## Wormley Free Church Annual Report _(Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion) Office: Huntingdon Lodge, High Road, Broxbourne, Herts. EN10 6AA Registered Charity No. 1194850_ ## Trustees Annual Report to June 2023 Until 2021, Wormley Free Church was a constituent part of the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion charity, reference 232674. On 18th June 2021 the church was separately registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), with the charity number 1194850. This report including financial statements covers the year from June 2022 - June 2023, the second full year of the charity. ## General Aims and Objectives As laid out in the Wormley Free Church CIO Constitution, the objects of the CIO for the public benefit are to advance the Christian faith in accordance with the Statement of Beliefs appearing in the Schedule hereto in Wormley, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire and in such other parts of the United Kingdom or the world as the charity trustees may from time to time think fit. We seek to fulfil these objectives through communicating the Christian faith in relevant ways to our local communities, enabling as many as possible to worship with the church and to become part of our community, and seeking to serve the needs of local people. We seek to enable people to live out their faith through: - Conducting missionary and outreach work - Working with all ages including the elderly and young people - Offering collective worship - Providing education regarding the Christian faith - Providing pastoral support To facilitate this work we employ a minister, Rev. Benjamin Quant, and maintain the fabric of the church building and manse, and hire the local Community Centre for our Sunday service. We employ Mrs Amanda Newman for 2 hours each week to clean the Church. ## Mission & Outreach As a church, sharing our faith through showing and communicating God’s love is a core feature of our life. We encouraged and supported our members in doing so in their daily lives as the ‘dispersed church’. Alongside this we ran organised activities as the ‘gathered church’. These included: - **The Drop-In:** A weekly lunch and chance to meet others, open to all but primarily for local elderly people, especially those living on their own. There is no charge for this, 1 - instead there is a small suggested donation (£2) to enable the group to be sustainable but not prohibit attendance. - **Parent & Toddlers:** We ran a weekly toddler group on Wednesday mornings for local parents/grandparents/carers and their children. This is a long established group with a widely regarded reputation, involving play, refreshments and ‘song-time’. Again, no charge is made, but there is a suggested donation of £1 per adult and per child. We also experimented with a monthly ‘toddler service’ (a simple worship service appropriate for children and carers who attend Toddlers). - **Broxbourne Foodbank:** The church hosted, coordinated and helped staff the primary distribution point for Broxbourne Foodbank (Charity No. 1157199), of which our minister and another church member are trustees. We do not charge for the use of our facilities, seeing this as an important part of our outreach. - **Broxbourne Nursing Home:** This year we started regular services at the new Broxbourne Nursing Home, working with St. Laurence (Wormley) and St. Augustines (Broxbourne) CofE Churches. - **Youth Group:** We started a monthly youth night on Sundays for youth in the congregation and their friends should they wish to attend. This focuses on building relationships, having fun, and developing faith and understanding through a ‘thought for the day’ and time of prayer. - **Seeker Courses:** In the past we have run courses such as Alpha for those outside the church who wish to learn more about the faith in a ‘no strings attached’ way. No courses were run this year as we focussed on other aspects of our activity. We ran seasonal services and activities at Harvest, Christmas and Easter to attract and communicate the Christian faith to those who are not Christians or do not usually attend church. Some of these involved working with local schools, churches and organisations, such as those listed in ‘Other Organisations’ below. ## All Age Activity We sought to include, support and reach out to all ages, for example over the year we offered: - **Age Appropriate Activities in our Services:** See ‘Collective Worship’ below. - **The Drop In:** See ‘Mission & Outreach’ above. - **Broxbourne Nursing Home:** See ‘Mission & Outreach’ above. - **Schools Work:** Our minister regularly conducts assemblies in Wormley and Broxbourne Primary Schools, takes part in lessons, and plays an active part in the school community. He also conducted Christmas and Harvest Services for the Foundation Stage, and Christingle Services for the main school at Wormley. In addition he talked to pupils at Woodside Primary School, Goffs Oak, about Christmas and Easter. ## Collective Worship Over the year, we continued to hold services in Wormley Community Centre and sought to ensure our services were accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds, and welcoming 2 to visitors as well as regular members. The use of the Community Centre rather than our own building was for a number of reasons. Our own building limits what we are able to offer: the kitchen is in need of refurbishment and bringing up to the appropriate standard; space and