CHURCHES TETHER inCUMBRIA God Anna Chaplaincy forAII Cumbria
V I C E P R E S I D E N T ' S R E P O R T
Revd Richard Snow, CTiC Vice President
No Report is available
FINANCIAL REPORT 2024
Revd Kath Dodd, CTiC Treasurer
Although 2024 saw us without an Ecumenical Social Responsibility Officer, CTIC was still able to use its funds to enable significant work to take place in the county.
CTIC provided administrative support for the Anna Chaplaincy Lead, Sam Pester; for Jo Phillips in her work with Modern Slavery; and for Jonny Gios as he completed the Social Action Audit in Westmorland and Furness. Grant funding is pursued where possible, and the work of Sam, Jo and Jonny has benefited in this way, with The Henry Smith Charity providing funding for Anna Chaplaincy for three years (to 30 September 2025), and with Westmorland and Furness providing grant funding for both Jo and Jonny. In addition, Jo was supported by the Blair Charitable Trust, and more recently by the Bishop Radford Trust.
CTIC have provided some funding to the Cumbria Ecumenical Spirituality Group, which comes under its auspices, in order to help the group to be sustainable and more effective.
CTIC ended the year with a surplus of funds of £27K due to the fact that we weren’t employing a Social Responsibility Officer. It felt necessary and right to take time to discern the way forward, and to be open to new ways of operating. The Trustees are pleased with the clarity that has emerged, and the recent formation of a team of three to work in the area of Social Responsibility, with each working approx. one day per week. This continues to be a time of exploration, but we trust God to lead.
We are currently looking for a Safeguarding Lead, as well as support in writing and updating necessary policies. We are ready to fund the work to enable CTIC to become fully compliant with the regulations.
We are grateful for the continuing funding from the member denominations and from local Churches Together groups. Let us together pray that CTIC continues to discern, maintain and develop its unique place in the county in the area of Social Responsibility, promoting prayer, and encouraging friendship and collaboration across the whole Christian family.
S O C I A L R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y
Revd Derek Lacey, CTiC Trustee
This report covers the period June 2024 to June 2025
Social Action Audit
In June 2024 the Social Action Audit for the Westmorland and Furness area was close to completion. Following its completion, events were held in Barrow, Kendal and Penrith to disseminate results and discuss how to respond. A further event was also held on-line.
The audit confirmed that churches in Westmorland and Furness remain engaged in social action and are meeting the needs of people of all ages through a wide range of activities. The audit also revealed a desire for more partnership working and we have since begun work to build new partnerships and develop new initiatives.
Modern Slavery
Jo Phillips continued to work on a modern slavery project funded by CTiC, Westmorland and Furness Council, The Bishop Radford Trust and the Blair Foundation. Over several years she has been very influential in raising awareness of modern slavery and led the work to create the Modern Slavery Champions Network and has supported the Cumbria Modern Slavery Partnership. Her work in support of the Partnership has ceased but she continues to organise and lead network events with the most recent held on 29 May.
S O C I A L R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y
Revd Derek Lacey, CTiC Trustee
Organisation and Staffing
CTiC activity related to social responsibility has been in decline for several years but this year has seen a significant turning point. This decline commenced during lockdowns with reduced participation in Social Responsibility Forum events. Efforts to revive the Forum met with some success but ceased when CTiC was unable to recruit a Social Responsibility Officer. After approximately 18 months with limited capacity for social action work CTiC has now assembled a team of 3 people to develop and deliver a programme of work over the next year. The team members are Jo Phillips, previously our Social Responsibility Officer, Jonny Gios, who conducted the recent Social Action Audit, and Lois Sparling, who was a coordinator for the South Lakes Poverty Truth Commission. Each will spend approximately one day per week working for CTiC. This will allow CTiC to resume its role in facilitating dialogue between Church, Statutory bodies and the Third Sector.
