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St. Francis of Assisi Links Road Radford Coventry
Diocese of Coventry
ANNUAL REPORT 2021
The Parochial Church Council (PCC) of St Francis presents its annual report and accounts in respect of the year to 31st December 2021
The PCC is a charity excepted from registration with the Charity Commissioners.
Background
The PCC of St Francis has responsibility with the Vicar, (currently in Interregnum), for promoting the whole mission of the church, pastoral, evangelistic, social, ecumenical, in the Church of England parish, within the Deanery of Coventry North and Diocese of Coventry, together with the oversight of the Church Building of St. Francis, its two halls and grounds.
The new parish (pastoral scheme) will consist of a population of almost 20,000 people once it comes into place when the sale of St Nicholas is completed.
Membership
Members of the PCC are either ex officio or elected by the APCM in accordance with the Church Representation Rules.
Vicar: Vacancy Wardens: Sue Williams Representatives on the Deanery Synod (serving until APCM 2023) Sue Williams (Ex officio, Diocesan Synod, Bishops Council) Kate Hughes (PCC Secretary) (Licensed to Preach) David Brightwell (Electoral Roll Officer) Ogechi Ngemegwa (Treasurer) (Also Diocesan Synod, Bishops Council) Elected Members (serving until APCM 2022) Lawrencia Asare Patience Okojie Nkem Nwokeocha Joan Merritt Penny Phillips (co-opted) Joanna Jackson David Howarth (co-opted) Mick Fennell Alex Eley Louis Messi Kevin Read Stacey Fennell (Safeguarding Officer)
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The PCC met 5 times during the year.
Committees
The PCC operates through a number of committees or groups which meet between full meetings of the PCC or on an occasional basis.
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Standing Committee
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Parish Profile Group
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Worship/Ministry Group (on hold at present)
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Link Group (with Methodists) (on hold at present)
Church Membership (Electoral Role)
There are 64 members on the Electoral Roll as at the Annual Meeting, 20 resident and 44 not resident within the parish.
Officers
Sue Williams has continued to serve as Warden looking after and preparing for services, booking clergy cover along with a host of other responsibilities involved with an Interregnum.. Kate Hughes, David Brightwell and Ogechi Ngemegwai have been the church’s Deanery Synod Representatives. Sue Williams has also continued as our Diocesan Synod Representive and has been joined this year by Ogechi who has also been elected this triennial. Sue has also continued as our Cathedral Parish Partner. Kate Hughes acts as Parish Information Officer . It has been an honour this year too that Sue and Ogechi have also been elected onto Bishop’s Council – a very different experience and one which they are just getting used to.
REVIEW OF THE YEAR
The mixture of lockdown and an interregnum has made this time rather strange. Our churchwarden has worked very hard to keep services going, but it hasn’t always been possible in lockdown to find a priest to celebrate for us and Zoom services weren’t always very successful. However, we are very grateful for those who have helped us.
In spite of all the problems, we have continued to observe the seasons, with a lovely Advent wreath, Midnight Mass at Christmas, a Lent course (courtesy of the Diocese) and more recently a beautiful Easter service.
Rainbows, Brownies and Guides has continued via Zoom) initially during lockdown and now back face to face. All units are flourishing and we have lots of girls.
The Diocesan online Lent course, ‘Journey into Prayer’, was attended by several members of the congregation, for excellent weekly talks on Contemplation using Scripture, Praying the Examen, Praying with Icons, Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina. Selina Read did a great job of providing online Sunday worship for our children, who of course have not been allowed in church during lockdown. The PCC and Standing Committee adapted to Zoom meetings, and the Parish Profile group (Sue, Kate, Ogechi, Kevin, David Brightwell, David Howarth and Messi, with a contribution on our Projects from Selina) worked hard to put together a really
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good booklet (parish profile) about the life and needs of our parish. The advertisement for our new vicar is in the Church Times now.
And throughout this time our projects have been keeping going as far as possible, and the Food Bank, Social Supermarket and the 5 Doors Down outreach have been helping many people, supported by members of the congregation as well as the paid staff. We need to be grateful for all the help we have had to keep going as the body of Christ in Radford – for the members of the St Francis family and for the grace and love of God.
Church Wardens Comments
My thanks to Richard Tarver for playing the organ, Sunday by Sunday and to Sue for playing the clarinet during Holy Week.
Many thanks to Ogechi the Treasurer, David Howarth and Sue for taking care of the weekly collections, David & Sue for serving and Joan and Sue for arranging the flowers. Also to Kate, PCC Secretary for all her assistance, David the Sacristan and Electoral Roll Officer, Recky for her help with refreshments on Sunday mornings, and those who have assisted me in various other ways when needed.
