2023-12-31-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 2023

Trustees (as at 31 December 2023): Michael Barter, Lucie Kirkpatrick (treasurer), James Blake (warden), Ian Pearce (buildings), Claire Onono (safeguarding), Claire Oberman (vice-chair)

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 at other times to 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.

Review of the year

PCC

The PCC is responsible for cooperating with the parish priest of St Matthew’s to promote the mission of the church in all things pastoral, social and ecumenical. It also has responsibilities for church finances and maintenance of the church buildings. The full PCC met a total of 5 times in the past year to discuss all matters relating to the governance of St Matthew’s Church. In addition, a separate Standing Committee has also been established since the last APCM. This comprises key members of the PCC and church administrative staff, who meet bi-monthly to discuss ongoing church governance matters in between full PCC meetings. These are normally attended by the Parish Priest, Parish Administrator, Church Warden, Treasurer, Buildings Officer and PCC Vice Chair. The Standing Committee met a total of 3 times over the past year. Towards the end of the year, our Children’s Champion Sandra Phillips stepped down from her role after several years of dedicated service.

Ministry

In addition to his appointed clerical ministry and duties, the parish priest also serves in several other roles. He is an appointed trustee for the Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter (ECWNS) and an appointed Safeguarding Governor for Christ the Saviour School, Ealing Broadway. He also works as an Assistant Area Director of Ordinands (AADO) for the Diocese of Willesden, meeting with candidates exploring ordained ministry in the Church of England, interviewing and advising them, and compiling reports and paperwork on their progress which is then submitted to the Bishop’s ADO Team. Throughout the past year, the parish priest has attended ongoing regular monthly meetings, briefings, interviews and events related to

all 3 of these roles.

Safeguarding

St Matthew’s is committed to ensuring the care, safety and effective safeguarding of all its parishioners, especially children, families and young adults. Our current Safeguarding officer is Claire Dutfield. Our safeguarding policy is adapted from the Diocesean Safeguarding Model and is available through a link on the front page of our website. In addition to this, the parish priest of St Matthew’s has also completed a Diocesean Safeguarding Leadership Course in May and June 2023, and has also had his enhanced DBS renewed.

The Parish

With the support of Richard Thomas and the St Matthew’s Choir, St Matthew’s has continued to be a place of lively worship over the past year, particular highlights being the key festivals of Christmas & Easter. It has also hosted many memorable social and community events which have enriched our common life together.

At the start of the year, St Matthews hosted the Ealing Winter Churches Night Shelter. The charity operated a “mixed model”, with guests spending several nights of the week in various churches, and other nights in a hotel in the borough. We ran every Saturday for a mammoth 8 week stint, supporting up to 10 street homeless guests, for an evening meal, overnight stay and breakfast.

This was an incredibly impressive commitment from the volunteers at St Matthews. From the younger members of church helping make up the beds to those cooking fresh and delicious meals, to those who came in at all hours of the day and night for the various night and breakfast shifts. I would like to take a moment to thank all of you, here at St Matthew’s for your amazing commitment to this project. And special thanks must be given to Mr Ian Pierce for his extraordinary commitment to this project, organising rotas, and seemingly being in all places at one right throughout the duration of the season!

Also in January and February, as part of my ADO role, we were joined by Eve, who is exploring ordination to the church; Eve led prayers, worked regularly at the night shelter, and met with a wide variety of parishioners.

In June we hosted the Archdeacon Visitation, which was attended by churches from across the Ealing deanery. The event was well-received and St Matthew’s put on a delightful selection of food and drinks.

In July we celebrated the End of the School Year with our Sunday School families, with a picnic in the sunshine on Ealing Common.

In September, St Matthew’s took part in the Ealing “Open House” festival, with our church doors opened for tours and visits, staffed by volunteers from our Heritage Committee, and our annual St Matthew’s Day Festival and Parish lunch. October saw our annual and very popular Animal Blessing Service being held once again.

Despite our limited resources and some significant financial challenges over the course of 2023-4, St Matthew’s has continued to share the love of God through our worship, outreach and community activities across the local Ealing Common community.