At the beginning of April, we met for a team building event at which we reviewed recent activities for insights that will help us to set our priorities. Sam Pester, the Anna Chaplaincy lead, joined the event to help us identify synergies between CTiC sponsored activities.
ANNA CHAPLAINCY
REPORT
Sam Pester AC Lead
This last year has seen a rapid growth for Anna Chaplaincy in Cumbria, with Anna Chaplains and Anna Friends helping 7372 people across Cumbria. The Anna Chaplains and Friends go into residential homes, nursing homes and private homes, supporting some of the most vulnerable members of society.
Anna Chaplaincy continues to reach people with a strong, little or no faith and last year some of our Anna Chaplains worked with end stage life for people who were atheist and had a strong disbelief in God. However, these people said that they found great comfort in being prayed for at the end of life and that they hoped there was a God.
The ministry is well supported by ordained ministers across the county, with many saying they find having an Anna Chaplain a real benefit to them as it helps take the workload pressure off them. Without an Anna Chaplain they would simply not be able to reach as many people as they do and so they are a vital support to the older person’s ministry in each parish. In addition, since having an Anna Chaplain in place, they find that their church grows and the congregation increases, because the older people feel that they will be catered for in a special service or ministry.
Smaller independent churches are also coming forward and supporting having an Anna Chaplain, but it can be difficult to get a DBS for them.
We currently have 16 Anna Chaplains and 34 Anna Friends working across the county and some 60 volunteers. We have 8 more Anna Friends currently going through the Safer recruitment stage and waiting to join us.
We have been grateful for three-year funding from the Henry Smith Trust. This finishes at the end of September 2025, so we are pursuing new avenues of funding to take us forward.
We are making strong links across other services such as Linking Lives, which is a church run charity reaching out to people suffering from loneliness and which offers a befriending service. We are in talks with Terry Peate (Ambassador for Linking Lives) to see how we can work together. There are also 150 dementia enablers which we aim to contact to ask if they would like to join our ministry.
C U M B R I A E C U M E N I C A L S P I R I T U A L I T Y G R O U P Revd Kath Dodd
Our vision:
To journey with Christians in Cumbria in discovering the joy and depth of prayer as it draws us home to God, and to ourselves, and to the world in which we live.
To encourage everyone to discover their unique pathway to enjoying God and glorifying him in their daily lives.
A priority is to continue to nourish the Spiritual Directors Network. This past year we held a resource day, repeated in the north and south of the county entitled, Death and Resurrection: motifs for God’s work in our lives. Our November Network Day at Rydal Hall was well attended. Rev Lisa Moore Wilson (Minister of The Cumbria Missional Partnership, United Reformed Church) shared her insights into sustaining the prayer life of clergy and Christian workers, and we also had input from two of our own Network spiritual directors on the topic of giving spiritual direction to clergy and Christian workers, and receiving direction as clergy.
We continue to advertise in the CTiC newsletter, the Diocesan newsletter, and further afield in the Retreat Association Handbook, and through our own website (cesg.org.uk). In response to increased interest from the denominations in providing spiritual direction for their clergy, we have engaged with Rachel Head (God4All Director of Mission and Ministry, Support and Innovation). A new flyer introducing spiritual direction and CESG has been produced to assist Rachel as she networks around the Diocese. In the winter of 2024, after liaising with Nicky Smith (Director of Ministry Development), we presented a five-session online course, under the auspices of the GodForAll Discipleship Project (Coming home: an introduction to ways of praying). The uptake was good and it was well received.
We were invited to attend the CTiC AGM in 2024 and led three workshops on various aspects of prayer. We were grateful for this opportunity. This year CTiC has granted CESG £1500 toward operating and development costs for which we are grateful.
C U M B R I A E C U M E N I C A L S P I R I T U A L I T Y G R O U P Revd Kath Dodd
Looking ahead, we want to be positioned so that we can work alongside CTiC, God4All and other groups where appropriate. Ongoing work for the team is to update and make fit for purpose our policy documents, and also develop an audit mechanism for the Network whereby we can identify how best to support them and clarify what our requirements and recommendations are. We continue to resource the Network through our resource days (this year we will hold two days on using art in spiritual direction), and hope to be a resource to the county through providing resources for God4All projects such as the ToolShed.
