Parish, and also from Forest Row, Haywards Heath, Uckfield and further afield. In 2019 we held two Quiet days and
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members of the group also join an annual retreat at Wychcroft, the Southwark Diocesan Centre in Godstone.
Anyone is welcome to come and join us, on an occasional or regular basis.
Catherine Older
Vicarage Prayer Meeting
We met each week on Saturdays at the Vicarage at 8.30am. We pray for the needs of the parish, for those in need and for the Sunday services. It is an encouraging time for those who attend. You are welcome to try it and to join. Our meeting time has now changed to Thursdays in the Vicarage garden at 9.15am.
Safeguarding
On the 26th February 2020 Paddy and I had our safeguarding inspection from the Diocese to ensure that we as a Parish we are being as thorough and as a safe as possible with our practices. This was undertaken as part of Simple Quality Protects (SQP) which was arranged for Deanery churches. I am pleased to say that we ticked all the boxes required of us and there were some extremely positive comments that came from the assessor about our current methods and the way we protect people.
It is important going forward that we continue doing this great work and take the opportunity to refresh ourselves with current Safeguarding Policies, our Behaviour Code and where we can find Safeguarding resources so that we can be confident in tackling any safeguarding concerns. As always, I am contactable for advice and if I don’t know the answer, I will endeavour to find one for you. Going forward, it is my intention to provide an annual review on Safeguarding as part of our PCC meeting just to highlight any changes or new information coming to light.
A reminder to those who volunteer within the Church and hold DBS certificates that we have been told during assessment that these are only valid for 5 years and unless you are part of the update service they will expire after 5 years. It is a requirement from the Diocese that anyone volunteering within the Church, especially with our Young People, holds a valid DBS certificate. Some personal responsibility must be taken to ensure that our certificates are in date – if they are not then contact me and I will organise a new one to be completed. We have continued to welcome a number of new volunteers to the existing numbers since last year and we continue to give thanks to God for those who continue to help in the Church, especially in these trying times.
There is also a requirement for safeguarding courses to be refreshed every 3 years – C0, C1 and C2*.
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These will also need to be completed for those who have recently started volunteering – my understanding is that C0 and C1 can be done online whereas C2 is a three-hour course at a nearby venue, run by the Diocese. You only have to refresh the highest level you attained every three years and not all of them, so if you currently hold C2 then every three years you will need to refresh C2. Again, some personal responsibility needs to be taken to ensure that we are keeping up to date. For information please speak to Paddy or myself. Obviously in the current climate a lot of these courses requiring attendance can’t be completed but the online course remain available to those who need them.
Finally, I would like to welcome Josh Watson, our new Youth (and Families’) Worker, who I am sure will do amazing work within our community.
*Further information on courses
'C0' - This is a 'core' module that contains basic messages about safeguarding. It is an e-learning module and can be delivered to groups or even congregations. C0 is designed to raise awareness across churches, and the emphasis is that 'safeguarding is everyone's responsibility'. See https://safeguardingtraining.cofeportal.org/
• 'C1' - this is the 'foundation module' that everyone who works/volunteers with children and adults in our parishes needs to complete. It is delivered in this Diocese either through group
training sessions, or via e-learning. Please note: the e-learning version of C1 is available, please see E-learning page in the paragraph above.
• 'C2' - this is a leadership module, for clergy and for lay leaders who lead groups involving children or vulnerable adults, or who have responsibility for implementing good safeguarding practice.
Ally Large, Safeguarding Officer
School
Danehill School has had another busy and exciting year. The school continues to provide creative learning in a way that engages the children. Its motto is ‘learning together, learning for life in all its fulness.’ The school aims to weave its Christian values of curiosity, imagination, discipline, collaboration and persistence into all aspects of learning.
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Social Events
Social events this year have included the pruning of the lime trees in September, men’s breakfasts and ladies’ craft evenings, the hog roast and barn dance, harvest supper and the Ladies' Breakfast. Thank you to all who have been involved, also special thanks to Jayne Kerr and her team for the enjoyable Italian night and ‘40s night. All these events have helped to build relationships within the church and in the community.
Sunday Club
Sunday Club has had another good year up until the recent issues with Covid-19. We have 9 children who regularly attend, numbers tend to grow around Christmas and Easter, it is always lovely to welcome new faces to the group. The age range is 4-12.
Sunday Club is held during the 11am service. We have now moved away from the ‘Click’ series and instead we follow ‘Roots on the Web’ which runs alongside the readings in the main service. We have fun learning the bible stories and often have a re-enactment scene just to emphasize the teachings, we also do a craft whereby we can put pen to paper to encourage the children to really get to grips with the bible. The aim of ‘Roots on the Web’ is so that the children can then discuss and affirm what they have been taught with parents who have listened to the same readings in the main service.
On the first Sunday of each month Meg runs the all age service and we are very proud to see some of our Sunday Club children up at the front doing the bible readings and prayers, this really adds to the child friendly atmosphere plus shows the children’s dedication to attending the church services.
We are so thankful for our Sunday Club leaders, there are five of us in total, myself Olivia Wilcocks, Chloe Blantern, Melissa Critchley, Elizabeth Forty and Marie Gaffon. If anyone is interested in joining us then let myself or Paddy Macbain know.
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Obviously with everything our world is experiencing at the moment with the coronavirus, our Sunday Club is on hold. Some of our children will be doing a video link for the all age service. We continue to pray in our homes for those on the front line and those who are unwell.
Please pray that Sunday Club will continue to grow and that our children will grow to love and serve the Lord.
