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2020-12-31-accounts

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND Mary's Petertxbroush St Mary's Church Peterborough ANNUAL REPORT & STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS FOR 2020 The Diocese of X Peterborough

St Mary’s Church is part of the Diocese of Peterborough within the Church of England.

The correspondence address is St Mary’s Church, New Road, Peterborough PE1 1TT.

The Parochial Church Council (PCC) of St Mary Boongate Peterborough is a body corporate (PCC Powers Measure 1956, Church Representation Rules 2006) and registered with the Charity Commission in September 2018. Its Registered Charity Number is 1180032.

PCC members who have served at any time during 2020 are:

Ex-officio members :

Elected members:

Authorised Lay Pioneers: Mr Keith Brett, Mrs Vicky Brett

Electoral Roll Officer: Vacant (Mr Tom Tomalin until February 2020) Safeguarding Officer: Mrs Marion Betts Health & Safety Officer: Mr Mark Stevens Independent Examiner: Mr N J Burroughs FCA, 45 Farleigh Fields, Orton Wistow, Peterborough

Banking details: St Mary’s Peterborough PCC General Account is at Barclays Bank, 1 Church Street Peterborough PE1 1XB St Mary’s Peterborough Restricted Accounts are held by the

Peterborough Diocesan Board of Finance (Registered Charity no. 250569)

Our Vicar, the Revd. Michael Moore, summarises 2020 at St Mary’s

GROWTH

Gosh! What a year! Many things have had to be cancelled and closed down this past year because of Covid. However, things still go on, and have changed, and we have changed to meet the new challenge.

Obviously, we have not seen physical growth in church attendance but we have had growth in our online activities.

Our church services have been produced with many people helping and using their gifts, and acquiring new skills too. More people than we would have ever expected now watch online each Sunday and on Friday Nights too.

PRAYER

As well as focusing on God’s Word at St Mary’s, we continue to be an actively praying church. I am grateful to those who lead our ‘Thursday Prayers’; these are now sent via email and we gather together at home, but praying as one.

Our ‘Prayer Link’ continues to be a great support to those in need of urgent prayer throughout the local community and across the country and the world.

EXPANDING THE TEAM

This year, many people have asked if they can help the church and more people are involved with church than ever before, taking on new roles and helping in new ways. The Gardening Team really stepped up to the mark last year, keeping the church gardens clean and tidy and saving the church hundreds of pounds in the process.

REACHING OUT TO OUR COMMUNITY

St Mary’s continues to be an outward-looking church. The huge amount raised for The Food Bank as part of our Summer Fundraiser is testament to the huge generosity of our church members. This is in addition to the weekly food collections we have.

In March, we held a well-attended Pet Service.

Covid stopped much of our work. However, the people of St Mary’s rallied around looking after people and shopping for them. They phoned each other to make sure everyone was well and safe.

Our streaming of services also helped people to feel connected, and many in the community, who never came to church before, now watch our service.

St Mary’s has committed to spend over £20,000 on a new sound system, WIFI network and filming and live streaming system to make sure we can continue to broadcast our weekly services across the city and the world. We will also be able to stream funerals.

During 2020, we have continued our links with our local primary schools using Microsoft Teams to reach into the classrooms.

FINANCES

Finances are always tough for St Mary’s Church and last year we lost over £20,000 in bookings through not being able to let our rooms. However, cost savings were made and people stepped up to the mark and gave to the church sacrificially. This meant that, at the end of the year, we were only £200 in the red. A truly brilliant position all things considered.

This past year has been a real joy to me in seeing people grow in their faith, and seeing many grow in their skills and confidence, and in seeing the church coming together and supporting one another.

We have reached out into the community with God’s love through our online services and, through that, we have ourselves been blessed as a church.

There is great need in our community, not just financially but also spiritually.

Together at St Mary’s we are making a difference to people’s lives in this city. This next year will still be a challenge. However, as Covid restrictions are slowly lifted, we pray that we will continue to innovate and be open to new ways of helping our community around us and spreading God’s word. With God’s blessing we will.

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St Mary’s, Peterborough

The church of St Mary Boongate was legally constituted on 27th August 1857 to serve the whole of the eastern part of the city, which at the time consisted mostly of the Boongate slums with fields beyond. There was considerable growth in the twentieth century, particularly between 1970 and 1990 when the Peterborough Development Corporation transformed the area.

Our parish broadly equates to the civil Peterborough East Ward together with small parts of the neighbouring Central, Park and Dogsthorpe Wards. Covering an area of 3.6 square miles it forms a wedge, stretching out almost three miles north-eastwards from the city centre, from the Eastgate estates (which replaced the old Boongate slums in the 1970s), through the post-war suburb of Eastfield to the newer township of Parnwell. It also includes the extensive Eastern Industrial estates and part of the city’s retail and commercial centre. The church building is situated in the south-western corner of the parish, close to the city centre.