For help in finding a spiritual director, contact Ruth Lee on sd.cesg@gmail.com. For general enquiries, contact our administrator, Jo Maybury on assistantcesg@gmail.com Website: cesg.org.uk
Jo Maybury, Administrator
CESG team members Helen Bailey, Ali Betteridge, Kath Dodd, Becca Gilbert, Ruth Lee, Jo Maybury (admin support), Lesley McCririe
M E M B E R C H U R C H E S
Baptist Union of Great Britain Religious Society of Friends Methodist Church United Reformed Church
Church of England Salvation Army Roman Catholic Church
C T I C T R U S T E E S
Mr Paul Burden Revd Derek Lacey Revd Richard Snow Revd Alistair Smeaton Mr Bill Bewley Revd Kath Dodd O F F I C E R S , S T A F F A N D V O L U N T E E R S U P P O R T
Vice-President: Revd Richard Snow Treasurer: Revd Kath Dodd Administrator: Danielle Henshaw Chair of Social Responsibility Forum: Revd Derek Lacey Anna Chaplaincy Lead: Samantha Pester Chair of Anna Chaplaincy Advisory Committee: Mr Paul Burden
C O M M U N I T Y S O C I A L A C T I O N T E A M
North Cumbria: Jo Phillips - jo@churchestogethercumbria.org.uk West & Central Cumbria: Lois Sparling - community.chaplain.gmc@gmail.com South & East Cumbria: Revd Jonny Gios - jgios@me.com
www.churchestogethercumbria.org.uk | Registered Charity: 1191358
Charity Name Churches Together in Cumbria Receipts and payments accounts For the period from Period start date 1.1.2024
| Section A Receipts and payments | ||
|---|---|---|
| Unrestricted funds | Restricted funds | |
| to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | |
| A1 Receipts | ||
| Denominations | 35437.72 | 0 |
| Local Groups Donations received | 1890 | 0 |
| Other member donations received | 160 | 0 |
| Modern Slavery Project | 0 | 7250 |
| Social Action Audit - restricted grant | 0 | 4000 |
| Deposit account interest received | 256.09 | 0 |
| The Henry Smith Charity | 0 | 25900 |
| Anna Chaplaincy - Christmas Trees | 0 | 197.72 |
| Sub total(Gross income for AR) | 37743.81 | 37347.72 |
| A2 Asset and investment sales, (see table). | ||
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| Sub total | 0 | 0 |
| Total receipts | 37743.81 | 37347.72 |
| A3 Payments | ||
| Salary costs- Modern Slavery project | 0 | 6498 |
| Anna Chaplaincy Salary costs | 0 | 22930 |
| Modern slavery project- expenses | 0 | 147 |
| Trustees & Volunteers expenses | 1353.4 | 0 |
| Social Action audit project costs | 5611.47 | 0 |
| Social action audit-restricted costs | 0 | 2000 |
| Social Action audit- event costs | 546.5 | 0 |
| Organisation insurance costs | 749.51 | 0 |
| Finance, Admin & examiner costs | 2260.23 | 2178 |
| Meetings costs incl room hire | 848.91 | 409.53 |
| Website costs | 442.72 | 0 |
| Payroll costs | 198 | 198 |
| Secretarial costs | 272.54 | 75.47 |
| Anna Chaplaincy Training costs | 0 | 349.99 |
| Honorarium costs | 0 | 1000 |
| Anna Chaplaincy expenses | 0 | 1379.48 |
| Donations & grants paid | 966.45 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 |
| Sub total | 13249.73 | 37165.47 |
|---|---|---|
| A4 Asset and investment purchases, (see table) | ||
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| Sub total | 0 | 0 |
| Total payments | 13249.73 | 37165.47 |
| Net of receipts/(payments) | 24494.08 | 182.25 |
| A5 Transfers between funds | 0 | 0 |
| A6 Cash funds last year end | 0 | 0 |
| Cash funds this year end | 24494.08 | 182.25 |
Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period Categories Details B1 Cash funds Current Account balance at 31.12.2024 Deposit account balance at 31.12.24
