2020-12-31-accounts

The Parochial Church Council of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Matthew, Ealing Common North Common Rd, London, W5 2QA Registered Charity Number 1180166

Trustees Report for the year ended 31 December 2020

Trustees (as at 31 December 2020): Michael Barter, Lucie Kirkpatrick, James Blake, Sandra Phillips, Mathieu Rosey, Ian Pearce, Peter Edwards, Claire Onono, Claire Oberman.

Overview of St Matthews

St Matthews, Ealing Common is a late Gothic Victorian Church. It is an active parish community with a committed, diverse and growing congregation. Worship takes places in the church Friday-Sunday every week. A local Christian fellowship also uses the building for worship over the course of the typical weekend.

In addition to worship, St Matthews church is also used as a venue for social outreach, hosting a night shelter in its hall and vestry that provides food, accommodation and support during the winter months for Ealing’s vulnerable street homeless community.

St Matthews is also used regularly throughout the year as a meeting space for faith gatherings, community action groups, musical concerts and public meetings. The adjacent church hall is home to a Montessori Nursery School on weekdays, and is hired out in the evening by a number of different groups.

We recruit trustees from the congregation of St Matthews often where their skills are aligned to the role they take on our PCC. There have been 3 retirements from the PCC over the last year all having served the church over a number of years.

Review of the year

We began 2020 planning and implementing our second 7 week stint as part of the Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter, once again with no shortage of committed parish volunteers, under the dedicated leadership of Mr Ian Pearce who shows total commitment and integrity to this project and dedication to so many aspects of St Matthew’s parish life.

In late March 2020, the effects of the pandemic caused St Matthew’s to effectively shut down. The Night Shelter scheme was forced to close early (on the advice of ECWNS trustees). We ceased hiring out the church and church hall, and for the health and welfare of our parishioners, public worship was temporarily suspended.

HOWEVER, even during this bleak time, some inspired church initiatives came out of the enforced isolation; Bethan Pearce and Claire Dutfield were instrumental in setting up a “kindness club”, offering outreach, shopping, hospital runs to anyone that needed it; other St Matthew’s parishioners were instrumental in the creation of a food bank at CTS School; and thanks to the immense, creative and inspirational efforts of Ms Alison Stawarz, we were able to develop digital worship, virtual newsletters and worship services.

WE REOPENED for public worship on Sunday July 4th, under stringent new health and safety procedures. Our Churchwarden Mr Peter Edwards, who spent a considerable amount of time and energy preparing the church to reopen safely.

We then held our APCM in October where we elected Mr Peter Edwards and Mr Mathieu Rosey as Church Wardens.

Lockdown. So to recap, after our October 2020 APCM...we went onto a second lockdown just weeks later, on November 4th. We held one final Holy Communion service on this date, called “No Hymnsbut bring a tin!”, which was well supported, and brought in donations for the local food bank. We closed for public worship immediately after this. We planned and prepared for an outdoor Advent animal Blessing Service to lift everyone’s flagging spirits on Ealing Common in December, but sadly had to cancel this at the very last minute as well.

Church services resumed briefly during Christmas week, before we voluntarily closed yet again for the third time in a year, in the first week of January 7th 2021, at the request of Ealing Council, and then the third national lockdown began shortly after that.

In terms of long and short term goals, there is a lot to do. Short term goals we are just trying to make up for lost ground. We are facing a big financial deficit and we also need to think about what this church is for socially and spiritually as well in the longer term. You only need to look and read the minutes for the last APCM to read about all the good things that were happening here-the family worship, the animal blessings, the games night the children organised, the film nights etc etc-the community action groups, the interfaith visits to the local mosque, the brilliant work so many people put into the Night Shelter project. We could again do all that-and much more in this space, God willing and the people of God-us-willing.

Buildings

Ian Pearce has taken over the reigns over responsibility of the church buildings and thanks are given to Richard who had done such a great job for over the years.

In March 2020 our quinquennial inspection was due. This 5 yearly inspection by a Diocese approved Architect has been done for many years by Wyndham Westerdale but due to the Covid Lockdown and his retirement due to ill health it has been delayed.

