2023-12-31-accounts - Alne Parochial Church Council

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ANNUAL REPORT

For the year ended 31 December 2023

The Parish of Alne

Trustees’ Annual Report

2023 Report for the Parish of Alne

Aims and purposes

The Parochial Church Council (PCC) has the responsibility of cooperating with the priest-in-charge in promoting within the ecclesiastical parish, the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical.

Objectives and Activities

The PCC is committed to enabling as many people as possible to worship at our churches and to become part of our parish community. The PCC maintains an overview of worship throughout the parish and makes suggestions on how our services can involve the many groups that live within our parish. Our services and worship put faith into practice through prayer and scripture, music and sacrament.

When planning our activities for the year, we have considered the Commission’s guidance on public benefit and, in particular, the supplementary guidance on charities for the advancement of religion.

In particular, we try to enable ordinary people to live out their faith as part of our parish community through:

Worship and prayer; learning about the Gospel; and developing their knowledge and trust in Jesus.
Provision of pastoral care for people living in the parish.
Missionary and outreach work.

To facilitate this work, it is important that we maintain the fabric of the three churches within the parish; St. Mary’s Alne, St. Stephen’s Aldwark and St. Michael’s Tollerton.

Achievements and Performance

Worship and Prayer

The PCC is keen to offer a range of Sunday services across the three churches over the course of the year that our community find both beneficial and spiritually fulfilling. Services at St. Stephens and St. Mary’s are more traditional with specific family-friendly services in Alne on special occasions such as Mother’s Day, Harvest and Christingle, whereas at St. Michaels, services are generally more expressive and less formal, with guitar led worship singing modern worship songs. All three churches aim to have a service of Holy Communion at least once a month and we aim to hold a service of Holy Communion every week within the parish.

All are welcome to attend our regular services. At present there are 84 parishioners on the Church Electoral Roll, an increase from 76 last year.

2023 saw a continuation of ‘normal’ following the Covid-19 pandemic, so that services followed a regular pattern throughout the year, with one service per month at St. Stephens, two services each month at St. Mary’s and a service every Sunday at St. Michael’s. However, we have been without a Priest-inCharge throughout the year, and without a curate too, so we have relied on local retired clergy to take services of Holy Communion and members of our own congregation to take services of Morning Worship.

In considering how to fill the vacancy for a Priest, we had support from the Diocese in considering whether we should join with Skelton, Shipton and Newton. This would enable us to advertise for a fulltime priest-in-charge who would be responsible for all 6 churches. The alternative would be to advertise for a part time priest whop would be responsible just for Alne parish. The PCC decided that we would seek to appoint a full-time priest-in-charge and join with Skelton, Shipton and Newton.

St. Mary’s and St. Stephens have continued to be open for private prayer and for general visitors on a daily basis.

There is a strong relationship with the primary school in Alne, who use St Mary’s for end of term services and on other occasions, resulting in a very full church of children and their parents several times per year. In addition, the school helps with rehearsals to prepare children participating in songs and readings at the family-friendly services. There is also a steady stream of visitors to view things of historic significance in St Mary’s, and to the graveyard, both of which people find very tranquil and welcoming.

As well as our regular services, we enable our community to celebrate and thank God at the milestones of the journey through life. Through baptism we thank God for the gift of life, in marriage public vows are exchanged with God’s blessing and through funeral services friends and family express their grief and give thanks for the life which is now complete in this world and to commend the person into God’s keeping. In total three marriages and a marriage blessing were conducted in the parish in 2023 (2 at St. Stephen’s and 2 at St. Mary’s), which is less than has been normal historically.

14 funerals took place (13 of which were at St. Mary’s and 1 at St. Michael’s) and 3 baptisms (1 at St. Stephens and 2 at St. Mary’s).

Deanery Synod

Two members of the PCC sit on the deanery synod. This provides the PCC with an important link between the parish and the wider structures of the church. Of particular importance this year was the planning of how to implement the Church of England’s “Living Christ’s Story” initiative, within the Deanery and within each parish. Two Saturday mornings were arranged to aid parishes share in the plans and activities as they work to implement their plans.

Pastoral Care

In the absence of both a Priest-in-Charge and a curate, our pastoral care has been sadly lacking. Our local retired clergy have helped greatly in taking funerals and providing care for the bereaved family members.

