FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST SCIENTIST SHIPLEY Report for the year of 2022
Thank you for the opportunity to serve this wonderful church as Chair of the Board and all business meetings this last year. It was an absolute pleasure!
It was very exciting to be a witness to all the good that is happening at Shipley church.
How every one of you is just so happy and willing to give, what you can and when you can. May this be prayer, serving in various offices, regular attendance of services, helping/visiting the reading room, sharing testimonies, putting into the gratitude box, maintaining the church building, and so on – the list is infinite.
God will bless you for all your contributions, for loving and caring for His church and for demonstrating and living the Science of Christ.
You have all received the minutes from each Board meeting we had so here is just a briefly summary of what the Board has been up to since our last member’s meeting 7 months ago.
BANKING:
We have found a new bank (called CAF Bank) which deals exclusively with charities. An application form to open an account with them has been filled in and posted.
They are easy to reach over the phone, physical banking can be done in a HSBC branch and we will received Debit Cards to be used by nominated members.
This all comes at the cost of £5 per months account admin fees.
BY-LAWS:
The revision of our Constitution and By-Laws was very harmonious, efficient and successful. The solicitor from LCF Law was able to help us clarify a few points and will be assisting us to move away from holding trustees to Official Custodian (once the new By-Laws are in place). However, we stop using the solicitor for the By-Law changes to try and avoid overcomplicating them again.
Since then, I have been in email contact with the Charity Commission to get approval for the restricted paragraphs (Objects, Application of Income and Property, Benefits and Payments to Charity Trustees and Connected Persons, Dissolution and Amendment of Constitution or Name). Unfortunately, without success. It was strongly advised to keep what we have as pushing for these changes would draw negative attention to our church and result in an interrogation by the Charity Commission. This isn’t bad though as we have made some good changes, clearer structure, easier language, deletion of unnecessary and adding in of important parts.
COMPLIANCE:
This was put on hold for now due to other more urgent areas to look at like banking and By-Laws and Iain’s resent longer stay in Thailand. However, it will be picked up again soon as there are still some areas, we are not compliant in.
DONATIONS:
The Board would like to ask the member’s consent to donate up to £10 000 to Christian Science organisations this year. Members have also been invited to put forward a Christian Science organisation who they feel would benefit from receiving a donation from the church.
We will be inviting those of you who made suggestions to briefly present these and to vote after we have been through the minutes from our last meeting.
Thank you!
Andrea Page (Chair of the Board) 28 Feb 2023.
| Receipts | 2022 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offertories | 4,156 | 4,638 | |
| Rentreceived | 7,200 | 8,400 | |
| Donations | 30,070 | ||
| Readingroom sales | 1,302 | '1,354 | |
| Bankinterest | 1,506 | 20 | |
| 44,234 | 14.412 | ||
| Pavments | |||
| Gas&Electricity | 3,871 | 2,746 | |
| Water | 399 | 509 | |
| Telephone & lnternet | 599 | 478 | |
| WebServices | 7,000 | 6,000 | |
| AccountingServices | 1,000 | 848 | |
| Repairs | 2,739 | 10,803 | |
| lnsurance | 1,094 | 948 | |
| Readingroom purchases | 2,655 | 1,898 | |
| Donations &Subscriptions | 3,405 | 3,620 | |
| Stationery&Advertising | 483 | 422 | |
| Legal expenses | 1,244 | ||
| Cleaning | 1,547 | 1,,434 | |
| SundryExpenses | 463 2q1ee |
m | 765 |
| Netofreceipts/payments | 17,235 | (1605e) | |
| Cashfundsbroughtforward | 167,423 | 183,482 | |
| Cashfunds carriedforward | 184,658 | 167,423 |