St Matthew’s Church The Parish of Edgeley & Cheadle Heath APCM Sunday 1st May 2022
Minutes of Annual Parochial Council Meeting
Opening prayers
David Brewster opened with a prayer to ask God for wisdom and understanding
Attendees: Mary Mitchell, Graham Mitchell, Ruth Winsor, Ian McGill, Steph Haynes, Heather Williams, June Edgar, Mike Taylor, Mark Abercrombie, Ken Hazeldine, Julia Blundell, Norma Stowman, Di Bebb, Mark Rushton, Debbie Allen (visitor) Karen Bailey, Corinne Ogden, Andy Ogden, Audrey Mannion, Julie Johnson, Sylvia Parker, Lois Haslam, Rebecca Brewster, Jon Adams, Heather Adams, Arthur Bullock, Shum Goodwin, Mark Goodwin, David Brewster
Apologies: Karen Perry, Grace Anderson, Linda Cosgriff, Pam Robinson Appointment of Tellers:
Julie Johnson Proposed: Mark Goodwin, Seconded: Shum Goodwin, All in favour
Election of Church Wardens
Current Wardens are willing and happy to continue
Mike Taylor – elected unopposed. Mary Mitchell – elected unopposed
David made the point that they will need our support and if at all possible to say yes when asked for help.
Election of Representatives for the PCC
There are 5 people due to retire from the PCC this year – Andy and Corinne Ogden, Karen Bailey, Sylvia Parker and Mark Goodwin. Thanks go to all of them for their service to the PCC.
Mark Goodwin as PCC Secretary is to be co-opted.
David asked if anyone wanted to go on and Jon Adams (1 year), Ruth Winsor (1 year) and Julia Blundell (3 years) said they would. Karen Bailey volunteered to go back on again for 3 years and Corinne Ogden volunteered for 1 year if required.
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Proposed PCC Proposed by… Seconded by…..
representative
Jon Adams (1 year) Lois Haslam Di Bebb
Ruth Winsor (1 year) Lois Haslam Di Bebb
Julia Blundell (3 years) Lois Haslam Di Bebb
Karen Bailey (3 years) Lois Haslam Di Bebb
Corinne Ogden (1 year) Lois Haslam Di Bebb
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Vote: All in favour
Mark Goodwin was co-opted onto the PCC so he could continue as PCC Secretary.
Appointment of Welcomers/Sidespersons
A rota for the future needs to be done – we mustn’t forget this role is a shop window for our church and a lovely smile is a nice way to greet our parishioners and guests. Current Welcomers are: Claire Abercrombie, Arthur Bullock, Christine Dawson, Bom Ghalley, Indira Ghalley, Anne Littlewood, Sylvia Parker, Karen Perry, Mark Rushton, Mike Taylor, David Truman, Ruth Windsor.
Anyone else wanting to join this ministry is very welcome – all who want to join can go along to the Arch Deacons visitation at St. George’s, Hyde on the 6[th] June 2022.
Report on changes in electoral roll since last APCM
Julie Johnson has gathered and updated the Electoral Roll, a copy of which will be kept in the safe and a name only list will be posted on the notice board when it becomes available. Julie read her electoral role report: there are now 100 members on the Parish Electoral Roll up from 95 last year with 5 new members. Julie remarked that it was really good to note that there were no deaths last year.
Safeguarding Policy: statement for Safeguarding Children, Young People, and
Vulnerable Adults.
As required, the policy statement that we have signed up to from the diocese was read by David Brewster.
The diocesan guidelines for safeguarding are on our website.
The policy will need to be signed off by the PCC, and a poster will be put on the notice board.
Karen Perry our Safeguarding Officer reports that there were no incidents (period ending December 2021).
Rebecca Brewster has renewed her DBS check
Also, the Diocese now requires all Trustees of PCCs with charitable status to be DBS checked and certificated. So our PCC Trustees have been asked to apply for an enhanced DBS check and also to do basic safeguarding course and send the certificates to Karen Perry our Safeguarding Officer.
Financial Review – year ending 2021
Arthur Bullock went through the accounts
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We paid Parish Share (£55,000 – 1% up) without legacy help this year. He asked that the PCC approve use of legacy money for future payments.
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Jon Adams asked if Parish Share was going up by 1% again - Arthur not sure but said 1% was low due to Covid so more likely to be higher – he will check.