The population is around 13,750, roughly half of whom are white British. It is relatively young - 21% of those living in the parish in 2019 were under 15 years of age, slightly above the figure of 18% for England as a whole (Church of England Research & Statistics Unit Parish data Jan 2020). It is one of the 10% most deprived in the country ( based on the indicators of poverty used by the Church of England Research & Statistics Unit and the Church Urban Fund) , for each of child, working-age and pensioner poverty.

Within our parish we have five primary schools (Bishop Creighton Academy; Lime Academy Abbotsmede; Lime Academy Parnwell; Newark Hill Academy; St Thomas More RC Primary), two Secondary Schools (City of Peterborough Academy, St John Fisher RC High School) and two Special Schools ( Medeshamstede Academy, NeneGate School) and a Further Education College (City College). The new University of Peterborough — currently under construction—will also be in our parish, with a proposed new student accommodation block built close to the church.

The primary purpose of St Mary’s Church

Our principal objective at St Mary’s is to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the doctrines and practices of the Church of England. Like all churches, St Mary’s attempts to look three ways at once in its mission, because at all times we strive to be open to and engage with our Living God, with our community neighbours and with our own ‘church family’. These three fundamental functions underpin our mission as a church.

St Mary’s Parochial Church Council is committed to growing our church – not just numerically, but to grow nearer to God through worship, to grow in faith and spiritual understanding, to grow out into our local community and to grow in fellowship with each other. To facilitate this growth we consider it important to maintain the fabric of our church and centre building, and also to ensure that we have sufficient resources, both human and monetary.

As a church, our first priority at St Mary’s is worship and prayer, and we are committed to holding regular public worship that is open to all, and to provide a sacred space for personal prayer and contemplation. We teach the Christian faith through sermons, courses and small groups, and offer a pastoral ministry to the sick and bereaved. We want to promote the whole mission of the church through the provision of activities of benefit to people in our local community, and want in particular to work with the schools within our parish.

St Mary’s PCC is essentially focused on the advancement of religion for the public benefit. When we compile our action plans for each year, we consider the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit, particularly the specific guidance given to charities concerned with the advancement of religion. We also consider the wider needs of the local community which we serve.

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Structure, governance and management

St Mary’s Peterborough PCC is a body corporate and operates under the Parochial Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956 and the Church Representation Rules . In essence its role is to work with Revd. Michael, as our Vicar, in all church activities, including the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social & ecumenical; participating in local Deanery and Diocesan events; looking after our building and contents; managing our finances and ensuring that things successfully happen.

St Mary’s PCC is specifically responsible for the maintenance of the Church Centre complex, which is spread over two floors and comprises the church, the chapel, two halls, two kitchens, three small meeting rooms, three vestries and an office. This modern, purpose-built building was opened in 1991, replacing the original Victorian church which was in a very poor state of repair and had no community facilities.

Given its wide responsibilities, the PCC has a number of committees/teams and authorises individuals to be responsible for particular areas of church activity, such as safeguarding, health and safety, stewardship, pastoral visiting and Churches Together liaison. It also employs two people: a part-time administrative assistant and a part-time cleaner/caretaker.

Day-to-day management of St Mary’s Church is exercised by the Standing Committee: Revd. Michael Moore ( Vicar) , Mary Manna, Chi-man Mau ( Churchwardens) , Hilary Dawson, Richard Smith and Elizabeth Pedley. This is the only committee required by law and has the power to transact business between PCC meetings and consider issues which may affect the church.

PCC members are appointed in accordance with the Church of England Representation Rules and are elected at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM), normally held each April. By decision of a previous APCM elected members serve for one year only (except for those elected to Synod, who serve for three years). Everyone who regularly attends St Mary’s is encouraged to join our Electoral Roll and to stand for election to the PCC. All members of the PCC are required to complete safeguarding training, and may receive other external training as and when deemed appropriate.

Unfortunately restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic closed the church building in March and made it impossible to hold our planned APCM — such public gatherings were illegal. The Bishop of Peterborough made provision, under powers conferred by section 10 of the Churchwardens Measure 2001 and rule 78 of the Church Representation Rules, for the period of office of the existing churchwardens and PCC members to be extended until 31st May 2021 if necessary. In late April 2020 all members of St Mary’s PCC, in whatever capacity they served, were formally asked if they would be willing to continue for a further year, and all agreed in writing that they were happy to do so.

Normally St Mary’s PCC would meet seven times during the year, including an Awayday focused on planning, but this wasn’t possible in 2020. The full PCC met four times, with two ’physical’ meetings held before the pandemic struck, and two held later via Zoom (with special provision made for those without IT access). The average level of attendance was 83%. Meetings are chaired by an elected Lay Chair at the request of the Vicar, who otherwise retains chairmanship of the PCC as Trustees of St Mary’s.