Buildings & fabric

We had extensive tile repairs done to do upper roof and the front ridge. The first half of gutter was also renovated with a new lead lining which good few years. The gutter was then repainted meaning this area should be free from leaks for a good few years. This all meant the scaffold was up longer than was expected incurring significant extra cost.

We have also had roof repairs done to the East side lower roof with over 50 tiles being removed and replaced.

The heavy rain we have experienced recently has been a good test and so far no more leaks have been spotted, fingers crossed.

The Quinquennial Inspection has been completed by the Architect Sarah Khan but unfortunately due to illness we haven’t received the completed report yet.

Also in the last year there has been an extensive garden clearance, a new alarm box fitted and we are awaiting permission from the diocese to demolish the unsafe blower at the rear of the church. With an aim to improve the look and general tidiness of the church the curtained storage to the back has been reduced and replaced with lower neater storage. The long-term plan is to get permission to construct cupboard storage at the back.

One of the biggest struggles is the energy consumption and so we are investigating ways to bring this down. The gas boiler in the basement is very inefficient and will need replacing in the next few years. This will not be cheap so we are assessing whether a smaller boiler supplemented with more local electric heating maybe the answer.

Over the year this is the list of major works undertaken: June 2023 – Fire risk assessment

July 2023 – Maintenance to Organ: Sealing of brick work around the organ to ensure waterproof Sep 2023 – Guttering fixed / repaired: should now be properly waterproof (scaffolding kept up to do roof repairs) (discussed above)

Dec 2023 – Roofing repairs completed – tiles and leaks (discussed above) Submission to DAC for approval of dismantling of Pump House Submission of Faculty paper work for Plaque to Rev Peter Watkins

Finance

Overall the church made a loss of £4,000, before restricted fund movements, predominantly due to significant unexpected maintenance works for the church roof. With restricted fund movements added in we made a profit of £4000. The common fund was raised from £27,000 in 2022 to £35,000 in this year, 2023. With finances tightening due to inflation and increasing costs, particularly for the upkeep of the church building, we made a more limited rise of 5% in 2024 to £36,750.

In 2023 we had total incoming resources of £128,000 mainly through a combination of voluntary giving of £54,000 and receipts from church activities of £71,000. We also had £3,032 of investment income. Investment income is significantly higher this year with the increase in interest rates.

Overall we had £20,000 more income than in 2022 but only £5,000 higher when excluding the restricted funds. Lettings were £5000 higher and interest £3000 higher but there was a drop of £3000 in voluntary giving. There was a £15,000 increase in giving to restricted funds - mainly to the organ fund.

We had total resources expended of £123,000 resulting in a net positive movement in funds i.e. profit of £4,000. In 2022 we had lower resources expended of £105,000. The higher resources expended this year were predominantly due to a £21,000 increase in church maintenance costs and the increase in our Parish Share by £8,000 to £35,000, partially offset by £8,000 less spent on the

organ. There are a number of other factors which will be discussed in note 4. Excluding the organ fund movements the church made a loss of £4,000.

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 £84,000 and debtors of £8,000. Cash was £6,000 higher than 2022.

Our current liabilities were accruals of £381.

Overall net assets were £311,000 which is an increase of £5,000 from the end of 2022 predominantly representing profit made in the year.

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 there is £1,200 in a fund for significant repair works to the organ. The organ fund had been negative £7000 at the end of last year with a significant donation coming at the start of 2023 for works completed in 2022.Other small funds have been created for church flowers and the night shelter.

Incoming Resources . The first major category is voluntary Income of £54,000 and was made up of: - Planned giving through both the Parish Giving Scheme of £22,000 and regular giving by bank transfer of £5,000 both roughly in line with 2022.

• Collections were £3000 roughly in line with 2022.

• Gift Aid of £10,000 was £2000 higher than 2022 due to donations to the restricted funds.

All other giving & voluntary income’ of £15000 is largely a significant donation to the organ fund with other smaller donations to other restricted funds and the church in general. This was £12000 higher than 2022 due to the organ fund donation.

Receipts from activities for generating funds was £0 compared to £40 last year.