Sarah Khan a partner at Roger Mears has kindly agreed to replace Wyndham . She is very qualified and experienced. She is a specialist conservation Architect to many bigger churches such as St James in Piccadilly and I feel we are very lucky to have her. The PCC has voted to instate her and so I have informed the Diocese. Once it has been ratified by the Diocesan Advisory Committee for Care of Churches I will ask Sarah to conduct our Inspection as soon as possible.

We do know that around £80-£100k of work is need to the rear guttering of the church which is a continuation to the work completed a few years ago. Sarah Khan has also agreed to be the works Architect for that when funding can be raised. Hopefully most of the cost will be found in grants but the church will probably have to find a proportion , last time the figure was 20% less VAT which we got back on the Total claim.

We are hoping to get a heritage lottery grant this time as before but it has a new requirement for us to show a commitment to having our heritage on show for the wider general public not just the congregation. So as mentioned at the last meeting in October we shall be setting up a heritage committee to push this forward. Debbie Edwards, Mary Graham, Claire Oberman and Richard Moseley have already agreed to take part.

Finance

The categorisation of the accounts has been amended to put us in line with current church reporting requirements. It mainly affects which categories the expenses are combined together in.

• In 2020 we had total incoming resources of £74,000 which was mainly through a combination of voluntary giving of £38,000 and receipts from church activities of £36,000. We also had £151 of receipts from investments.

• This is £28,000 lower than in 2019 when we had incoming resources of £102,000. The difference relates largely to the impact on church and hall lettings due to the pandemic.

• We had total resources expended of £105,000 resulting in a net negative movement in funds of £31,000. In 2019 we had lower resources expended of £100,000 resulting in a profit of £2,000. The higher resources expended this year were due to a number of factors which will be discussed in note 4.

• Moving to the balance sheet, which is a record of our assets and liabilities at the end of the year. We had fixed assets of £220,000 which is the church hall.

• Our current assets were cash of £53,000 and debtors of £6,000. Cash was £33,000 lower than 2019 representing losses in the year.

• Our current liabilities were accruals of £2,000.

• Overall net assets were £277,000 which is a decrease of £32,000 from the end of 2019 at £309,000.

• Further detail is contained in the notes section of the accounts.

• From Note 2 it is possible to see the breakdown in restricted funds – these are funds held that can only be used for specific purposes. £1,500 is held for improvement works for the church and a new fund was created in the year of £700 for the organ.

• Note 3 is a breakdown of Incoming Resources. The first major category is voluntary Income of £38,000 and was made up of: Planned giving through both the Parish Giving Scheme of £22,000 and regular giving by bank transfer of £7,000. The Parish Giving Scheme is in line with 2019 but regular giving by bank transfer is £2,000 lower.

• Collections and other giving of £1,000 are lower than the £5,000 in 2019 due to the closure of the church for a significant part of the year due to the pandemic. Gift Aid recovered of £7,000 on all the eligible donations is lower in line with overall voluntary receipts. The last category of ‘all other giving & voluntary income’ of £500 was for the organ fund

• Receipts from activities for generating funds were nil with no fundraising activities in the year.

• Receipts from church activities were largely from letting of the church hall of £28,000 (vs £38,000 in 2019) and use of the church of £8,000 (vs £19,000 in 2019). These receipts are significantly lower due to the pandemic with lettings completely shut down at the end of March and the only major hirer to return from mid June being the Montessori nursery.

• In Note 4 resources expended are summarised into three major categories (Cost of Generating Funds is minimal).

• The first is ‘Church Activities’ of £64,000 which is overall £2,000 more than 2019. The largest cost is the Diocesan Parish Share of £46,000 which was increased by £3,000 on 2019. Salaries, wages and honoraria were £16,000 and increased by £2,000 due to pay rises which had been agreed in 2019. Clergy and staff expenses were £2,000 which was £3,000 lower than 2019 when a procedure was implemented for the vicar’s expenses with catch-up back to mid 2017.