Total cash funds (agree balances with receipts and payments account(
Details
B2 Other monetary assets
Details
B3 Investment assets
Details
B4 Assets retained for the charity’s own use
Details
B5 Liabilities Nest creditor at 31.12.2024
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf of Signature
No (if any) CC16a 1191358 To Period end date 31.12.2024
| Endowment funds | Total funds | Last year |
|---|---|---|
| to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ | to the nearest £ |
| 0 | 35437.72 | 33988.3 |
| 0 | 1890 | 1400 |
| 0 | 160 | 860 |
| 0 | 7250 | 0 |
| 0 | 4000 | 0 |
| 0 | 256.09 | 187.54 |
| 0 | 25900 | 24400 |
| 0 | 197.72 | 128 |
| 0 | 75091.53 | 60963.84 |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 75091.53 | 60963.84 |
| 0 | 6498 | 24076 |
| 0 | 22930 | 16071 |
| 0 | 147 | 2611.72 |
| 0 | 1353.4 | 391.1 |
| 0 | 5611.47 | 0 |
| 0 | 2000 | 0 |
| 0 | 546.5 | 0 |
| 0 | 749.51 | 593.1 |
| 0 | 4438.23 | 3454 |
| 0 | 1258.44 | 999.38 |
| 0 | 442.72 | 365.57 |
| 0 | 396 | 387 |
| 348.01 | 2962 | |
| 0 | 349.99 | 467.7 |
| 0 | 1000 | 0 |
| 0 | 1379.48 | 1875.24 |
| 0 | 966.45 | 1036 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 50415.2 | 55289.81 |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 50415.2 | 55289.81 |
| 0 | 24676.33 | 5674.03 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 24676.33 | 5674.03 |
| Unrestricted funds | Restricted funds | Endowment funds |
| to nearest £ | to nearest £ | to nearest £ |
| 70365.36 | 24939.39 | 0 |
| 21755.75 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 92121.11 | 24939.39 | 0 |
| Agreement Error | Agreement Error | OK |
| Unrestricted funds | Restricted funds | Endowment funds |
| to nearest £ | to nearest £ | to nearest £ |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Fund to which asset | belongCost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| Fund to which asset | belongCost (optional) | Current value (optional) |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 | |
| 0 | 0 |
0 0 0 0 0 0
Fund to which liability relatAmount due (optional) When due (optional) 256.19 0 0 0 0 0
Print Name Kath Dodd- Treasurer
Date of approval
2.7.25
CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner's Report Report to the trusteesl members of Churches Together in Cumbria On accounts for the yoar ènded 31" Decomber 2024 Charity no (if any) 1191358 Set out on pages I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity I'the Trusv) for the year ended 3111212024 Responsibilities and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation basis of report of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 1"the Acr). I report in respect of my examination of the Tnjst's accounts carried out under secti¢Jn 145 of Ihe 2011 Act and in carrying out my examinat"on, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 14515llbl of the Act. I have completed my examination. I confim that no material matters have come to my attention {other than that disclosed below.) in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect.. accounting records were not kept in accordance wth section 130 of the Act or the accounts do not qccord with the accounting records Ind8p8nd8nt examinerfs statement I have no concems and have come across no otrTrer matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts lo be reached. Please delete the words in the brack@ts if they do not apply. Signed: Date: Name: Relevant professlonal qualification{sl or body (if any): Ef/in OF A£gLfiAfJo OF T4ykTrf/dM fECI¥I 71• Address: Cvn IER October 2018