Receipts from church activities of £71,000 were largely from letting of the church hall of £49,000 and use of the church of £22,000 – overall £5,000 higher than 2022.

Resources expended are summarised into three major categories (Cost of Generating Funds is minimal).

The first is ‘Church Activities’ of £56,000 which is £10,000 more than 2022 mainly due to increased Parish Share of £35,000. Salaries of £18,000 and expenses of £2,000 were £2,000 higher than 2022.

The next major category is ‘Church expenses’ of £68,000 up by £13,000 on 2022. Church running expenses of £47,000 were £12,000 higher due to £21,000 additional church maintenance costs offset by £2,000 lower gardening costs and £8,000 lower organ fund costs. Around £18,000 was incurred in fixing the church roof (to be discussed further by Ian) and there were also a number of essential electrical works completed in the year.

Church utility costs were £10,000, £2,000 higher due to a new gas contract from March 2023 at higher prices. Hall running expenses of £3,000 were £3,000 less than 2022. In 2022 there were extensive plumbing works which are absent this year. Hall utility costs were £8,000 which is £2,000 more than 2022 due to higher gas and electricity costs.

There was no ‘Major capital expenditure’ in the year compared to £4,000 in 2022.

Cash is held in various accounts with the total of £84,000, £6,000 higher than in 2022 mainly due to profit made in the year. With interest rates now higher I have moved the majority of our cash to the CBF deposit fund B to ensure we earn a decent rate of interest but still have relatively quick access to the money as needed.

Debtors of £8,000 and includes typical debtors of insurance prepayment of £4,000, £3,000 of rental debtors and around £500 of gift aid.

Accruals of £381 which are running expenses.

Unrestricted reserves are at £80,000 which is slightly down on 2022 by £3,000 with the loss made in the year. £25,000 is designated towards the cost of fixing the church gutters. The remaining £55,000 is retained in anticipation of other potential repairs to our church building – as an historic building we anticipate significant future expenditure could be needed to maintain the integrity of the building. As I have mentioned over the last few years there are two major significant risks the church faces which are the potential to lose our largest hirer, the nursery, and the potential replacement of the church heating system (c£30k). Unfortunately, we have been given notice by the nursery and they will leave in September 2024 leaving a large gap in our rentals - we looked to discuss the reasons for their departure but they have not taken up our offer to look for any potential solutions. We are currently in discussions with a replacement and following diocese guidelines on the process for this.

Music report

ORGAN

No restoration work this year to report. The latest update on works was in 2022 trustees report.

CHOIR

St Matthew’s is very fortunate indeed to have volunteers singers turn up, week in week out, to sing in the choir. Their loyalty, commitment and musicianship is amazing and they form an important part of the congregation. No need to report on the choir’s activity. Years membership of the choir adds over 330 years.

St Matthew'• Church Ealln Common FIn9nc￿l StRlbmynl• of lh• PAro¢h￿l Church Perlod Ended J16t O•c 2023 8TATEMENTOF F114AN¢L•LACTIVITIES Unf•i¢wld lundl $lt Dec 2Va Oudq•1202J a11t D￿1122 INCOMING REIOURCe8 Volun￿ry IF￿ 39.110 fj4,282 z. ActMN••iryuthierntlngfund8 R•o•lpl•lmm Chur¢h ,ops 08229 In¥Im•ntth￿rn• Clh•r Incorfng r•iiuro•• Totsi In¢¢Mnlng R•t•ure 112,TlO 11,112 127,MO 10711 RE8OURCi8 EXPQNDfD ol I￿0• (ru￿j￿h￿0 Churnh AoiMiI•B E4010 54,719 01.722 1.217 43.1 86mll 1+kn￿r¢￿t•1 •¥4•ndNu Totsi R••tyJrt• Iynd•d 117,24S 4217 12UeO 104. 414 N•t Mov•m•ht kn Pundi 414 8•lonc•￿rrf•￿l0￿w4rd 3141 Doc lanc• Ilh•414t31•t i)rt 202$ Unr•4trl¢t ndi 311t 2 ¥i•tO•¢ 2022 Plx•¥ AJ••t Irréa•lmenl• 220,Tr>J 220.th)1 720,W1 Curr•rrt A•M

lh 41 bHnk

Oeblor e0211 7.Ql 12M59 LI1￿1(tI•l Delfjty￿ Inc47rn0 ruA 3.127 87h02 proffl & Lois R•valuaiknnl Endowment R•Mr¥• 87A12 I,JJl 220,WO 206.331 87A62 310,761