• The next major category is ‘Church expenses’ of £38,000 up by £3,000 on 2019. Church running expenses of £21,000 were £3,000 higher than 2019 due to some significant electrical maintenance works, higher cleaning and organ maintenance costs partly offset by lower gardening costs.

• Church utility costs were £7,000 and £4,000 lower than 2019 due to reduced gas bills. Hall running expenses of £5,000 were £3,000 more than 2019 due to a number of maintenance

projects required. Hall utility costs were £6,000 which is £2,000 more than 2019 with hall usage higher than in 2019 due to the nursery hours extension (lock down for the nursery took place during spring/summer so less impact on gas/electricity costs). There is also always some fluctuation in energy costs due to timing of extreme weather especially around year end.

• ‘Major capital expenditure’ was £3,000 in line with 2019. The main cost was the recarpeting of the vestry, an improvement required for the Montessori nursery to expand their hours.

• Note 7 is the breakdown of where our cash is held in various accounts. The current account has reduced by £33,000 due to the loss made in the year. The other accounts are largely unchanged.

• Note 8 sets out the debtors of £6,000 and is predominantly the insurance prepayment of £4000 with the rest made up of hall rental debtors, gift aid and vicarage gas.

• Note 11 sets out the accruals of £2000 which are running expenses and money owed to the vicar for expenses.

• We see our reserves of £87,000 in 2019 depleted by the effects of the pandemic to £53,000 which largely needs to be available for the ongoing effects of the pandemic, significant repairs to our church buildings and organ – as an historic building we anticipate significant future expenditure could be needed to maintain the integrity of the building. Two significant risk factors we must always keep in mind is the potential to lose our largest hirer (c£30k per year) and the potential replacement of the church heating system (c£30k).

THE ORGAN

Bernie has completed the first of 3 phases of works needed to restore and futureproof the organ and is progressing on phase 2, as funds allow.

All 50 of the old mechanical draw stops have now been replaced with draw stop solenoid units which should last up around 60-70 years. This major project cost around £6,000 and was made possible thanks to a generous anonymous bequest from a parishioner.

The organ fund is now depleted again so the next phase of works – the ongoing restoration of 100s of magnets (approx. cost £8,700) – will have to wait for funds to be raised. This work is important and fairly urgent. Ciphers are one result of failing dodgy magnets.

The final phase of works involves a major and thorough clean. The main areas of concern are the pedal chests and the Great and Choir main soundboards and the Swell reeds. Approx cost £6,000. This work is important but not urgent.

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St Matthew’s Church, Ealing Common
Financial Statements of the Parochial Church Council
Period Ended 31st Dec 2020
STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES
Unrestricted Restricted
31st Dec 2020 31st Dec 2019
funds funds
INCOMING RESOURCES £ £ £
Voluntary income 36,948 655 37,603 44,995
Activities for generating funds 0 0 0 146
Receipts from Church activities 36,257 0 36,257 56,909
Investment income 151 0 151 261
Other incoming resources 0 0 0 0
Total Incoming Resources 73,356 655 74,011 102,311
RESOURCES EXPENDED
Cost of generating funds (fundraising activites costs) 23 0 23 74
Church Activities 64,068 0 64,068 61,764
Church expenses 38,471 0 38,471 35,259
Major capital expenditure 2,682 0 2,682 2,898
Total Resources Expended 105,244 0 105,244 99,995
Net incoming resources before transfers -31,888 655 -31,233 2,316
Net Movement in Funds -31,888 655 -31,233 2,316
Balance brought forward 1st January 88,515 0 88,515 86,198
Balance carried forward 31st Dec 56,627 655 57,282 88,515
Balance Sheet at 31st Dec 2020
Unrestricted Restricted
31st Dec 2020 31st Dec 2019
funds funds
Fixed Assets
Investments 1 220,000 220,001 220,001
Current Assets
Cash at bank 51,304 2,152 53,456 86,637
Debtor 5,842 0 5,842 5,713
Debtor Provision 0 0 0
Liabilities
Deferred Income 0 0 0 0
Accruals 2,017 0 2,017 3,836
Total Net Assets 55,130 222,152 277,282 308,515
Profit & Loss 55,130 2,152 57,282 88,515
Revaluation / Endowment Reserve 220,000 220,000 220,000
55,130 222,152 277,282 308,515
----- End of picture text -----

St Matthew’s Church, Ealing Common Notes to the Accounts for the period ended 31st Dec 2020

1 This form of accounts has been drawn up following the guidance and regulations of The Diocesan Accounts Group, published by Church House Publishing, entitled “The Charities Act 2011 and the PCC. Preparing Receipts and Payment Accounts (SORP 2015)”.

