Trustee Report for Hearsall Baptist Church Charity No. 1188555
Administrative Information:-
Queensland Avenue, Chapelfields, Coventry, CV5 8FE. Registered with the Charity Commission on the 16[th] March 2020. We adopted the Governing Document provided to the Baptist Union by their solicitors, on the 2[nd] of October 2019 at a church member’s meeting.
Minister:- Reverend David Sutcliffe, (only paid member of staff).
Elected Trustees:- Nicholas Leonard, Andrew Brendon-Penn, Sarah Lewis, Jan Clemons and Eric Bremner.
Ex-Officio members Anne Thompson (secretary) and Julia LePoidevin (treasurer)
Aim and Purposes
Hearsall Baptist Church Trustees, which include our Minister, the Reverend David Sutcliffe have the responsibility of promoting worship, the mission of the church, the practical aspects of managing the buildings and activities taking place on our premises, and as such have six main duties:-
A Ensuring our charity is carrying out its purpose for public benefit.
B Complying with the charity’s governing documents and the law.
C Acting in our charity’s best interests.
D Managing the charity’s resources responsibly.
E Acting with reasonable care and skill.
F Ensuring our charity is accountable.
The Trustees are nominated by the church members and voted for at church meetings, by all members who have at least six months standing. Church members can only stand for election after they have been members for a year. The trustees serve for a minimum of three years, then can be re-elected for another three year period, but after that must stand down for at least a year.
There are various specialisms within the group at present, such as an eco- trustee and a “flying trustee”, whose function is to be a first point of contact if people contact the church and to find appropriate people to help. One of the trustees is also the safeguarding trustee.
At present we have fifty-two members, three of these have been admitted to membership in the last year. Our congregation is more on the upper age group side, with one or two young families. There is a Sunday school (except during the Covid lockdown), although the facility has continued online.
The trustees meet monthly except for Easter and December. The average level of attendance is 80%. The trustees discuss actions and take recommendations to the church members to vote on the outcomes. The meetings of the church members are held ten times a year. Our AGM is held in June or July and includes all the organisations using our rooms and our own groups and post holders are invited to submit a written report to be included in
a booklet, which is available in print and online before the AGM. The Baptist Union offer resources and advice for all the various facets of the functions we are responsible for and issue guidelines to us and have solicitors which are recommended by them.
The Baptist Union hold the deeds for the church property and the Heart of England Baptist Association hold the deeds for the Manse, which is a separate property a few streets from the church. The trustees are also responsible for the upkeep of this and we have spent some money last year on replacing the kitchen there and enclosing the downstairs toilet inside the building.
Ecumenical Relationships
Hearsall Baptist Church is a member of Churches together in Earlsdon and Chapelfields (CTEC). There are five churches in this group, two Anglican, one Methodist and one Roman Catholic and ourselves.
The Ministers of these churches meet together regularly to discuss joint activities and to offer each other support. They also have joint meetings with the CTEC committee. There are joint initiatives which have been undertaken, such as providing finance for a Christians against Poverty worker who provides finance and debt advice to people. Another one is the Good Neighbours Project, which started with CTEC and is now under the auspices of Hope Coventry, who pay the wages of the workers and provide the legal help and support. This has spread to other areas and Coventry Council have financed the workers in some of the areas. The churches provide premises for certain events such as afternoon teas and socials. Volunteers visit elderly and lonely housebound folk for company.
There are also joint services run with all the churches taking turns and also Lent Lunches and a joint meal for fellowship during the week of prayer for Christian Unity in January. It has also been a practice during this week for the ministers of the churches carry out a pulpit swap. Most months there is also a prayer breakfast, hosted by each church in turn. These have been held on Zoom throughout the Covid lockdown. There were also services provided by each church on Zoom for Holy Week and Lent, due to the inability to hold the usual lunches. Funds were raised during these times for charities supported by CTEC.
Public Benefit
The community rooms adjoining to the church are used by many community groups, these include an Altzheimers Group, Al Anon and Alcoholics Anonymous, Youth Organisations such as Rainbows, Brownies, Guides, Rangers, Beavers and Scouts. There is also a dance group, a stamp and coin club, Morris Men and a School reunion group. Also various other community events may be held here throughout the year.