Mission and Evangelism

St. Michael’s Tollerton donates 10% of its income to local, national or international Christian Missionary charities. St. Mary’s donates to the Children’s Society following the Christingle service and to the Royal British Legion following the Remembrance Service. Donations are also made to the local food bank at Harvest services.

Our parish magazine is distributed monthly to all parishioners freely. The magazine keeps our parishioners informed of the important matters affecting our Church and articles that help develop knowledge and trust in Jesus. It also includes local community news. We were able to conduct our door to door deliveries once more this year. It was gratifying that several local organisations including the parish councils at Alne and Tollerton, agreed to contribute to the cost of producing the parish magazine to cover something of the additional costs incurred resulting from the increased community news.

All three churches actively seek to engage with the village communities. We have continued our focus to reach out to the villagers and raise the profile of the church within the community. These activities plant the seeds, not just developing improved relationships between the church and the village, but enabling us to demonstrate the love of Christ to the parishioners. These initiatives also offer opportunities for us to share our personal faith with people.

At St. Mary’s these initiatives have been:-

Participation in the annual Street Fayre, [hosting ‘Alne, past and & present’, church history tours and refreshments accompanied by organ recitals plus plant stalls and children’s competitions, which attract a good number of both adults and children.]
Holding the major festival services (Remembrance Day, a Harvest Festival for Children and the Christingle service on Christmas Eve).
Hosting a monthly coffee morning (until October ) to which all parishioners are invited
Hosting a concert with Easingwold Town Band and a talk including interesting stories about characters stationed in Malta during the war, which were both well supported.

At St. Michaels’s these initiatives have been:-

The continued distribution of the “welcome to Tollerton” booklet to all new residents as they move in.
Carol singing on the Green (actually held in the village hall this year) at the ‘lights switch-on event’
HotSpots which continued though the Spring of 2023 and re-started in the late autumn of 2023. This has continued to gain in popularity with a good number (of different people) attending each week. Though we have probably not reached those who need a ‘Warm Bank’ (assuming such people do exist in Tollerton) we have clearly met a meet for social gathering and this regular event has significantly improved and increased the visibility of the church in the village. Over the summer we held a monthly after service lunch to which all our HotSpot attendees were invited and a few accepted.

St. Stephen’s, in addition to their wedding and baptism ministry, held their annual Carol Service, which again attracted many parishioners who would not otherwise attend church services.

In addition a cleaning day was arranged which was very well supported by the villagers who are not church members.

All three churches again contributed to a “Christmas Tree Angel’ appeal, by which toys were purchased as gifts for disadvantaged children in York, arranged through the Salvation Army. A great number of parishioners contributed to this initiative and it was very effective at raising the profile of the 3 churches in a positive way. In addition, St. Mary’s held a shoe-box appeal which resulted in many boxes being donated to the Samaritan’s Purse appeal for missionary work with children throughout the world in challenged countries.

Reserves policy

It is PCC policy to maintain a balance on unrestricted funds which equates to at least six months unrestricted payments. It is held to smooth out fluctuations in cash flow and to meet emergencies. This was achieved by the PCC in 2023.

Safeguarding

The PCC has complied with the duty to have ‘due regard’ for the House of Bishops’ Safeguarding Policy and Practice Guidance. GodZone (the ‘Sunday School’ at St. Michael’s Tollerton, was held on three Sundays each month during 2023). Safeguarding considerations were also taken into account regarding those activities which gave rise to contact with potentially vulnerable adults, principally HotSpot & the Coffee morning.

Building Maintenance and Development

At St. Mary’s a new heating system was installed, which aims to heat the people rather than the space,

by utilising under-pew heating. The plan to re-develop the porch at the main entrance has been put onhold due to the complexities arising from having to change the direction of the door opening or find a different solution. Urgent stonework repairs to the tower were also completed (with the rest to be progressed in 2023) and the clock face was refurbished whilst the access scaffold was in place.

At St. Michael’s the guttering improvements, lead flashing repair and general roof maintenance had been completed.

All three churches have a list of prioritised work identified in their quinquennial inspections (or for St. Michael’s its 5 year surveyors report) and plans to action the most important points, though St. Stephens awaits getting its latest quinquennial report following the inspection which has taken place.

Optional

Information

Volunteers

We would like to thank all the volunteers who work so hard to make our parish the lively and vibrant community it is.

Structure, governance and management

The Parochial Church Council is a corporate body established by the Church of England. The PCC operates under the Parochial Church Council Powers Measure.