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We had £4000 planned giving, £2000 Gift Aid and £2000 non planned giving
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We had around £10,000 legacy off Bernard Elsden (former priest)
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Telecoms income: without the telecoms income we may struggle to pay Parish Share. It is due for renewal in 2025 so we are OK till then, but after that the rent is due to go down. Arthur noted that with our legacy money we could cope for a little while.
Arthurs Report
For 2021, we were narrowly able to pay our parish share in full without having to draw on legacies; by a margin of a few hundred pounds. We have a remaining legacies of £28k available which can be used to fund our parish share following permission from the PCC. At the close of 2021 we had £20k available and restricted for our community development manager and £101k restricted or designated for church building works.
2021 saw moderate increases in planned giving compared with 2020 and substantial increases in restricted collections for charities. The latter is attributed to there being fewer Covid-19 restrictions on services in 2021, compared with during 2020. Our CDM was able to secure significantly more grants towards her work in 2021 than the previous year. There were some furlough receipts from early 2021, before the furlough scheme was wound-up; the amount was accordingly smaller than in 2020.
It is important to note that we received £8k per annum from renting out our tower as a mast. Without this source of income, we would struggle to remain solvent in the long term. Mast rental rates are expected to drop in 2025, but this is not an immediate issue. There was an unusual discrepancy in out utilities payments, these being down £2.8k in 2021, compared with 2020. This has been attributed to us receiving a £1.7k refund in our church water bill in 2021, following us being overcharged in 2020.
David Brewster proposed a vote of thanks to Arthur for all his hard work in his first year as Treasurer, and Sylvia Parker (previous Treasurer) noted how it was especially deserving as Arthur had no proper hand over or training because of Covid and he’d prepared it well enough that our independent examiner John Freeman had signed off his accounts. A round of applause was given.
Heather Adams asked a question regarding how our Parish Share is worked out and David Brewster explained how, due to calculations including our economic profile of the area and other factors, we pay 0.85 of the full amount.
Finance Report Accepted Sylvia Parker: proposed Norma Stowman: seconded
All in agreement
Appointment of Independent Examiner
Mike Taylor proposed and Heather Williams seconded : that John Freeman be appointed independent examiner again for the current financial year. Unanimously agreed .
Thanks to John Freeman (auditor and advisor) for his continued support of our treasury team and agreeing once again to do it (free) for another year.
Shum Goodwin proposed and Mark Rushton seconded : That Mark Goodwin send a thank you card.
Annual Report
David Brewster ran through his report of the last year
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2021 started in lockdown – we were in church but with restrictions:
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Masks - quiet – no talking and no communion
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20[th] June we started communion again – just bread (dipped in wine later)
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We said goodbye to Jill Elston our trainee, after 2 years with us. Some of us went to see her ordained Deacon in July of 2021 and she will be Priested soon in June 2022
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In July 2021 we had the Consistory Court led by Judge Turner – we found him firm but fair and we got our faculty to go ahead with the building work and new chairs. We thought it would take 12 weeks but has taken longer – David thanked all those who have been coming in regularly to clean up and prepare church for services while the work has been going on.
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David is back into schools now after nearly 2 years
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Pam was furloughed for parts of last year and had a fazed return to work. David suggested if you want to know more about Pam’s work to ask to see the PCC Minutes where she has made full reports.
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Christmas and Christingle were smaller than usual.
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Phone worship on Tuesday mornings has been a triumph and we have Jill Elston to thank for introducing it to us. David said it was a real blessing to all who take part.
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Toddle Time – started again in September 2021; outside at first then moved to York Street and goes from strength to strength – Karen Bailey said recently they had to turn people away as they had reached their quota.
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Church House has been utilised throughout the pandemic with child minders, book group and other groups using it, so money has been coming in.
Thanks go to Steph Haynes and Mike Taylor for the upkeep of the House gardens – lots of great work has been done and it looks lovely.
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Choir sang at Christmas and 9.30 and 11.15 services in church moved to 10.30 Shared worship
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We had 15 baptisms, 2 weddings and 8 funerals in Church and 9 at the Crematorium.
Shum Goodwin proposed a vote of thanks and best wishes to David Brewster now that he and Lucy have announced they will be leaving us in July. On all our behalf’s she said we have been truly blessed by having him and his family here with us in our parish of Edgeley and Cheadle Heath. They have been with us for nearly 20 years, which is much longer than they should have been. Whoever we get to replace David will have very big shoes to fill (physically and metaphorically ;-). Thank you David, we love you.
