Adroddiad Blynyddol
Annual Report
Including the independently examined financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2023
Registered Charity: 1184644
Part of the Church in Wales Diocese of Bangor in the Area Deanery and Archdeaconry of Meirionnydd
Trustees’ Annual Report for the period January 2023 to December 2023
Charity name: Ardal Weinidogaeth Bro Enlli Ministry Area
Charity registration number: 1184644
Objectives and Activities
The Church in Wales is a province within the Anglican Communion and seeks to advance the Christian religion through world-wide mission. The MAC (Ministry Area Council) objectives are to ensure that Church life and work within Ardal Weinidogaeth Bro Enlli Ministry Area (the Parish of Bro Enlli) help to fulfil that mission, both locally and more widely.
The MAC is aware of the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit in “The Advancement of Religion for the Public Benefit” and has regard to it in their administration of the Parish of Bro Enlli. The MAC believes that, by fulfilling its responsibility to work together with the incumbent in the Parish and co-operate in all matters of concern and importance for the promotion of the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical, it provides a benefit to the public by:
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Providing resources and facilities for public worship, pastoral care and spiritual, moral and intellectual development both for its members and for anyone who wishes to benefit from what the church offers.
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Promoting Christian values and service by members of the Churches in the Parish of Bro Enlli to their respective communities, to the benefit of individuals and society as a whole.
The MAC is responsible for the parochial budget and all expenditure thereunder, the care and maintenance of church fabric and of the churchyards it owns, and for any action or other matter to it in accordance with the Constitution and its normal channel of communication between parishioners and the Diocesan Bishop.
Apart from the regular round of weekly services in each of our churches, the Ministry Area (MA), also usually organise or participate in the following round of activities: Bible Study group, weekly coffee morning, food bank (twice a week), and hosts an Art Group. It also plans annual garden afternoons, several summer fetes, Christmas fairs and a Charity Shop. Bro Enlli Ministry Area confirms that in fulfilling its objectives it follows guidance issued by the Charity Commission on public benefit.
Chair Introduction
2023 has been a time of welcoming new clergy to Bro Enlli. In October, it was wonderful to see Llanengan church full on a Sunday morning for a united Bro Enlli churches together service with over 100 in attendance to welcome our new Archdeacon, the Venerable Robert Townsend. Robert has been very supportive since his arrival and has worked hard in bringing the Archdeaconry of Meirionnydd together. Robert continues to support Bro Enlli by leading worship on one Sunday a month.
The Revd Jane James has retired to the area form Maifod and now lives with her husband, Nick and their dogs in Llangwnadl. Bro Enlli is very grateful to Jane for all the help she has provided in leading worship and taking funerals. Jane now presides at the Eucharist at Llanbedrog on one Sunday a month as well as at the Wednesday midweek eucharist. The Reverend Jane Finn was licensed in another wonderful service of welcome with Bro Enlli at its best offering hospitality and welcome in St Hywyn, Aberdaron. Jane is licensed as a Pilgrim Priest resident in Aberdaron. This post has come through the Bangor Diocese Llan project as well as the need for extra priestly ministry in Bro Enlli. This was identified by the Venerable Robert Townsend and reported to the Archbishop soon after he arrived. Although Jane is part of the Bro Enlli ministry team, her main focus will be in Aberdaron offering a ministry of welcome and hospitality to visitors and pilgrims as well as developing and promoting Pilgrimage within Bro Enlli and the diocese, in particular, Llwybr Cadfan – the new Pilgrim route following the ancient Pilgrim Way from Tywyn to Aberdaron.
As well as being a Pilgrim Priest, Jane has pastoral responsibility for Aberdaron and will preside at the Eucharist on Sundays in St Hywyn as well as in any of our other churches on one Sunday a month as works best for the worship rota. This does not mean that Aberdaron has its own Vicar, as the Vicar of Aberdaron as for the whole of Bro Enlli continues to be in the care of the Incumbent and Ministry Area Leader (MAL), the Reverend Rhun ap Robert, which includes responsibility for worship, buildings, mission and evangelism, finance, as well as the care for all parishioners. It does mean, with Jane in Aberdaron, that the MAL is able to dedicate more time to those aspects of the role afore mentioned, to the whole of Bro Enlli whilst doing less travelling and having the help and support of Jane in the day to day ministry of Aberdaron and Bro Enlli.