The method of appointment of PCC members is set out in the Church Representation Rules. The membership of the PCC consists of the Priest-in-Charge (our vicar), churchwardens and members elected by those members of the congregation who are on the electoral roll of the church. All those who are members of the congregation are encouraged to register on the Electoral Roll and stand for election to the PCC.

The PCC members are responsible for supervising the decisions on all matters of general concern and importance to the parish including deciding on how the funds of the PCC are to be spent. Delegated to DCC’s

The full PCC met 4 times during the year in addition to the APCM which was held in April. Each of the three individual churches are managed by their own church councils.

Administrative information

The Parish of Alne is part of the Diocese of York within the Church of England. The correspondence address is Church Office, St. Michael’s Church, Newton Road Tollerton York YO61 1QX. The PCC is a body corporate (PCC Powers Measure 1956, Church Representation Rules 2011) and a charity currently registered with the Charity Commission.

PCC members who have served at any time from 1st January 2023 until December 2023 are:

Ex Officio members: Priest-in-Charge: vacancy Warden: vacancy Warden: vacancy Deputy-warden Mrs Alison Dowson (warden of St. Michael’s, Tollerton) Deputy-warden Mr Richard Swan (warden of St. Michael’s, Tollerton) from April 11 Elected members:

Mr Arthur Harland (Lay Chair and Deanery Synod representative) Mr Bill Ormerod

Mrs Carol Watson (Parish Safeguarding Officer) Mrs Vivienne Bird Mr David Finnegan until 11 April (thereafter continued to fill the role of Treasurer) Mrs Maggie Bond Lady Sharon Oliver Mr Peter Cove (Deanery Synod representative) Mrs Carol Glen (from 11 April to 17 October)

Financial Accounts

In 2023 Alne PCC continued to be the single account under which the finances of all three churches were managed. The procedures, adopted at the PCC held 3[rd] March 2021 have continued to be followed, though with some refinement as to what expenditure is recorded as church-specific

2023 Financial Report

Summary:

The PCC General Fund received income of £57,995 (some £7,000 ahead of budget) plus £413 towards Designated Mission activity. Regular donations were £4k above budget, one-off donations were £1.3k above budget and fund-raising/weddings etc were £2k above budget.

In addition, the Restricted Alne Fabric Fund received £3k income from donations and each church’s Restricted Fund received interest payments on their deposit accounts.

Total expenditure in the PCC General Fund was £48,037 plus £119 on Designated PCC Mission activities

Overall, the PCC General Fund received £58,409 and spent £48,156 thus the PCC made a surplus of £10,253 against the budget of £4682 or £5.5k more than expected.

For management purposes, expenditure is now shown by each individual church for the items they directly control and can be seen in the part of the General Fund that is allocated to each church. Only the Freewill Offering, payments to vergers and bell-ringers at weddings and funerals (headed salaries, wages, honorarium), expenses for the vicar (headed Clergy and Staff expenses), the Parish Newsletter (headed Mission and Evangelism) and the Church Office admin costs are met straight from the General Fund on behalf of the PCC. Detailed expenditure by each church, against their allocated funds, is examined below and forms part of the budget process for the PCC accounts in order to allocate appropriate funds for the next year.

The current PCC policy on unallocated General Fund Reserves is to retain at least £20,000 to cover cashflow and other variations but the unallocated Reserves began 2023 with £49,954 so the PCC resolved, in October 2023, to allocate further funds to Alne and Tollerton. They also resolved to allow each church to carry forward any surplus to (or to meet any loss from) their current allocated fund reserves. The Statement of Assets shows the unallocated General Fund Reserves at the end of 2023 have risen to £52,349 with a further £3744 allocated to Alne, £3895 allocated to Aldwark and £6367 allocated to Tollerton. A further £4720 is designated for Mission activity.

The PCC spent within its budget for Freewill, underspent on expenses due to the vacancy and overspent slightly on Admin. The details of this and the individual churches are picked up in the 2024 Budget report on this agenda.

Aldwark spent very little during the year. Alne’s significant overspending was on the upkeep of their churchyard. Tollerton’s significant overspending was on Major Repairs that included fencing and the deposit for carpark work.

Alne’s Restricted Fund spent £30,829 on new heating and cupboards whilst Tollerton’s Restricted Fund spent £5353 on roof repairs and audiovisual improvements.

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