**Contact:** _MINISTER TREASURER SECRETARY_ Revd David Sutcliffe Mrs Julia LePoidevin Mrs Anne Thompson ## Hearsall Baptist Church _Churches Together in Earlsdon_ www.hearsallbaptist.org _and Chapelfields_ Queensland Avenue, Coventry. CV5 8FE. ## **2022 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, Sarah Lewis and Janice Clemons. 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 at least 12 months. 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. Registered Charity 1188555 operating as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. 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. Our congregation is more on the upper age group side, with one or two young families. There was a Sunday school (except during the Covid lockdown), although the facility continued online. However it has been difficult to get this started again regularly and we now have an all-age service once a month and with Parade Services and occasional different services, this seems to be all we can manage with the volunteer leaders we have. 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 nine times a year. Our AGM is held in 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 terraced property 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 and sometimes preach in each other’s churches on a pulpit swap where permitted. 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 City 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. The proceeds from the Lent lunches are split between Cafod and Christian Aid. Most months there is also a prayer breakfast, hosted by each church in turn. The Charity supported by CTEC this year was the Torch Trust, which supplies Page **2** of **5** materials and support for churches to enable blind and partially sighted people to take as full a part as possible in worship. Hearsall has signed up to this initiative. ## **Public Benefit** The community rooms adjoining to the church are used by many community groups, these include, 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. We now also have an Art Venturers group once a month on a Saturday morning. Various other community events may be held here throughout the year. There is also a branch of Sureway Assembly of God Church meeting in our hall on Sundays. We have lost a couple of groups since the pandemic. 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 returned to meeting in person in July 2021. It is to the credit of the group leaders that ways have been found to keep in touch with all these groups during the pandemic. Most groups had returned by the end of 2021. ## **Mission and Evangelism** Helping those in need demonstrates our faith. We collect items for the food bank on the first Sunday of the month. 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, and people in the church took envelopes just to their own neighbours and then had them dropped back. Our Harvest auction raised £428.51 for a charity called Practical Action. 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 managed to obtain our silver environmental award with A Rocha after great efforts by our eco-trustee. Having services about the environment and being involved in the River Sherbourne Project with other churches and organisations such as Warwickshire Wildlife Trust had managed to gain us this. ## **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. Our Palm Sunday Page **3** of **5** Parade this year was the first since the pandemic and was a very joyous occasion and the children from the youth organisations were given Easter eggs. 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. We were able to have an in-person funeral for one of our congregation earlier this year. 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. This year we have still lost about £5,000 from room hire and we have had some electrical work done which has cost about £6,000. There is great concern as to what the utility bills might be after February as we have been on a fixed contract which ends then. Some of the quotes we have had from providers and utility bidding companies have been astronomical. We would like to still have green energy as much as possible. Our regular in person services resumed at the end of June 2021 and we did have a shortened Nativity Service and a Carol Service at Christmas. We continued to ask people to carry on wearing face masks till June 2022 and only resumed tea and coffee after the service then as well. Our congregation is mostly elderly, and only one of them has not returned after Covid, 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. Now though numbers accessing the podcast have dropped, but we will probably continue it in a shortened format, as our Minister finds it helpful in preparing his in person sermon and we want it to be a form of outreach. One of our Bible Study home groups has continued to meet on Zoom and the other has resumed in person. We are hoping to be able to provide an evening one as well. 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. With energy prices spiralling, we will probably put this on a timer so it only comes on when it is dark. Page **4** of **5** ## **Financial Review** We ended the year with a deficit of £9194.00. The balance sheet reserve has closed at £72,990.00. The figure for the pension fund was £6,000 but has now been revalued. Our monthly payment to this is now only £1 from August, after an agreement made with an insurance group. 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. We have recently found out that we may not be able to do this as the latest plan involved two GP surgeries having a joint building on the site. There is not enough parking to make this viable, so there is no point going to pre-planning with this. It could only work if they had the whole site. We now need to talk to the Baptist Union to see what is to be done, also with the rise in energy prices, we will have to think again. Page **5** of **5** i ![ Ifiii I Report of the Independent ExamI￿rt0 ￿ TrU￿te$ of Hea￿all Baptist Church forthe year ended 31° March 2022 Respecdve fesponsSbllltlesof trustees and examoner The chafltles trustees are responslble forthe Pre￿ratIOn of the accounts In accordance wlth the terms of the Charltles Aci 2011 1.the acff l. I repjrt In respect of my exomlnation of the Charl￿$ accounts carrled out under section 145 of the 2011 Act. and In carrying out my examlnatlon, I have followed the applicable dlrertlons gl¥en by the Chadry Cornm15s1on under sectlon 14S151 Ibl ol the Aci. Bas4s of Independtnt examlners 5taterr*nt I have completed my examlnatlon. l eonfimi thai material matters have come io my attentlon In onnertk*n wlth the examlnatlon which glves me cause to belleve thai In awlnaterial respect: The accountlng records were [￿t kept In accordarKé wlth 130ofthe char￿e$ I￿". or the accounts did not accord with ac¢ountSnR records. I havt no ¢oncern5 and ha¥e across Th) other rnatters In connecllon to tht •xamlnatlon to whlch attentlon should be drawn In th15 rèport In orderto enable a proper understandlry of the accounts to be reached. Sl8ned... j.s..l.&è Inslev 68 Wlno* Arbour Kenllworth CV8 288 Report of the Independent Examinerto the Tmste*s ol Hear5all 8aptist Church for the year ended 31. March 2022 Respertive responsibilities of trusiees arKb examiner The charltle5 trustees art responsiblt forthe preparation of the accounts In accordance woth the terms of the Charities Act 20111-the arfl. l report In respert of my examinatlon of the tharivs accounts carrled out under section 145 of the 2011 Act. and in carrying out my ex3mSnation. I have followed the appllcable directions given by the Charity Commlss6on under sectlon 145151 Ibl of the asls of Indeperrfent examlners statement I have completed my examlnatlon. I confim that no materfal matters have come to my attentlon In connectlon with the examination whSch gives mt tause to belle¥e that In anytnaterlal respect.. The accounting records were not kept In attordarKe wlth 130 of the Char iesAct: or the acco¢Jnts dld not accord with attountin8 records. I havè concerns and ha¥e acTOS$ Th) Other matters In connertlon to the examlnatlon to whlch attention Should be drawn in thls report in ordtr to enable a proper understandln8 of the accounts to be Teached. Slgned.........-. Inslty 68 Wln¢trArb)ur Kenllworth CV828