Other groups which are considered as part of the church outreach are a Song and Storytime Group for pre-school children, a lunch club for the elderly and a conversation group called Talking English, for people whose first language is not English. During the Covid restrictions this Conversation group has kept in touch by WhatsApp. The lunch club, which consists of about thirty members, have been telephoned once a week and doorstep visits when this has been allowed. The Song and Storytime group have held Zoom sessions and are just starting up again outside where allowed. It is to the credit of the group leaders that ways have been found to keep in touch with all these groups.
Mission and Evangelism
Helping those in need demonstrates our faith. During lockdown we have still managed to collect items for the food bank at certain pre-booked times and at Christmas we managed to support Coventry City Mission in their gift giving appeal, by either collecting money for them to buy presents or people ordering them to go direct using an Amazon Wish List Facility. During Christian Aid Week we had a monetary collection, an online quiz and people in the church took envelopes just to their own neighbours and then had them dropped back.
At Christmas the members vote for a few charities to support as part of our giving. Also there are collections at various times, when there is a particular need, eg. Floods in Bangladesh or similar. Some members have also volunteered at foodbanks or other Charity initiatives.
We organised our attendees into groups to keep in touch with each other and help with shopping where needed.
Church Services
All are welcome to attend our services and we like to think we are very inclusive and welcoming. Our average weekly attendance is about 40-50 normally. This number increases at festivals and often numbers are swelled by visiting family and grandchildren. At Christmas we like to try and include them in our nativity service. We normally have four parade services in the year when the youth organisations are encouraged to join us and join in. A very popular event is our harvest festival service, followed by coffee and cake and an auction of the fresh fruit and vegetables, with the funds going to an aid charity, such as Operation Agri or similar.
As well as our regular services, we enable our community to celebrate the events of life. There were three Baptisms planned for last year, but these had to be postponed due to the Coronavirus lockdown. One of the Memorial Services was held on Zoom and DVD’s were made for some of the relatives. Before lockdown we were able to open up our chapel, which leads off from the church foyer, for private prayer on certain days of the week.
During lockdown we have been very fortunate that our regular attendees have increased their giving, even though not attending every week. For this we are very thankful as we had lost £10,000 from income from our room hire, although of course our utility bills were minimal.
During Covid the church has been closed and face to face services have not been happening. We are hoping we can go back soon, under whatever restrictions are allowed. The only face to face event we had, was a screening of the Christmas Carol Service DVD which was produced and was a booking only event, which was attended by about fifteen people.
As our congregation is mostly elderly, some of them may still not be happy to come back yet, but throughout the time the services have been available as an audio format online through our website or latterly as a podcast. For those not able to access that we have provided printed and CD copies. We found this to be a good way of doing things with a high quality. Bible readers, people doing prayers and the minister, all recording their pieces and sending them to our technical person for production and the text sent to another person
who put this together. We had visual services at Christmas and both Easters hosted on our YouTube channel, with DVD’s being taken to those who could not view them on computer.
We have had a good response from this and some people from the USA, Australia and other parts of the UK accessing the podcasts. Also the word has spread and member’s neighbours have also listened. As a result of this we want to try and still provide this facility, even if it is not a full length service, although this will take more time and work.
We have had virtual coffee sessions on Zoom after church and one morning in the week. We have had Bible Study sessions on Zoom and WhatsApp and socials and quizzes on Zoom. Hearsall is famous for a five-pointed star, which is lined with LED lights and placed at the top of the church tower every Christmas, and can be seen from quite a long distance away. It has been a feature for over fifty years. During the post-Christmas lockdown we decided to leave the star up as a beacon of hope. It was left up until Easter when things started to open up a bit. We have also decorated the foyer of the church for Christmas and Easter and Remembrance Day, for local people to see when they walk past and to remind them we are still here for them. We also took part in a Nativity Trail and an Easter Trail, with posters in the window with pictures or questions for people to do with or without their children. This was organised by one of the bigger churches in Coventry and there were goody bags given out by them for prizes.