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Our Plans for the future - the next five years:

During 2019 PCC set a new five year growth agenda for the years 2020 — 2025 which we felt would help strengthen our commitment to the core functions forming the basis of our on-going purpose, namely:

This 5 Year Plan identifies specific ways in which we hope to grow and things we wish to achieve.

Between 2020 and 2025 we want to:

Grow nearer to God through worship:

By offering worship opportunities in a range of different styles and on different days of the week

By encouraging those who come to attend more regularly

Grow in faith and spiritual understanding:

Grow in fellowship with one another:

By developing a close partnership with our local Christian churches

By actively supporting specific charities through fundraising events

Grow out into our local community through mission and outreach:

By strengthening our links with local schools

By offering activities for local children and young people

Grow in numbers:

By working to increase the numbers of those who attend our Sunday and weekday services on a regular basis

And in order to achieve these aims, we want to ensure that we:

Have sufficient numbers of people from various age-groups with the necessary skills and training to get things done

Have appropriate, well-maintained facilities, with improvements made where necessary Have enough money, whilst giving a tenth of our income away to charity each year Limit the damage we may be causing to our planet

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What PCC wanted to achieve in 2020

We identified the following as key tasks to be actioned in 2020, considering them to be steps towards achieving our new 5-year growth plan.

To enable us to grow out into our local community through mission and outreach:

To ensure that we have appropriate resources and facilities to achieve our plans:

Ten weeks into the year the coronavirus pandemic arrived to challenge the status quo!

And this is what we managed to do in 2020. We:

Continued to make public worship a priority, even when our building was closed:

Strived to growth in faith and spiritual understanding:

Strived to maintain fellowship with one another:

Strived to maintain contact with our local community:

Worked to ensure that we have appropriate resources and facilities to achieve our plans:

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Achievements & Performance

St Mary’s PCC is delighted with what we managed to achieve in 2020 in a very difficult year. Where our original objectives weren’t possible because of the COVID restrictions, we focused on alternatives which were! The following section highlights key areas of activity and performance.

Electoral Roll

At the start of 2020 there were 114 names on our Electoral Roll, 62% of whom were women and 38% men. 51 (45%) lived within the parish, and 63 (55%) outside.

Last Spring, in accordance with Church Regulations, we started revising our Electoral Roll prior to the Annual Church Meeting in April, and we were nearing the end of this process when the church was closed by the coronavirus pandemic. By then numbers had increased to 120, 60% of whom were women and 40% men. 53 (44%) lived in the parish and 67 (56%) outside.

Since then one long-standing church member has died, bringing our Roll to 119 by December 2020, 61% women and 39% men. 52 (44%) live within in the parish and 67 (56%) outside.

Worship

All are welcome to attend our regular services . We recognise that not everyone finds it helpful to worship God in the same way, and we encourage everyone to explore new ways of worship as they try to come closer to God. Our main Sunday morning service is Family Communion, but our regular pattern of services covers a wide range to suit different tastes and offer different worship experiences. Our popular monthly café style ‘Friday Night Worship’ appeals to those who enjoy informal worship with a live band, whilst those who value time for silent prayer and reflection are also catered for. Until Lockdown in March 2020 we offered two Sunday evening services each month, a Compline service and a lay-led Evensong. Our Lay Pioneer Ministers led ‘Inclusive Church Peterborough’ at St Mary’s on Sunday evenings.

When our church building was closed by the pandemic in mid-March we were immediately able to move our services online via YouTube , thanks to the technical expertise of church members. When regulations permitted, the Sunday morning Communion service was recorded in church, otherwise it was filmed in the vicarage kitchen. This online service has been offered each week since 22nd March 2020, even when the church was re-opened in the summer, for those who wished to attend, under very strict safety conditions including booking.

At the same time our pattern for Sunday evenings was revised, and a weekly Compline service was offered online, led by Mr and Mrs Pedley (Lay Worship Leader and Reader) with assistance from members of their musical family. They also made You Tube videos for our monthly online ‘Friday Night Worship’, together with special services for Holy Week and Christmas.

The move to online services is seen as a positive development which has enabled us to move out into a wider sphere. We know from feedback that people living miles away from Peterborough, including some from different continents, watch our services regularly. Some have an existing contact with St Mary’s, others seem to have found us by chance and stayed.

Viewing figures for our online services throughout 2020 were encouraging, with an average above 200 for our Sunday morning service when the church was closed, and 145 when the building was open for services. On average, 25 viewed Compline each week, and 62 ‘Friday Night Worship’. Services for special events, such as the ‘Service of Remembering’ in early November and the Christmas Carol Service, logged over 170 views.