the number of rooms is limited; and there are challenges in making it as accessible as we would like it to be, eg. it does not currently have adequate provision for disabled toilets. We would like to address these issues but do not currently have the necessary finance. Geographically, the Community Centre is nearer the heart of Wormley and so more visible than our own premises. This is enhanced by being located near a busy local store. It also has more rooms than our premises, enabling space to provide activities for young people. We provided a creché for toddlers and ‘Sunday Club’ for primary school aged children. Over the year we only had three secondary school aged children, these remained in the main service. Provision was made to make this more engaging for them, an aspect we have started to actively develop further (from September 2023 we anticipate an increasing number of ‘youth’, and so this will be actively developed further). On the first Sunday of the month and on special days in the church calendar we held all-age services. Although we have a paid minister, we encourage active participation within our services, and have a range of people in our preaching and service leading team, of different nationalities, ages, backgrounds and genders. We continued to provide a live-stream and archive of our services on YouTube and our website. This made them accessible for those unable to attend in person. Through use of slido.com, those watching online could interact with us during the services. This has supported those who are unable to attend through illness, through being away, or living outside our local area, particularly those who have moved away and who wish to maintain a relationship with us. This continued to provide a way for those looking for a church to find out about us, along with the website, which we have begun redesigning to make the home page more orientated towards the general public, rather than those already attending the church. We hope to have this redesign launched in 2023/24. ## Education Alongside the teaching that took place in Sunday services, we provided a midweek Bible study group. This has continued to take place online as this better suits the lives of our members and makes it available to others outside the area. We also provided a daily Bible Note by email (Monday - Friday), often based on the previous Sunday services’ theme (these are available to the wider public via our website), and weekly email newsletter providing information about our faith, pointing to interesting articles and pieces of news on the internet, and publicising events and activities coming up. We celebrated our minister completing and graduating his Doctorate of Ministry (DMin) course through Spurgeon’s College. A significant aspect of our education work outside the congregation, takes place in our local schools (see ‘All-Age Activity’ below). 3 ## Pastoral Support Pastoral support was offered to our membership through the leadership team through visits, phone calls, emails, and prayer as desired/appropriate, as well as mutual support being encouraged amongst our members. We continued to be committed to offering prayer support through weekly prayer meetings, praying for the needs of the church and the world, and a prayer request WhatsApp group. Pastoral support was also made available to those beyond our membership, to those who attend our regular activities and the wider community. This included opportunities to talk and be prayed for, as well as the provision of funeral services, weddings and dedication / thanksgiving services for children. ## Specific Objectives for 2022/23 At the start of the year, the church leadership and membership prayerfully considered what specific objectives we should focus on for this year, alongside maintaining our ongoing work. Two areas were highlighted and agreed upon: responding to the needs of the emerging youth in the church, and refurbishing and developing the church kitchen. ## Youth Work Over recent years, the church has unusually had few or no youth. This year, we saw the start of a cohort moving up from our children’s work (primary school aged and below) to youth (secondary school). We are delighted by this development, as having an all-age community has always been part of our identity as described in our Church Values and Mission Statement. We recognised, however, that we did not, at this stage, have the resources to provide separate youth activities in our services, and a regular youth programme alongside them. In response we have sought to develop ways of adapting our services, in particular our sermons, to better meet their needs, without ‘dumbing them down’. We have sought to make them interactive and have provided resources within the services to help engage them. We have also sought to find ways in which they can be active participants, not just consumers, such as doing readings, saying prayers, and helping with the IT arrangements. Alongside this we started a monthly youth group on a Sunday evening, which includes a fun social activity and ‘thought for the day’, and encourages them to develop their relationships with each other and the adult leaders. ## Kitchen Refurbishment & Development The kitchen has often been at the heart of our life as a community and at the heart of our outreach. From being used for: teas and coffees after services, meals together, and a place to creatively design and make hot chocolate with the youth, to being a key component in