2 Restricted funds Improvement works to church Organ fund 3 Incoming Resources Voluntary income Planned giving: Parish Giving Scheme Planned giving: other Collections Gift Aid All other giving & voluntary income Activities for generating funds Gross income from fundraising activities Receipts from Church activities Statutory fees (baptism, wedding etc.) Letting of church hall Use of church Other trading income Investment income Dividends, interest, income from property Other incoming resources Total Incoming Resources 4 Resources Expended Cost of generating funds (fundraising activites costs) Church Activities Mission giving and donations Diocesan parish share contribution Salaries, wages and honoraria Clergy and staff expenses Church expenses Misson and evangelism costs Church running expenses Church utility bills Hall running expenses Hall utility bills Cost of trading Major capital expenditure Major repairs to church building Major repairs to church hall incl redecoration Total Resources Expended

31st Dec 2020 31st Dec 2019 £ £ 1,497 1,497 655 0 2,152 1,497 22,315 22,719 6,547 8,692 1,225 5,035 6,992 8,498 524 50 37,603 44,995 0 146 87 44 28,085 37,665 8,085 18,860 0 341 36,257 56,909 151 261 0 0 74,011 102,311 23 74 0 0 46,000 43,000 16,026 13,936 2,042 4,828 64,068 61,764 0 0 20,879 17,771 7,176 10,615 4,767 2,129 5,649 4,744 0 0 38,471 35,259 2,682 2,139 0 759 2,682 2,898 105,244 99,995

5 Fixed assets include £220,000 for the church hall based on the current insurance valuation

6 Assets not included in the accounts include movable church furnishings held by the church wardens on special trust for the PCC and which require a faculty for disposal.

7	Cash Funds	31st Dec 2020	31st Dec 2019
	Bank Current Account	12,391	45,709
	Bank Reserve Account	7,792	7,785
	CBF Deposit Fund ‘A’	2,499	2,499
	CBF Deposit Fund ‘B’ (includes G Huckle bequest)	30,775	30,644
		______	______
	Cash Funds Assets at 31st Dec	53,456	86,637

• 8 Debtors £5,842 comprise prepaid insurance of £3,894, estimated £592 hall rental debtors, £450 Q4 gift aid and £906 vicarage gas.

• 9 Debtor provision was zero at 31st Dec 2020

10 Deferred income was zero at 31st Dec 2020

11 Accruals £2,017 comprise vicar's expenses of £1,297 and running expenses of £720.

12 No payments have been made to PCC members other than reimbursement for church running costs which they have paid for upfront, for example cleaning products and services

Approved by the PCC on 13 April 2021 and signed on their behalf by: Michael Barter (Chairperson) and Lucie Kirkpatrick CA (PCC treasurer)

Independent Examiner’s Report to the Trustees of St Matthew’s Parochial Church Council

I report on the accounts of the church for the year ended 31 December 2020.

Respective responsibilities of Trustees and Examiner

The church’s trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. The church’s trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(2) of the Charities Act (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is needed.

It is my responsibility to:

• Examine the accounts (under section 145 of the 2011 Act);

• To follow the procedures laid down in the General Directions given by the Charity Commissioners (under section 145(5)(b) of the 2011 Act); and

• To state whether particular matters have come to my attention.

Basis of Independent Examiner’s report

My examination was carried out in accordance with the general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts, and seeking 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 no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a ‘true and fair view’ and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below.

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

2. to keep accounting records in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act; and

3. to prepare accounts which accord with the accounting records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act have not been met; or

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

Catherine Bedwin 14/04/2021 21 Lyncroft Gardens, London W13 9PU