However we are well aware that the number of views does not equate with the number of people who fully participate in a service. A figure of ‘1’ could equally be a family watching the full length of the service together from a single device, or someone who turned off after two minutes. We do know that, for all our services, the average length of viewing time is significantly less than the length of the service—it would seem that several viewers are using the flexibility offered by online services to ‘dip in’, to fast-forward sections or turn off before the end.

As well as our regular services, we enable people in our community to celebrate and thank God at life’s milestones of birth, marriage and death . The pandemic altered things, and we could only conduct three baptisms (one adult and two child), and one wedding rather than the six planned. Sadly there were more funerals—twenty-six funerals (18 in church and 8 at the crematorium).

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Pastoral Care to our local community & our church

Pastoral care and service to our community is very important to St Mary’s. Our Pastoral Team of fifteen is co-ordinated by Sue Moore, one of our Lay Pastoral Ministers, and normally meets three times a year.

The Team’s normal role is to co-ordinate visiting and take House Communion to church members who are unable to attend services. They also take Holy Communion to several residential homes in our parish on a regular basis (Broadleigh, Friary Court, Heritage Court, Lavender House, Philia Lodge, the Star and Stephenson Court), and over the years have built strong links between St Mary’s and the staff and residents — for example liaising with Broadleigh and Lavender House over social activities and articles for our magazine. The Team also deliver free copies of our church magazine ‘News Around St Mary’s’ to the schools, medical centres, sheltered housing schemes, residential homes and hairdressers in our local community. In addition they organise the ‘Prayer Link’ for urgent prayer requests, keep our church Prayer Board updated and produce and update ‘Prayer Shepherd’ cards for every church member.

Whilst these activities continued as usual during January and February 2020, everything changed with the arrival of the pandemic. Lockdown life both intensified the need for pastoral support and the urgency of finding different ways to offer it. Our Pastoral Team Co-ordinator quickly set up a Pastoral Contact Scheme to enable those who are elderly, or live alone, or are vulnerable due to illness or disability or having to self-isolate, to stay in regular contact with St Mary’s and get any support they might need (e.g. help with shopping). Members of the Pastoral Team, together with other volunteers from St Mary’s, have been assigned contacts, and keep in regular touch with them by phone or email (in line with Data Protection regulations and maintaining confidentiality at all times). This scheme has proved very successful and is much appreciated. Throughout the pandemic Pastoral Team members have kept in touch with the residential care homes they visit and given support via telephone calls and prayer. Our Prayer Link, for urgent prayer requests, has been extremely busy this year

Members of St Mary’s Church support Peterborough Food Bank with the regular collection of food items in church or help at local distribution centres. Normally, some members volunteer for shifts at the Winter Night Shelter project run by Light Project Peterborough (as they did until February 2020), but government regulations have meant that for most of 2020 our support for the local homeless has been given through prayer, monetary donations and donations of clothing and gifts. Our Pastoral Team Co-ordinator is a member of the Light Project Peterborough Steering Group.

Sadly our popular weekly ’Chat & Chill’ coffee mornings in church have been suspended since March, although contact has been maintained with some of the local people who attended. The pandemic has also curtailed our other successful initiative for community outreach, ‘Street Prayer’, but instead we have been praying for all the streets in our parish, week by week.

Children and families in our local community & our church

Children and families in our local community: We are particularly keen to build stronger links with local families, but unfortunately our popular and well-established St Mary’s Parent & Toddler group has been unable to meet since the start of the pandemic. We were in the early stages of planning our annual Fun Day for local families when the pandemic made this impossible.

Contact with our local primary schools has been severely curtailed by the virus. A group from Bishop Creighton Academy visited St Mary’s before the start of the pandemic, but planned visits by other schools couldn’t happen, and we could not host any Christmas services. Neither could Revd. Michael or our ‘Open the Book’ team take any school Assemblies in person, although one primary school invited Revd. Michael to participate via video link. He has also maintained contact with local head teachers, offering prayer and support through these very challenging times.

Children’s work in church is very important. The normal pattern is for them to leave part way through the Family Communion service for their own ‘Sunday Club’ activities, but once a month they stay in for our All Age Communion service, and are encouraged to take an active part. This involvement has been continued as an important part of our online services, with the readings and prayers given by children on the first Sunday of each month. This has proved very successful, with the children displaying greater confidence at video recording than several adult readers! The children’s puzzle page (produced by the Redemptorists and based on the week’s Gospel) which is emailed to all church members each week, irrespective of age, has also proved popular.

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Our Church Centre

Until it was closed by the pandemic, our Church Centre was well-used, both for events run by St Mary’s Church and by those who hire it. In the first three months of 2020 it was used regularly by a Pentecostal church and by a variety of groups including a Gospel Choir, a Tutor Group and a small group of iconographers. Our smaller meeting rooms were regularly used by Peterborough City Council for Family Group Conferences.