outreach such as for: meals for Alpha Courses (courses for those exploring Christianity), our weekly Drop In lunch for the local community (mainly attended by elderly people living on their own), meals for the Winter Night Shelter, and refreshments for our Toddler Group and Foodbank volunteers. It is, however, small, making it difficult for more than one or two people to use it at once, in a poor state of repair, and not attractive to the wider community of potential hall hirers. To make it fit for purpose and to enable us to expand the scope of our 4 provision to the congregation and wider community, we decided to investigate refurbishing it and the possibility of extending it. To this end we have had discussions with a variety of builders, kitchen designers and fitters, and a structural engineer. We cannot extend the kitchen outwards, only inwards, and this involves complications due to load bearing walls being involved and previous alterations. A plan for extending the kitchen through installing a ‘bar-area’ in our backroom beyond the current kitchen, which minimises structural alterations, but significantly increases preparation space, has been devised. This would also create a social focal point around the kitchen, in keeping with the character of the church community. At the end of the year, discussions with others with expertise in the area of building development, grant applications and funding opportunities, has led us to the realisation that a far wider redevelopment might be possible, involving the whole church building, incorporating aspects such as increasing accessibility through installing proper disabled toilets, making the church lighter and more welcome through installing better/more windows, and investigating environmental aspects such as installing solar panels. This would lead to a building that is far more attractive to and better equipped to serve the congregation and wider community. In light of this, we plan in 2023/24, to investigate this wider scope, whilst remaining mindful of the need to attend to the current kitchen provision. The funds required for this project are likely to exceed what is able to be raised from individual donations, and so the prayerful consideration of which trusts and foundations to approach for funding is key to realising this vision, given as a church we do not have the type of reserves to enable such a project. At the heart of this project is the desire to consider what type of building and facilities we need to better serve the wider community. For example, there are practical needs, such as needing to improve accessibility. In addition, although the church is in use every single day of the week, there is a vision to improve the welcome and entrance, so that the whole community knows that we are open for all. We are also keen to take into consideration environmental aspects such as the need to replace very inefficient windows and include other positive additions such as solar panels. To this end, discussions with an architect are helping to ensure that the kitchen refurbishment is approached in the context of the wider development that would transform the impact the church is able to make, should funding be secured. In this regard, both the kitchen refurbishment and any further development, would lead to a building that is far more attractive to and better equipped to serve the congregation and wider community. In light of this, we plan in 2023/24, to investigate this wider scope, whilst hopefully having secured funding for the kitchen refurbishment. ## Other Activity ## Summer Socials Over August we took a break from our Bible Study, prayer meeting and Toddler Group programmes, and held a series of ‘Summer Socials’, activities designed to encourage 5 building and deepening relationships. These included activities such as a nature walk, boardgames evening, table tennis night, and an open house. These were open to all ages and we encouraged the congregation to invite their friends to join us. ## Other Organisations Where appropriate to our aims and objectives, we have worked with and supported other organisations, including financially as permitted by our aims and objectives. Over the course of the year this included: - **Broxbourne Foodbank** See ‘Mission & Outreach’ above. As well as not charging for their use of the church, and directly supporting through volunteers, we also started collecting food for the foodbank in Sunday services as part of our offering/worship. - **Churches Together in Hoddesdon, Broxbourne & Wormley (CTHBW):** We are an active member of CTHBW, participating in a number of the activities they run and support (such as distributing starter packs for homeless people who are housed by the council, the Foodbank, joint church services, seasonal outreach, ministers’ lunches and prayer meetings). As permitted by our objectives, we pay an annual subscription fee. - **The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion:** The church is part of The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion (charity no. 232674), and our church building and manse belong to them. One of our leadership team is the chair of trustees for The Connexion, and our minister is another trustee. We send representatives to their annual Conference and contribute financially to its central funds on a regular basis. - **The Evangelical Alliance:** We are members of the Evangelical Alliance, UK (charity no. 212325), and pay an annual subscription