Susan Fogarty, as a Lay Licenced Minister continues in providing alternative and creative acts of worship in and around Aberdaron and Llanfaelrhys, with a focus on pioneering through poetry. Susan is also director of the RS Thomas and ME Eldrige Society which in 2024 has its 10th annual poetry and arts festival. With poetry and art being such a dominant feature of Welsh life and culture and indeed, Christian heritage, we are proud to be able to offer St Hywyn and St Maelrhys not just as a venue, but as a home for this annual festival in Aberdaron. It is always good to be able to welcome visitors, worshippers and pilgrims into our churches and the festival is very successful in attracting people here as well as helping to promote Bro Enlli as a sacred space for people to visit.
The MAL would like to thank everyone for their dedication over the past year in ensuring that Bro Enlli continue to make God’s love known in this little corner of his Kingdom. In particular, the MAL would like to pay tribute to the Churchwardens in each church who have ensured that life continues as smoothly as possible in the local churches, not least in helping with leading Moring Prayer and ensuring that people are able to come to Church on a Sunday to worship God. There are many others who have also been helping with various tasks including lay worship leaders, treasurers and buildings officers, organists and musicians, sidespersons and welcomers, those who help with cleaning or offering and preparing tea and coffee, Sunday readers and intercessors, sacristans and servers, eucharistic ministers of the chalice, volunteers in the Bro Enlli Shop, flower arrangers and church decorators for the different seasons of the liturgical year, bell ringers, the many who are opening and closing our churches for visitors from April to October, all quietly getting on with things in the background. Furthermore, a special thanks to the Ministry Area Council for the immense support and encouragement over the last year and for their dedication.
Buildings / Fabric / Projects / Architect
Since receiving the Ezra report in March 2023, a Fabric Committee has been established and met to discuss some of the work needed on our church buildings. It was quickly established that an Electrical Safety check was needed on all our churches which has been partly carried out in most places. With the help and support of the Archdeaconry Buildings Officer, Paul Skeet, each church has been visited and major works identified and prioritised, including the St Pedrog’s church tower roof which is leaking badly. HighLife Ropes will carry out the work with the support of only ropes and no scaffolding. It is an innovative approach which for this project will save approx. £14,000. The cost of the work comes to £29,000 but with VAT and contingencies it quickly increases to £48,000. The cost will be covered by St Pedrog’s own funds.
Other major works identified include the purlin wooden beam ends of the roof structure at the west wall of St Hywyn’s church which have significant rot and will need repairing. The Ministry Area Council (MAC) has appointed Finlason Partnership Conservation Accredited Architects to investigate further as well as provide a feasibility report on reordering St Hywyn’s vestry and installing a kitchen and toilets.
We are awaiting a structural engineer’s report on the condition of St Engan’s church boundary wall which is showing signs of bowing and there are significant concerns about its stability.
Other important maintenance and repairs on the to do list include painting the exterior of St Cian’s Church Hall, the replacement of badly corroded radiators in St Hywyn’s, and new Church Signs for each church.
A phased replacement or installation of new Sound Systems and Induction Loop Systems has commenced for all our churches. This will improve the worship experience for all who attend Bro Enlli churches, not least those who are hard of hearing. Bro Enlli churches are
often used for the occasional offices of Weddings, Baptisms and Funerals as well as concerts, carol services and school Christmas services. Having a professionally installed modern system is part of providing a service to our communities for significantly important occasions in people’s lives. The experience provided for those who enter Bro Enlli churches will leave a good lasting impression on them, even if they never cross the threshold again. Holy Cross Church, Llannor, are looking at installing an audio visual system which would open up possibilities of offering different styles of worship for different age groups, especially for children and young people.
Pwllheli Foodbank continues to be located in St Peter’s Church Pwllheli and is an important part of Bro Enlli’s social outreach to the community, not only in Pwllheli but throughout the Llŷn Peninsula. The Ezra report highlighted significant work needed over the next 5 years in St Peter’s including replastering the interior walls and repairing the vestry roof. It also states that within 15 years the whole of the church roof will need replacing. All of which would come at a significant cost, estimated at £800,000, However, with these concerns in mind the MAL invited a buildings officer from the Representative Body (RB) of the Church in Wales to visit St Peter’s church who was in disagreement as to whether the roof needs replacing and the estimated costs of other works seem unreasonably high.
Ever since St Peter’s Church Hall was sold, the proceeds have been held by the RB on behalf of St Peter’s and only recently have been invested in the Common Investment Fund. The current value of the fund is c£127,000. The money is restricted for church hall purposes only, yet St Peter’s no longer has a church hall. However, it has been confirmed by the RB that the money could be used to reorder areas within St Peter’s church for church hall purposes. This could include creating a space for a kitchen and toilets, and creating a space for meetings and activities for church purposes such as Parents and Toddlers and Youth Groups, or for hiring to the community, including the Foodbank. No decision has been made on the way forward as yet.