Our policy has been to offer free or reduced rate meeting space in our Centre to several local charities, including Samaritans, Christian Aid, the Peterborough Inter-Faith Council and the Peterborough Street Pastors, who use St Mary’s as their local base.

Extended Hands (a small local charity supporting women at risk of feeling lonely, isolated or marginalised) rent one of our rooms as their office base — although we are not charging them during the pandemic. Until March 2020 they used rooms in our Centre for their regular sewing and craft sessions, IT skills classes, fitness sessions and weekly coffee mornings.

Our Church Administrator, Denise Thomas, has worked remotely from home during the pandemic and we are very grateful to her for continuing to manage our Centre bookings so efficiently.

Maintaining our church building

Like all buildings, St Mary’s needs regular maintenance and repair to prevent deterioration. The Churchwardens, in consultation with Standing Committee, are responsible for advising the PCC on any necessary maintenance work, and PCC then makes a decision based on funds available. Minor tasks are completed by a team of church volunteers, with more specialist work undertaken by Robert Woods for general repairs and Nick Elks for electrical work. Both are local tradesmen with links to St Mary’s Church, and we are most grateful for their continued assistance.

Now that the building is almost thirty years old regular maintenance is required to keep both church and grounds in good condition, however COVID-19 restrictions meant that during 2020 we were unable to hold any ‘maintenance mornings’ for church volunteers. The upstairs kitchen was repainted in February and minor repairs completed on the water heater and one of the hand dryers. Later in the year essential repair work was carried out on the lift after a fault was identified by the bi-annual lift inspection.

Our Quinquennial Inspection was carried out by our Church Architect in November, and identified various minor issues which PCC will address during 2021.

We are very grateful to Denise and Ray Howard for the professional expertise they bring to their work cleaning our building, which during much of 2020 was complicated by the frequent need to sanitise the church between each use. Our team of volunteers who come in each week to keep the church and chapel clean and tidy has been stood down since March, though individuals have been able to keep the external grounds under control.

We are also grateful to David Divers, for everything he does over the year as our unpaid Estate Manager, coming into church regularly to liaise with tradesmen and to deal with countless day-today issues.

Keeping us safe

We take our Health and Safety responsibilities seriously so we can provide a safe environment for everyone to enjoy the facilities that St Mary’s Church has to offer. The annual Health and Safety inspection was held-over to 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

However, a COVID risk assessment took place between Revd. Michael and the Churchwardens to ensure that the church building was safe for the once a week Sunday worship and any funerals that needed to take place. This risk assessment enabled us to implement new COVID health and safety measures, including mandatory booking and registration, socially-distanced seating, hand sanitising, temperature checks, insistence on mask-wearing, and the scanning of the NHS track and trace app.

Despite the reduced availability of the church, we continue to ensure that our equipment is in

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good working order, with regular inspections carried out within required timescales by registered contractors working to professional industry standards. The lift is regularly serviced by Morris Vermaport, who also complete the statutory LOLER (safety) tests.

All our safety certificates are up-to-date. Our fire safety equipment is maintained and checked by Churches Fire who test the fire alarm, fire extinguishers and emergency lighting.

Our boiler is inspected annually by Blounts, our heating engineers, who also complete the necessary checks for our Gas Safety Certificate. Our portable electrical appliances have all been PAT tested.

We take Safeguarding very seriously. Our Safeguarding Officer until December 2020 was Marion Betts, a position she has held since 2005. During 2020 she kept PCC fully informed on policy and practice, and updated them on new safeguarding advice from Peterborough Diocese. In November 2020 the PCC, acting on diocesan advice, combined our two existing safeguarding policies for children and vulnerable adults into one policy “Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults”. This policy will be reviewed in November 2021. Copies of our safeguarding policies are displayed on the lobby noticeboards and published on the church website, with links to the Diocesan Safeguarding website.

Any safeguarding concerns are followed up promptly and discreetly in accordance with diocesan guidelines. St Mary’s Church is registered with the Churches Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS), through which renewals and new clearances for the statutory Disclosure & Barring Service (DBS) registration are made. All licensed ministers and staff working with children have been registered. The Vicar, Curate, licensed lay ministers, and PCC members have completed or renewed the modules of diocesan safeguarding training at the appropriate levels for their roles.

St Mary’s PCC have appointed Jayne Ellis, one of our Lay Pastoral Ministers, as our new Safeguarding Officer. She is well suited for the role, having worked with children and young people in the NHS for the last 23 years, where she is the professionally trained safeguarding lead for her service.