Fabric Report and Church Warden’s Report
Church
Boiler Service
Major Boiler Fix (October) Fire Extinguishers and Church Alarm System have both been serviced. Plus a few minor repairs as needed.
Hall
Nothing major just a few minor repairs.
Grounds have been maintained with volunteers during the week.
Church Warden’s Comments
My thanks to Richard Tarver for playing the organ Sunday by Sunday, and for the opportunity for me to play the clarinet during Holy Week.
Many thanks to Ogechi the Treasurer, David Howarth for taking care of the weekly collections with me, David Brightwell for helping me with serving, and Joan for arranging the flowers with me. Also to Kate, PCC Secretary, for all her assistance, David the Sacristan and Electoral Roll Officer, Recky for her help with refreshments on Sunday mornings, and those who have assisted me in various other ways when needed.
We really need to find another church warden to share the load and to support each other, especially while the Interregnum continues. This needs to be someone who is a communicant, attends regularly and is able to arrive by 9.30 am on a Sunday to set up and clear away following the service. Churchwardens are officers of the Bishop and it is a legal position where you are sworn in after making an oath and declaration.
Thanks be to God and to all who have supported us throughout the year.
Sue Williams, Church Warden
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Deanery Synod Report 2021
In the past year Coventry North Deanery Synod has met 3 times. David Brightwell, Ogechi Ngemegwai and Kate Hughes are the elected representatives from St Francis, and Sue Williams is a member because she is on Diocesan Synod. A lot of every meeting is taken up with business, especially setting the Parish Share for each year, which is each parish’s contribution towards paying the clergy. Coventry North is one of the poorest deaneries in the diocese, and limited as to how many clergy posts we can afford to have. When Liz was Area Dean, we did a lot of work on making our parish finances and administration more efficient, in order to be the church better. The Area Dean is now Gareth Irvine, the vicar of St Laurence’s Foleshill.
As well as business, we usually have a talk or discussion at each meeting. In the past year we have worked on the Deanery Mission Plan, looking at the resourcing of current and new clergy posts, church planting and the use of the diocesan Mission Hubs. We have had a presentation on clergy wellbeing and how we can better support them in all the particular stresses of the job; and we have received reports from the Diocesan Synod and General Synod. We also get regular updates from the parishes about what is happening and what they are doing. Before Covid-19 we had some social occasions, such as a Christmas meal together; hopefully these will gradually be resumed as church life gets back to normal. The meetings are a chance to get to know clergy and laity from other parishes, which is one of the parts of being a Deanery Synod representative that I particularly value.
Kate Hughes
Diocesan Synod Report
Four Associate ministers have been offered/nominated for posts at Mission Hub Churches. (St Pauls, Leamington, St Laurence’s Foleshill (accepted), St John’s Westwood). Anticipate full recruitment by end 2022).
Promoting a Safer Church . All PCC’s are being asked to adopt Promoting a Safer Church (or else produce their own policy that takes account of it). This can be downloaded from the Diocesan website. The safeguarding Dashboard indicates that this has been done by 98% of parishes.
Safer Recruitment and People Management (SRPM) practice guidance was released (implementation date January 2022). The principals are not significantly different to previous guidance; however, there is greater detailed requirements in each step of the process for roles which have ‘substantial contact’ with children, young people and vulnerable adults. The ‘people management’ section is also an addition especially for voluntary roles which focus on the ongoing support and monitoring.
Supporting parishes. The team have provided generic advice regarding safeguarding policy and practice such as safer activities to all parish safeguarding officers and clergy in the diocese.
Ogechi
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Employability Report
Summary - 2021
2021 has been a successful year but not without challenge as we recovered many of our services from the effects of the pandemic. 2021 has been a year of recovery and growth for St Francis Employability. Pre pandemic our projects attracted people from across the city and through creative new ways of engaging with our community and with new projects we established during the year 2020, we continued to do so. 2021 was a year where we brought our community back to face-to-face delivery for most of it. We worked to recover existing service while also growing on newly discovered needs of the community following a difficult year. We had many new opportunities in 2021 with new projects starting and new client groups engaging with our services allowing us to expand what we offer and develop the work we do further.
The growth in what we have to offer has let to growth within our team and as of December 2021 we employed 31 members of staff in various positions including cleaners, tutors, playworkers, support officers and volunteer coordinators.
Projects:
Reaching communities
Our core activities – including our workclub, volunteering, community café and employment and community support – having taken place through online or different methods of delivery throughout 2020 have all now been brought back to the church and are being delivered face to face bringing the life back to the church building. Our community café is once again serving breakfast and lunch and we have acquired some more surplus food donations making our meals more exciting, including M&S and Greggs. Volunteers are once again in the building supporting us with running the café, managing reception, and supporting with cleaning, grounds, admin and more! Volunteers started to come back properly in August 2021, from then to the end of December we engaged with 80 new volunteers.