Achievements and Performance
Again in 2023, it has been particularly good to welcome more and more baptisms and weddings as these are joyous occasions for the Church not only in welcoming new Christians but also in welcoming many visitors into our churches, not forgetting the importance of these occasions as a rite of passage for individuals and families. Equally, funerals are hugely important occasions and to be able to welcome families back into church to mourn their loved ones together at a funeral service has been of great importance.
Furthermore, regular parish activities have continued including Lenten Lunches with midday prayer hosted at St Peter’s church, Pwllheli, with each of Bro Enlli’s churches taking responsibility to provide a light lunch during the six weeks of Lent. All are welcome to the Lenten Lunches, including other denominations, making it an ecumenical activity. Lent
being a time of prayer, fasting and almsgiving make these lunches truly Lenten as not only do we come together from all traditions for a time of prayer, to enjoy fellowship with a light lunch, but also to fundraise for Christian Aid.
Other important activities included the Summer Fete at Llanbedrog; the St Engan and St Cian Easter and Christmas Fair at Llangian, the Bro Enlli Charity Shop in Pwllheli; a series of charity concerts at St Hywyn’s, Aberdaron, in aid of the RNLI and St Hywyn’s Church; a ‘Songs of Praise’ service held in St Hywyn’s Aberdaron as an outreach event to the local community and holiday visitors.
2023 saw the National Eisteddfod of Wales visit the Llŷn Peninsula and was located in Boduan, which is within Bro Enlli. Volunteers from our churches volunteered to offer welcome and tea and coffee to visitors of the CYTUN Churches Together tent. Fr Rhun also led worship in the CYTUN tent. It was especially good to welcome St Deiniol Bangor Cathedral Choir to St Peter’s Church, Pwllheli, for the Eisteddfod Eucharist who sang a specially composed setting of the eucharist for the eisteddfod.
A Christmas carol service was held at Llanengan, Aberdaron, Llanbedrog, Llannor and Pwllheli, attracting over 500 in attendance from the local community as well as visitors to the area looking to be able to celebrate Christmas with their families making time to remember the true Christian meaning of the festival. It was also a joy to welcome Ysgol Glan y Môr to St Peter’s church Pwllheli for their Christmas concerts and the Gwynedd and Môn School Music Service to St Peter’s Church for their annual concert.
Many of our churches continue to be popular locations for filming, be it for television, music-videos for bands, or some other form of promotion and advertising. This brings a small income for the church but more importantly is an excellent mission tool for us in opening our doors to the whole world. It was a delight to welcome the BBC’s Pilgrimage production team to St Hywyn’s as the final destination for a group of celebrity pilgrims before their final crossing to Enlli. The series was broadcast between Good Friday and the Easter Octave of 2024. The BBC commented it was the best series on Pilgrimage they had made.
Finance
1. Administration
At a meeting of the Ministry Area Council it was agreed to implement a new system for administrating Bro Enlli finances. Financial administration has become more and more complicated as Bro Enlli has become a single parish and a single charity. Historically Bro Enlli have relied heavily on the good will and dedication of local treasurers for each of its churches, and is enormously grateful for their hard work and hours of commitment which they give of their own free time. However, it is unreasonable to rely and depend on the
same people to be treasurers for ever and the work is becoming more demanding. Furthermore, Bro Enlli is blessed with significant reserves held in different funds by different churches. Most of the funds are held in the form of investments, which is an important source of income, and the general trajectory in value of the various funds is upwards. However there are other significant funds held in general accounts which could be performing better.
Bro Enlli will save money and see better returns on investments by having one bank account managing 3 months unrestricted running costs and by having the remaining unrestricted funds invested with the CCLA (Churches, Charities and Local Authorities Investment Management Limited) through the Bangor Diocesan Trust, who have negotiated a preferential rate with the CCLA. Upon closing individual church bank accounts, monies will be shown as funds relating to each church on My Fund Accounting (the software used for the church accounts) – money currently held by each church will still be in their name only held in one central Bro Enlli bank account.
In light of the administrative burden placed upon Ministry Areas, Bangor diocese are developing a book-keeping service for Ministry Areas. This will do away with the need for individual church treasurers but will require local ‘cashiers’ to count and pay money received into the central bank account. A record will be kept of payments in and out and provided to the diocese for the bookkeeper to enter data into My Fund Accounting. Bro Enlli will sill require one central treasurer to administer payments in and out as well as generate reports.
The book-keeping service provided by Bangor diocese also includes end of year examination of accounts by a chartered accountant. There will be no fee for this service giving an annual saving of at least £6,000 for Bro Enlli in accountants costs. The bookkeeping service will begin with the examination of accounts in 2024 and will be fully implemented for the 2025 financial year.