Data Protection: The way in which St Mary’s collects, stores and processes data on our church members was reviewed in 2018 in order to ensure compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). PCC agreed a new Data Privacy notice, which is on display on our noticeboard together with our Health and Safety and Safeguarding policy statements.

All members of the church have completed a Consents Form to give, or withhold, permissions on how their personal information can be used by St Mary’s Church. This put us in a strong position when Lockdown closed the church buildings in March 2020 as we were immediately able to keep in touch with all our members by email or telephone knowing that we had their full consent to contact them in this way.

Our links with the wider church

Our links with the wider church remain strong. We have four lay representatives on Peterborough Deanery Synod , and in March 2020 Revd. Michael was appointed Rural Dean. Only one meeting was possible in 2020, when Synod heard about the work to help the homeless by the “Safer Off the Streets Partnership” and “Light Project Peterborough”, including a speaker from St Mary’s describing our positive experience hosting the Winter Night Shelter in December 2019, and encouraging other churches to do the same.

Two members of St Mary’s are currently on Peterborough Diocesan Synod , which met once in 2020 via Zoom to discuss finances and share experiences of ‘online church’.

St Mary’s is also an active member of Churches Together in Central Peterborough (CTiCP) , an ecumenical group of nine city centre churches of various different denominations. Its main aims are to pray and worship together, although the pandemic prevented many of its usual events such as the Good Friday Walk of Witness, joint Easter Sunday Sunrise Service and breakfast and the annual Advent Reflection Day. However St Mary’s participated fully in CTiCP events at the start of the year, taking part in the annual pulpit swap in the Week of Church Unity, and later in the year has supported the regular joint Sunday evening Prayer Meetings via Zoom.

Until the pandemic, St Mary’s hosted the monthly prayer meetings of the local Julian Group , led by one of our own members but with ecumenical membership and support.

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Finance and Giving

The year was dominated by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic which affected church finances in both negative and positive ways.

On the negative side our second main income source - hiring out our halls and meeting rooms - fell by three-quarters due to the closure of the church building in mid-March 2020. This meant a sizable shortfall in our income which we feared could only be covered by drawing on our reserves.

However St Mary’s members responded generously to the situation leading to a sizable increase in stewardship donations. Also, with the building closed there was a reduction in energy, cleaning and maintenance costs. Reduced costs and increased giving meant that we able to end the year with only a small shortfall (£226) and no need to draw on our reserves.

With physical services cancelled for a large part of the year giving in cash, via the plate, was much reduced. However the PCC took steps to open up new avenues of giving, both via text and online. This allowed donations to be made easily, in particular from the increasing number of people who access our weekly services online.

During the year St Mary’s signed up to online fundraising schemes such as Easyfundraising.com, and Amazon Smile allowing members to raise money for the church whilst shopping online, and set up a JustGiving page for charitable giving during our Summer Fundraiser.

We also moved to the new Parish Giving Scheme promoted by the Diocese, which will hopefully lead to increased levels of giving in 2021.

The Gift Aid tax reclaim provided a welcome boost to our finances with £5,999 reimbursed during 2020.

The move to online streamed services highlighted the shortfall in our antiquated sound system and the PCC have taken the decision to update the audio/visual equipment as soon as possible to enable services to be streamed in a professional manner. This cost will be met in 2021.

Reserves: Our Policy, which has been formally agreed by PCC, is to keep sufficient money in our reserves to cover three months running costs, plus £20,000 .

Our Volunteers

Almost all the work at St Mary’s is done by volunteers. Revd. Michael, the Churchwardens and PCC would like to thank them all for giving their time and talents free to enable St Mary’s Church—whether the ‘physical’ church in the building, or our online presence, to function, week in and week out. Thank you!

Our Priorities for 2021:

Our priorities for 2021 will be shaped by the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath. We don’t know when it will finish, and when it will be safe for people to start mixing again.

But we do know that we don’t want to return to exactly what we were doing before. We want to move on, to build on the good things we have discovered during the pandemic.

St Mary’s PCC have identified two clear priorities for 2021:

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Financial Review for 2020 [Detailed accounts on pages 13-16]

Report from our Treasurer, Richard Smith

The total balance on our General Fund at 31[st ] December 2020 [page 16] is £57,390, a decrease of £226 over the previous year.

Payments (expenditure) were £98,765 [page 14] against Receipts (income) of £98,539 [page 13] .

Significant movements in income [page 13] were:

Within expenditure [page 14] the significant items included:

Our Restricted Funds – Hebden Trust, Money Charitable, Eastgate Mission – remained constant at £3,750.

Our General Fund’s closing position [page 16] is £57,390.

Our Total cash and assets (that include Restricted Funds) [page 16] decreased slightly to £60,839.

External Charity Giving

During 2020 our direct giving to charity totalled £4,552.