St Matthew's Church, Eallng Common Notes to the Accounts for the period ended 31st De¢ 2023 1 This form of accounts h88 been drawn up follovAng the guidance and regulation8 of The Diocesan Account8 Groupi published by Church House Publishing. entrtled Yhe char￿e5 Act 2011 and the Pcc. Preparing Receipts and Payment Accounts (SORP 2015).. 2 Restricted funds 31st DK 2023 31it D•c 2022 Improvement work5 to Church Organ fund Ealing Churche8 Wlnter Night Shelter Church flowetB 1,497 1,233 B9 1,497 -7,083 490 3J09 .0,586 3 Incomlng R•sourcei Voluntsry Inc¢)m• Planned givlng.. Parish Gmno S¢h•me Planned giving.. other Collections Glft Ad AJI oth¢r gfving & voluntsry In¢om• 21,935 4,774 3,292 9,637 14,625 04362 22,851 5,219 3,661 7,138 3,192 42.062 A￿1¥￿1•5 for goneratlng fund# Gross in¢ome from frJndrals4ng actlvlde8 RKelpts from Church adlvltles Stabthory fees Ibapti8m, wèddlng tlc.) Lettlng of church hall Use of chur¢h other tradlng Income 924 46.338 17.751 48,594 21,879 70,89fj 6151113 Investmth)I In¢om• Dividends, inlerest, Incomg from property 3,032 447 ¢)ther Incoming r•$ourc•s Total Incoming Resou￿e¥ 127 890

¥￿Thded C05t of generating fund8 lfvndr41$lng activltes C05ts1 Church Activities Mission gfving and donation8 Diocesan pari8h 8hare contributton Salarie8, wage8 and honorarfa Clergy and 8laff expen8e8 51 27,000 16,653 1,930 46,634 35,000 18.459 2,056 00,616 Chur¢h expenses Mi8son and evangeli8m costs Church Tunnlng expen8e8 Church utility b5114 Hall running expen8e8 Hall Utility bills Cost of trading 47,030 9,948 2,828 8,135 35,527 7,508 5,689 8,358 Major capltal •xp•nditurn Major repalrs to Ch￿Ch buildlng Major repalrB to ¢hufch hall In¢1 redecoration 05,081 3,882 3P82 Total Resourcei Expended 5 Flxed assets Inciude £220,000 for the chwch hell bas￿ on th• ¢urr8nl kn8uranca v8lu4tion 6 Assets not InclLHled In the accounts Include movabl• church fumlBhlng$ held by the church Wardens on 8peeial trust for the PCC and vthl¢h req[￿re a faculty for disptsgal. 7 Cash Funds Bank Current Account Bank R&$erye AcCo￿t CBF Deposit Fund'A' CBF Deposit Fund'8, 31st DK 2023 31sl Dttc 2022 6,773 31,585 5,188 11,81 2,499 31,196 71,558 Cash fvnd assets 83.520 77,098 Note.. £2500018 deslgnated for gutter repalr8 8 Deblor8 £7,621 comprhe £4,098 In8uran¢e prepayment, £480 of Glftald from HMRC and £3,045 rentsl debtor8 g Debtor provlslon wa8 zero at 31st Dec 2023 10 Deferred Income wa8 £0 at 3181 Dec 2023 11 Accrual8 £381 comprise running expense8. 12 No payments have been made lo PCC members other than reimbursemenl for church runnlng oosts which they have pald for upfront. for exampfe cleaning products and services Approved by the PCC on 12 March 2024 and signed on thelr behalf by: Michael Barter (Chairperson) and Lucie Kirkpatrick CA IPCC treasurer) IBrtT

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 2023.

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 19[th] March 2024 21 Lyncroft Gardens, London W13 9PU