2. 2023 Financial Review
Bro Enlli’s financial position continues to be in an overall healthy position. Conversely, income from receipts showed a decrease of £52,270 from £202,372 in 2022 to £150,102 in 2023. Although this is a significant amount, it should be noted that the 2022 receipts included £39,295 in fund raising for the replacement of Llanbedrog Church Hall windows as well as a legacy of £15,000.
Total expenditure was down by £14,532 from £214,310 in 2022 to £199,778 in 2023. It was successfully argued at the Archdeaconry’s annual Synod to decide each Ministry Area’s contribution to the BMF, (Bishop’s Ministry Fund) that Bro Enlli had consistently been one of the highest contributors in the diocese to the BMF, thus supporting the ministry of other Ministry Areas, and that Bro Enlli could not sustain the same level in its
contribution year on year. At the Synod, it was agreed that Bro Enlli’s contribution to the BMF in 2023 would be reduced from £78,300 to £73,300.
Income from investments, generous donors and response to financial appeals, and the reopening of Bro Enlli’s Charity shop has significantly supported the total income in 2022. The Charity Shop was particularly successful in generating income in excess of £18K as well as serving the community in offering affordable clothes and other items to people who are genuinely struggling financially. Furthermore, it gave Bro Enlli a sense of togetherness and a strong and important Christian presence in the community.
The greater part of Bro Enlli’s assets are held in investments which in 2023 performed better than in 2022 with the total value of investments increasing from £694,139 to £739,474 representing a gain of £45,336. The value of investments can go in either direction. The value of the investments held by Bro Enlli will be more important than ever in the coming 5 years as they will be needed to cover costs for essential building works identified in the anticipated Ezra Report as well as any planned missional activity.
At the end of the 2023 financial year the total fixed assets held in investments of £739,474 and the total net current assets of £308,678 amounted to a net asset surplus of £1,048,152 which is represented as follows:
| Fund | 2023 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| General & Designated Funds (Unrestricted) |
£781,826 | £802,281 |
| Restricted | £266,326 | £262,505 |
| TOTAL | £1,048,152 | £1,064,786 |
Bro Enlli trustees are very grateful for the continued financial and volunteer support it receives from the treasurer’s team as well as the support to the churches from both very generous donors, weekly giving and, of course, from our visitors and pilgrims.
Bro Enlli MAC has adopted a Finance Policy and commits itself to making every reasonable effort to maintain reserves that will cover basic costs of the expenditure of the charity together with staffing costs, if any, for a period of three months.
Structure, Governance and Management
The Church in Wales is governed by its Constitution, set up under 13(1) of the Welsh Church Acts 1914, as amended from time to time by its Governing Body. As a result of current changes within the Church in Wales the Ministry Area Council (MAC) has the same powers as a Parochial Church Council (PCC). The MAC is not a body corporate; its composition, procedures and powers are regulated by the constitution, which provides that before assuming office, every member must sign a declaration that he or she will be bound by the Constitution.
It is the responsibility of both the MAC and the Incumbent to work together and cooperate in all matters of concern and importance to the parish for the promotion of the whole mission of the Church, (pastoral, evangelistic, social and ecumenical) in the parish.
The Constitution also provides that the members of the MAC shall be:
Ex officio Members
The Incumbent (MA Leader) Vicars and Assistant Curates
Elected Members:
Two Ministry Area wardens Two sub-wardens for each church
Co-opted Members
Secretary Treasurer
Up to seven further co-opted members
The elected Ministry Area Council members are elected at the AGM by members of the congregation who are on the electoral roll of the parish.
Reference and Administrative details
Charity name: Ardal Weinidogaeth Bro Enlli Ministry Area Other name the charity uses: Plwyf Bro Enlli Parish Registered charity number: 1184644 Charity’s principal address: The Vicarage Ala Road Pwllheli Gwynedd LL53 5BL
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity:
The Reverend Rhun Gwynedd ap Robert Chair, Vicar & Ministry Area Leader Dewi Wyn Roberts Ministry Area Warden Hedd Thomas Ministry Area Warden Martyn James Croydon Annie Elizabeth Owen Brenda May Chidley Williams Hazel Graham Griff Ellis Jones Jenny Elizabeth Asenbryl Valerie Wood Christine Williams Geraint Williams
The Church buildings, their contents and grounds are vested in the Representative Body of the Church in Wales and do not form part of the assets of the Parish. Each Church is insured by the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group under the terms of the Church in Wales block policy.
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