This included £1,500 for the Peterborough Food Bank resulting from our Summer Fundraising campaign. Other national and local charities we helped included Community Heartbeat Trust, Christian Aid, The Children’s Society, Churches Across Peterborough and Mercy Ships.

This was a smaller number than we would normally support because our programme of social and fundraising activities was severely curtailed by the pandemic.

The free or reduced rent provided to local charities amounted to £8,841, meaning we met our target of giving the equivalent of 10% (our ‘Tithe Giving’) of income to good causes.

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Statement of Accounts for the calendar year 2020

St Mary's PCC: General Fund Receipts and Payments Account

RECEIPTS
Incoming resources from donors
Collections
- Stewardship
- Loose cash
Inland Revenue covenant rebates
Other voluntary incoming resources
Donations and bequests
Fayres and events
Miscellaneous income
Income from investments
Bank interest
War stock interest and capital repayment
Investment interest - CBF deposit fund
Income from charitable and ancillary trading
Magazine and book stall sales (net)
Wedding and funeral fees
Centre income
Traidcraft income
Transfers
Church Hall
Eastgate Mission Fund
Money charitable
Total Receipts
Total Payments(see page 14 for detail)
Excess/(deficit) of receipts over payments
Bank current and deposit accounts at 1 January 2020
Bank current and deposit accounts at 31 December 2020		 2020
2019
£
£
£
£
73,606
68,889
1,759
5,544
5,999
3,917
81,364
78,350
2,116
1,577
5,859
6,196
41
1,972
8,016
9,745
17
43
0
65
114
82
157
65
767
1,343
2,288
7,053
27,735
315
375
8,776
31,165
5,230
19,642
301
-
301
24,872
98,539
144,289
(98,765)
(145,917)
(226)
(1,629)
57,617
59,245

57,390
£57,617		 2020
2019
£
£
£
£
73,606
68,889
1,759
5,544
5,999
3,917
81,364
78,350
2,116
1,577
5,859
6,196
41
1,972
8,016
9,745
17
43
0
65
114
82
157
65
767
1,343
2,288
7,053
27,735
315
375
8,776
31,165
5,230
19,642
301
-
301
24,872
98,539
144,289
(98,765)
(145,917)
(226)
(1,629)
57,617
59,245

57,390
£57,617
144,289
(145,917)
(1,629)
59,245
£57,617

13

St Mary’s PCC: General Fund Receipts and Payment Account

PAYMENTS
Activities relating directly to the work of the Church
Vicar’s expenses
Locum
Church secretary
Salaries paid by Diocese
Upkeep of services
Organists
Water
Light and heat
Repairs and maintenance
Insurance
Telephones
Parish share
Magazine
Donations (Overseas and sundry):
Tithe
Disaster appeals
Other giving
Sunday Club/Youth expenses
Stewardship envelopes
Office administration
Cleaning and sundry materials
Diocesan fees
Traidcraft
Vestments, robes, albs
Piano and organ expenses
Music licence
Auditor (CROPS)
Car expenses
- Vicar
- Curate
Training
Flowers
Miscellaneous expenditure
Total payments(to page 13)		 2020
2019
£
£
£
£
-
-
151
360
-
-
9,200
9,795
561
852
1,970
3,105
304
365
3,674
6,285
5,502
45,513
1,666
1,700
627
661
67,268
64,493
422
1,254
4,552
4,635
-
-
-
4,552
-
4,635
104
119
-
50
574
888
188
1,355
-
271
-
-
-
180
132
132
532
440
150
150
92
601
92
175
-
-
-
54
1,004
2,484

£98,765
£145,917		 2020
2019
£
£
£
£
-
-
151
360
-
-
9,200
9,795
561
852
1,970
3,105
304
365
3,674
6,285
5,502
45,513
1,666
1,700
627
661
67,268
64,493
422
1,254
4,552
4,635
-
-
-
4,552
-
4,635
104
119
-
50
574
888
188
1,355
-
271
-
-
-
180
132
132
532
440
150
150
92
601
92
175
-
-
-
54
1,004
2,484

£98,765
£145,917
£145,917

14

St Mary's PCC: Receipts and Payments Accounts


2020
£
HEBDEN TRUST FUND - RESTRICTEDRestricted to spending on education
Receipts
Interest
84
Payments
Transfer to current
Bank deposit accounts at 1 January 2020
1,374
Bank deposit accounts at 31 December 2020
£1,458
MONEY CHARITABLE - RESTRICTEDRestricted to spending on training
Receipts
Interest
-
Payments
Transfer to current
(301)
Bank deposit accounts at 1 January 2020
301
Bank deposit accounts at 31 December 2020
£0
ST. MARY'S CHURCH HALL - ENDOWMENT
Receipts
Interest
0
Payments
Transfer to current
Bank deposit accounts at 1 January 2020
0
Bank deposit accounts at 31 December 2020
£0
ST. MARY'S EASTGATE MISSION - ENDOWMENT
Receipts
Interest
9
Payments
Transfer to current
Bank deposit accounts at 1 January 2020
1,982
Bank deposit accounts at 31 December 2020
£1,991		 2019
£
82
1,292
£1,374
-
-
301
£301
27
(5,230)
5,204
£0
114
(19,642)
21,510
£1,982