Olivia Wilcocks
Support Ministries
We are grateful to the many people who undertake 'behind the scenes' roles to help church services function smoothly. These include our Vergers and Sacristan, Jennie Marten; the sidesmen; Cedric Parrish for assisting with the news sheet; the Lay Ministers of Communion; Tim Amy for his assistance at Chelwood Gate; those who are available to pray after the service; and the sound and laptop operators. We remember with thankfulness Priscilla Brown who passed away this year and who served so faithfully along with her husband David at both churches and especially at Chelwood Gate.
We are thankful to Paul Marten for his flag raising and clock-winding; those who open and close the church; the sidesmen and welcomers and those who serve hot drinks.
We are also grateful to Will Loveridge for his support with planned giving; to the Friends; to those who have helped with planning, especially towards the Chelwood Gate extension project; the parish magazine distributors; to Roy Emmerson and Tim Amy for their support at Chelwood Gate; and to many others.
Youth Work Report
With God’s blessing, the youth work continues to be one of the largest groups in Sussex that reach out in to the community and help young people to not only have fun, but also see there is more to life and learn more about Jesus. Our youth worker moved on in June 2019 and an amazing team of volunteers has taken the reins to keep the youth work alive and well! In particular, our heartfelt thanks to co-volunteers like Charles Critchley, Sue Hicks, Paul Wigley, Gabriela MacBain, Toby Cosens and Alice Scott for all their support at TNT and ICE – praise God for their dedication and relentless giving.
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We continue to have a good attendance at TNT/ICE with approx. 40 young people attending TNT (School Years 7/8) and ICE (School Years 9/10/11/12/13). TNT Club nights are always high energy, full of life and fun, and then ICE is a much more “chilled” affair, a great opportunity for the older youth to meet, chat, catch-up and have fun too!
Hot Potatoes has been amazing this year (these focus on social issues and the Biblical perspective). One of our favourites was the drug awareness session by Paul Hannaford (who is himself and ex drug user) - he helps the young people to see the “slippery slope” in to drug use and the devastation this causes in so many people lives. Another favourite was the CPR and AED training by some First Responders which better equipped many of our young people to save lives.
We always love to get the parents involved too, especially at the Summer “Pool Party” and Christmas “Beat The Parents”. The 2019 “Beat The Parents” was a great success featuring a Christmas Quiz, The Real Meaning Of Christmas and other Christmas Challenges! The parents won yet again in 2019, however 2020 might be a different story? Come on young people!!
Many of the young people from TNT & ICE opt to come to May Camp (a Diocesan led Christian camp with circa 500+ young people). May Camp 2019 was a great success and for the first time we included the first two episodes of Youth Alpha. Sadly, due to coronavirus, May Camp 2020 has been cancelled. We had 40 young people signed up to attend plus a group of intrepid leaders (who need very little sleep!), so we are all now looking forward to May Camp 2021.
We are also delighted to announce that the recruitment team has appointed a new Youth (& Families) Worker. It took four rounds of candidates and interviews to find the right person, but God saved the best for last and we look forward to welcoming him on board in August/Sept 2020. More on this in due course �
Meg & Steve Coppin
Website
The website remains a key source of information about all aspects of our life together. It has recently been updated and has played an enhanced role in
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communications in the light of recent events. www.allsaintsdanehill.org.uk
Please see
Worship@4
Worship@4 is church, but not as you know it! It has a relaxed ‘festival feel’ with songs/multimedia from the latest Christian artists and the talk is engaging, built around God’s word and all that it means for us today. Our heartfelt thanks in particular to the wonderful people from around the South-East who have given their time and energy to lead these talks.
We have been so excited to see how God has brought a new congregation together for Worship@4, who are now becoming great friends and growing in faith. As we move forward, our aim (with God’s blessing) is to make Worship@4 a hub for young people & the young at heart for Danehill and surrounding villages, enabling them to know and share the love of Christ.
Meg & Steve Coppin
Parochial Church Council
The PCC is responsible for co-operating with the Vicar in promoting to the parish at large the whole mission and vision of the church. It is responsible for maintaining both church buildings, in Danehill and Chelwood Gate. The PCC has shown regard to the Charity Commission's guidance on public benefit, seeking to represent the churches in sharing Christ's love in word and action. Members of the PCC are either ex-officio or elected by the APCM in accordance with the Church Representation Rules. There were no Standing Committee meetings in 2018.
We are especially grateful to Ingvar Svenson who has served with such commitment as Treasurer for nine years. Aided by Ingvar's hard work, we have been enabled to have well monitored church accounts, pay our full parish share to the diocese, reimburse staff expenses, support good causes and manage a rental property as well as meeting the diocesan accounting requirements – to name but a few.
Our sincere and heartfelt thanks go to all who have served faithfully on the PCC, including some who have done so over many years.
During the past year, the following served as members of the PCC: Vicar and Chair: Revd. Paddy MacBain, Wardens: Shelagh Gilliam, Charles Critchley. Treasurer: Will Loveridge, Secretary: vacant. Vice-Chair: Cedric Parrish* (Diocesan Synod), Fabric Officer: Tony Blake. Safeguarding Officer: Alistair Large. Sally Alexander, Chris dCritchley, Meg Coppin, Jenna Davies, Sue Hicks, Will Loveridge, Barbara Rae.
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- Indicates Deanery Synod member 20
Accounts Danehill 2020
This is to be included within the 2021 accounts.
Examiners / Auditors Report 2020
This is awaited and to be included in the 2021 accounts.