Financial Review
We ended the year with a deficit of £19,887.00. The balance sheet reserve has closed at £81,908.00. We carry an unrealised liability to the pension fund of £19,600.00. This figure changes as the pension fund is revalued. Our principal source of income is voluntary giving.
Vision for the Future
We have been trying to find a way of replacing our buildings. Our vision for the future is to try and reduce the footprint of our buildings, which are not economical or environmentally friendly to heat. This is to future-proof our existence in the community for another fifty years or so. The Community rooms are ninety years old and the church itself was built in the 1960’s. We have been trying to find a way to do this for several years and are waiting to go forward with a local developer, who is trying to make this financially possible for us, by having a profit from a project of their own on half of our site.
This is all dependant on approval by Council Planning, the Baptist Union and an independent survey by a Quantity Surveyor. If this cannot go forward then we will have to spend quite a large amount on refurbishing the buildings.
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HEARSALL 8APnST CHURCH RECEIPTS & PAYMENT ACCOUNT for Yeay ended 31$1 M¥r¢h 2021 Totsl 2020121 2019120 fvr¥ls funds RECEIPTS Voluniary 8iving Collections l oth?r voluntary reciepts Gift Aid recovered Investment inc¢xne 34702.C(I 240.IX) 4B51.1XJ 5300.Q) 674.00 34701. 31642. 240.C 4851.) I7166. 5300.CK) 4709.00 674.CQ 685.00 Tot•1 R•dapts 45767.00 Is767. YZOZ.tKI PAYMÉt4TS Cler8y and staffin8 Costs Hall and Church ruThnin8 costs comblned not open dueto Covld Church runnin8 Costs Hall ruTrnin8 COSIS M$55ion giving and donatlons Le8al/accountancy lother one off fees Licences SubKdpdons Ailmlnistratlon and Println8 Mlscellaheous ITnelephone Catering 43685 11006 2402 13611.IKI 6565. 6429.) 963.Q) 6293.(Kl 783.00 715.00 35.00 1630.00 366.00 1141.00 1325.C 1071.00 869.(M) 128.IX) 67423JAJ -19887 .13221 Transfers tW¢0 fund$ Cash•t b•rd( and *t 31st M•r¢h 2021 SI1 101796
Hearsall 8aptist Church Analysis a5 at 31st March 2021 DONATIONS TOYS STAR BMS MEMBER DONATION EXPENDtTURE HOPE BMS HM TOYS &MS MEM8ER DONATION TOTAL 460 20 100 825 2268 271)0 TOTAL loo 6293 MISCELLANEOUS CCLI FUNERAL SONGTIME 50.44 50 123 MISCELLANEOU5 FIC COV1019 WEEDKILLERISALT ROOTS 22 195.94 50.64 97 TOTAL 223.44 INTEREsr NIS 8UGB 133.54 TOTAL 365.58 MANS£ TOTAL 673.54 cnAx INSURANCE WATER KITCHEN 1272.58 413.22 216.34 11250 TOTAL 13152.14 Julia Lepoidevin 27.04.2021
Report of the Independent Examlner to the Ttee$ of Hear411 Baptlst Church for the year •nded 31" Mar¢h 2021. I report on the accounts of the charity for the year ended 315t March 2021, which are ser out on page5 4-6. R•spertl¥e responslbllltles of trust and examlner The charitie5 trustees are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance w¢th the term5 of the Charities Act 20111.the Act"). I report in respect of my examination of the charitV5 accounts caryied out under section 145 of the 2011 Att and in carrying out my èxamination, I have followed the applicable directions given by the Charlty Commission under section 145151 Ib)of the Att. Basls ¢rf Independent examln•rs stat•mgnt I have Completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attentlon In Connection wlth the examination which gives me cause to believe that in any material respect: The aecotJntln8 records were not kept in accordance with Section 130 of the Charities Art- or the accounts did not accord wtth accounting record5. I have no concerns and have come across rto other matters In COnnectn to the examination to which attention Should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understandln8 of the accounts to be reathed. ..G K In51ey 68 Wlndy Arbour Kenilworth CV8 2BB