15

St Mary's PCC: Statement of Assets and Liabilities at 31 December 2020

STATEMENT OF ASSETS AND LIABILITIES AT 31 DECEMBER 2020

Monetary assets
Cash in hand
Bank - current
- reserve
CBF deposit fund
Peterborough Diocesan
Board of Finance
Total cash & Assets		 Restricted Funds :
General
fund:
St. Mary's
St. Mary's
Eastgate
Hebden
Money
Church
Mission
General
Trust
Trust
Hall Fund
Fund
£
£
£
£
£
100
29,629
1,458
12,253
15,408
0
0
1,991		 Restricted Funds :
General
fund:
St. Mary's
St. Mary's
Eastgate
Hebden
Money
Church
Mission
General
Trust
Trust
Hall Fund
Fund
£
£
£
£
£
100
29,629
1,458
12,253
15,408
0
0
1,991		 Restricted Funds :
General
fund:
St. Mary's
St. Mary's
Eastgate
Hebden
Money
Church
Mission
General
Trust
Trust
Hall Fund
Fund
£
£
£
£
£
100
29,629
1,458
12,253
15,408
0
0
1,991		 Restricted Funds :
General
fund:
St. Mary's
St. Mary's
Eastgate
Hebden
Money
Church
Mission
General
Trust
Trust
Hall Fund
Fund
£
£
£
£
£
100
29,629
1,458
12,253
15,408
0
0
1,991		 Restricted Funds :
General
fund:
St. Mary's
St. Mary's
Eastgate
Hebden
Money
Church
Mission
General
Trust
Trust
Hall Fund
Fund
£
£
£
£
£
100
29,629
1,458
12,253
15,408
0
0
1,991		 2020
£
100
31,087
12,253
15,408
1,991		 2019
£
100
22,526
21,022
15,644
1,982
57,390 1,458 0
0		 1,991 60,839 61,274

St Mary’s Parochial Church Council Accounting Policies

The financial statements of the PCC have been prepared in accordance with the Church Accounting Regulations 1997 using the Receipts and Payments basis.

Funds

General Funds represent funds of the PCC that are not subject to any special restrictions regarding their use and are available for application to the general purposes of the PCC. These include funds designated for a particular purpose by the PCC.

The accounts include monetary transactions, assets and liabilities for which the PCC can be held responsible. They do not include the accounts of other Church groups that owe an affiliation to another body, nor those that are informal gatherings of Church members.

Subject to the above, receipts and payments include income as received and expenditure when irrevocably paid.

Statement of Assets and Liabilities

The following assets are recognised but not valued in the Statement of Assets and Liabilities:

Closing bank balances as shown in the receipts and payments accounts.

16

Independent Examiner's Report to the PCC of St Mary's

This report on the accounts of the PCC for the year ended 31 December 2020 which are set out on pages 13 to 16, is in respect of an examination carried out under Regulation 3(3) of the Church Accounting Regulations 1997 to 2001 ('the Regulations') and s.145 of the Charities Act 2011 ('2011 Act').

Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner

As the members of the PCC you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts; you consider that the audit requirement of Regulation 3(3) of the Church Accounting Regulations 1997 and section 144(2) of the 2011 Act do not apply. It is my responsibility to :-.

Basis of independent examiner's report

My examination was carried out in accordance with the General Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act and to be found in the Church guidance issued by the Finance Division of the Archbishops' Council. That examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the PCC and a comparison of the accounts with those records. It also includes considering any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts and seeking explanations 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 I do not express an audit opinion on the view given by the accounts.

Independent examiner's statement

In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention:

(1) which gives me reasonable cause to believe that in any material respect the requirements to keep accounting records in accordance with section 131 of the 2011 Act; and to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and to comply with the requirements of the 2011 Act and the Regulations have not been met ; or

(2) to which, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

5 March 2021

This Annual Report was approved by St Mary’s PCC on 10th March 2021, and signed on their behalf by:

Revd Michael Moore Vicar Chair of Trustees of the ecclesiastical parish of St Mary Boongate Peterborough

17

Mary'5 st Mary's Church Peterb0rO￿h 2020 St Mary's Church and Centre New Road Peterborough PEI 1rt www.peterborough-stmarys.org.uk Re8lStered Charity no. l 180032