David replied that we made it easy for him to love and minister to us, too. He said there had never been any really hard things to deal with, only tricky ones. Karen Bailey asked if we could use his words ‘easy to love’ on our parish profile.
Julie Johnson said David had told her he was thankful his new job meant he wasn’t going to another parish, so we couldn’t accuse him of abandoning us for others.
Norma Stowman wished David, on our behalf, a wonderful holiday (he was going just after the meeting) and to go home and pack!
Mike Taylor asked that between now and the PCC Meeting of 24[th] May the congregation send any questions about the interregnum, and how we go forward either to himself, Mary Mitchell or Mark Goodwin
The meeting closed around 12:45 with a lovely prayer given by David Brewster that we should all be a blessing to our Parish.
Financial Statement for Year Ending 31/12/2020
Edgeley Cheadle Heath
Receipt & Payment Accounts
| 2021 | 2020 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receipts | £ | £ | £ | £ | |||||
| Incoming Resources from Donors | |||||||||
| Gift Aid Giving | 44153.17 | 39,384 | |||||||
| Planned Giving | 2286.9 | 4,646 | |||||||
| Collections and other giving | 5431.07 | 4,160 | |||||||
| Restricted Collections for charity | 5402.79 | 1,680 | |||||||
| Income Tax recovered | 12728.55 | 10,779 | |||||||
| 70,002 | 60,649 | ||||||||
| Voluntary Income from other sources | |||||||||
| Grants R* | Community Development Manager | 22470 | 14,835 | ||||||
| Grant R* | HMRC job retention (2 salaries) | 4277.34 | 9,401 | ||||||
| Asda (for community support) | 300 | ||||||||
| CDBF (for help during Covid) | 2,000 | ||||||||
| Fund Raising Events | 906 | ||||||||
| 26,747 | 27,442 | ||||||||
| Income from Investments | |||||||||
| Interest | 134.48 | 498 | |||||||
| 134 | 498 | ||||||||
| Income from charitable and ancillary trading | |||||||||
| Fees | 2156 | 1,826 | |||||||
| Church Booking Fees | 360 | 1,000 | |||||||
| Church House Booking | 2,157 | ||||||||
| Printing | 19 | ||||||||
| Cellnex | 7955.4 | 7,875 | |||||||
| EIG | 130 | ||||||||
| 10,471 | 13,007 | ||||||||
| Other Income | |||||||||
| Legacy | 73,817 |
Financial Statement for Year Ending 31/12/2020
Edgeley Cheadle Heath
Sundry Receipts 115 73,932 Buildings Reclaimed VAT (building work) 1582.35 Grant R SMBC (to mount memorial boards) 300 Building work grants 38677 40259.35 300 Total Receipts 147,615 175,828*
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Total Receipts
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Financial Statement for Year Ending 31/12/2020
Edgeley Cheadle Heath
| Payments | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £ | £ £ | £ | ||||
| Grants | ||||||
| Charitable Giving | 5526.52 | 1,667 | ||||
| 5526.52 | 1,667 | |||||
| Activities directly related to the work of the church | ||||||
| Parish Share | 55154.1 | 54,744 | ||||
| Ministry Expenses | 5283.62 | 3,883 | ||||
| Church Running Costs | 8119.76 | 9,588 | ||||
| Utilities | 2357.72 | 5,106 | ||||
| Church House Running Costs | 969.35 | 1,539 | ||||
| Cost of Services | 0 | 446 | ||||
| Grant R* part | Salaries incl. NI & Pension | 29852.91 | 27,143 | |||
| Support costs & mission | 0 | 1,052 | ||||
| D* | Children's church | 195 | ||||
| 101,737 | 103,696 | |||||
| Church Management & Administration | ||||||
| Fund Raising Expenses | 97.54 | |||||
| Administration | 1251.6 | 1,538 | ||||
| Printing Costs | 1666.68 | 1,650 | ||||
| 3,016 | 3,188 | |||||
| Other | ||||||
| Flowers | 25 | |||||
| Sundry Payments | 135 | |||||
| - | 160 | |||||
| Buildings | ||||||
| Grant R* | Roofing Project | |||||
| R* | Church Refurbishment | 40300 | 11,300 | |||
| R* | Church House | |||||
| 40300 | 11,300 |
Financial Statement for Year Ending 31/12/2020
Edgeley Cheadle Heath
Total Payments
150,580
120,011
R= Restricted Funds D= Designated Funds