Our employment and community support officers are also extremely busy supporting everyone now wanting face to face appointments again. We saw an influx of people approaching us with employment and community support needs following the lifting of restrictions and as the effects of the pandemic began to take full effect, with rising food and energy prices and with many people having lost their jobs. In the past year we have supported over 300 people through approximately 1500 appointments. We have also introduced friendship groups to our reaching communities project with a sports club and craft club starting, reaching out to those who enjoy it as a hobby but also want to meet new people and make friends.
5 doors down
5doors down has grown into a core activity of ours with it working closely alongside our reaching communities' activities to ensure we provide holistic and wrap around support for all our clients and volunteers. We continue to act as a foodbank and social supermarket recognising the need for more long-term support in many families, especially coming out of the pandemic. In 2021 we have seen our social supermarket numbers grow and fall as many families have joined us but also as many have made significant progress through working
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with our community support officer to secure employment and also financial stability. Over 2021 we have had 93 families sign up to the social supermarket, currently with 33 engaging with us at one time. The households engaging with us have varying needs from support with employment, debt, housing, English language, benefits and more. We like to provide a holistic service where we address their need for food support but also the underlying reasons they need to rely on the support. We regularly get deliveries from Fareshare to support with the food we need for our families and also receive surplus food donations from Marks and Spencer, Greggs and Tesco that add to the food we can offer.
ESOL for All
Having been delivered online for the duration of 2020 we were really excited to be able to bring back face to face ESOL delivery towards the second half of 2021. Our ESOL classes are open to all including refugees, asylum seekers and EU citizens which is not the case for all provisions in Coventry, making them a vital provision in our community. We have seen the numbers of people needing ESOL lessons sore with more people being referred to for English lessons then we have capacity for. We currently have an assessment and waiting list process but are having to look at expanding our classes to meet the demand. We have 8 lessons currently at different levels, each with up to 18 students in them.
LEAP
LEAP is an ESOL project which started as a pilot in September 2020 to April 2020 and then began for a second round in September 2021. This project focused on teaching English to extremely low-level learners who had been present in the community for a long time. To the end of 2021 we had engaged with Over 200 learners to engage them in ESOL provisions to begin to support them to learn English and integrate better within the city. Currently the second round of the provision is going well, and we hope this will lead to more funding support for our wider St Francis lessons moving forward.
My Coventry
My Coventry is a project that began in January 2021 and is due to end in December 2022 and focuses on supporting third country nationals into employment and to integrate within the city. Initially My Coventry got off to a rocky start. As we began to delivery, we went into a lockdown which restricted the types of courses and activities we could offer. Under the project we offer accredited ESOL employability, accredited IT, Civic orienteering and accredited work-focused courses such as food hygiene and health and safety. Much of the first 2 quarters was online or working around strict restrictions. Although having to contend with restrictions and lockdowns and having a rocky start at the beginning the project has had many successes. During 2021 we engaged with79 clients through the project and saw many successes with employment, education and training opportunities with these clients. We have supported many participants into courses and employment support and also many into work with clients achieving employment in teaching, engineering and social care positions. Moving into 2022 we are feeling positive about the growth of this project and hope to make up lost targets from the beginning of 2021. We are engaging with new client groups such as people on BNO visas from Hong Kong and also Ukrainian refugees who are keen to get involved in the projects activities.
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BNO support
In 2021 we learned of a new group of migrants coming to the UK from Hong Kong on British National's Overseas visas. We were very keen to work with this client group and explore their support needs. Initially it was a challenge to make contact with this group of clients. Many are very wealthy and move to more affluent areas of Coventry and surrounding areas, they are also dispersed throughout the city making it harder to connect with them. We eventually made contact with a small group of clients, introducing ourselves and having conversations about the support we could offer them and how we could work with them moving forward.
The need of this client group is very different to client groups we have worked with before. They are a very wealthy and highly educated group and although needed some support with employment and English we found their biggest barriers are with housing, mortgages and integration. We have since put on integration classes to support them with understanding life in the UK, accessing services and navigating our systems. These have been very well attended and very well received by the clients with lots of positive feedback. To the end of 2021 we had started engaging with approximately 30 BNO clients. Many have also engaged with the My Coventry Provisions we offer.
RTOF – Coventry Connects
Coventry connects is a new project that began in November of 2021. Its primary aim is to support newly awarded refugees with housing and employment. We are a partner on this project managed by Coventry City Council and alongside ACH and Spring Housing. Our aim on the project is to support with volunteering meeting outcomes on intermediated employment. This fund is different from other projects we have been part of before and is outcome based. Through this project we were able to employ a volunteer coordinator whose role is to source external placements for volunteers on the project.
The end of 2021 marked the beginning of this project, and we are excited to see how it grows and the opportunities that arise from it.
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