fee. - **The Sierra Leone Mission (SLM):** The SLM is the overseas mission branch of The Connexion, which encourages and supports churches and schools in Sierra Leone, West Africa. One of our members is a committee member for the SLM. We seek to inform our congregation of the work of the SLM, put together alongside other Connexional churches, shoebags full of Christmas gifts for children in Sierra Leone, and support the SLM financially on a regular basis. - **Wormley and Broxbourne Primary Schools** See ‘All Age Activity’ above. - **Wormley Scouting Organisations** Our minister was invited to lead a time of reflection for the local Scouting groups as part of their Remembrance Sunday activities. - **The Wormley & Turnford Big Local (WTBL):** WTBL are a local project run by The Big Local charity (no. 1145916) who have the objective of building and developing our local community. They run the Wormley Community Centre where we meet. In light of our close aims and objectives, and the fact that they run the Community Centre that we hire for our services, we sought to develop a good working relationship with them, and seek ways in which we could work together that were mutually beneficial. This included participating in and helping organise their Platinum Jubilee Celebrations for Queen Elizabeth on June 2nd 2022, and their Christmas ‘Party’. We plan to continue to develop this relationship and joint activity. - **Young Life International, Hoddesdon:** Young Life (YL) is a local para-church youth work, which works with church and non-church youth. We have sought to support their work as part of our outreach objective, and as a resource for our own youth, 6 aware that we have not offered youth work of our own. We have supported YL financially. ## Hall Hire We make our church premises available for ‘hall hire’ as a source of revenue and as a way of supporting local community events and activities in line with our objectives. Over the Covid Lockdowns, this ceased, the only activity continuing in the church being the Foodbank. With the end of lockdown, it was made available again, and was used by one weekly group (Saracens Cheerleading class), monthly by Women Aglow, and _ad hoc_ childrens’ parties and other events. We anticipate that this will increase now the impact of the pandemic is decreasing. A local Cocaine Anonymous group has also used the premises regularly since June 2022. ## Volunteers The church fellowship cannot function without the assistance of volunteers. We encourage our members to play an active part in running and attending our activities, and we are grateful for their participation. ## Safeguarding & Food Safety As a church we recognise the importance of safeguarding, including child protection and caring for vulnerable adults. We have a safeguarding policy in place which we review on a regular basis. This is available on our website. We also recognise the importance of food hygiene and ask those with responsibility for the preparation and serving of food to have up to date training (Level 2 Food Safety & Hygiene). ## Financial Review ## _See Accounts below_ ## **Income** The total receipts on unrestricted funds were £43,110.86 and restricted funds of £14,077.51 giving a total income of £57,188.37 an increase of £5,889.19 in comparison to the total income of £51,299.18 in 2022-23. ## **Expenditure** Over the year we spent £48,654.64 from unrestricted funds and £2,834.05 from restricted funds, giving a total expenditure of £51,488.69, an increase of £4,204.22 when compared to the previous year’s total of £47.284.47. ## **Balance** Our closing balance was £30,725.22, an increase of £5699.68 on last year’s balance of £25,025.54. 7 ## Reserves Policy It is the church policy to maintain an unrestricted balance of 3 months unrestricted expenditure or £13500 whichever is greater to cover emergency situations that may arise from time to time. Our outstanding Gift Aid Claim of £19,440.71 (£3,250 restricted, £16,190.71 unrestricted) was received on 13/9/2023 giving an unrestricted balance of about £24,400 which exceeds the target. ## Administrative Information The church is situated at High Road, Broxbourne, EN10 6EN. Its registered office is Huntingdon Lodge, High Road, Broxbourne, Herts. EN10 6AA. The church has been a registered CIO since 18th June 2021. The Trustees that have served during the year are: - Mrs Jennifer Vallely - Mr Jonathan Asaffo - Mrs Jennifer Dobson Jennifer Dobson’s term of office comes to an end at our October AGM when she will stand down. Judith Mughogo has agreed to be nominated as her replacement subject to the memberships approval. We maintain a website: www.wormleyfreechurch.org.uk in order to support and publicise our activities. ## Statements During the year there have been no serious incidents or loss of funds that would pose a serious risk to the Charities beneficiaries, resources or reputation. ## Declaration I declare that this is a true report and in my capacity of Chair of Trustees I am authorised to sign it on behalf of the Trustees. Name: JENNIFER VALLELY Signature: Date: 09.10.23 8 CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Section A Independent Examiner s Report Report to the trusteesl membors of Worrnley Free Church On accounts for the year ended June 2023 Charlty no (If any) 1194850 Set out on pages I report to the tn￿teeS on my examination of the accounts of the above tharity (Ihe Trusf) for the year ended 3010612023. Rospon8lbllltl•s and As the charity trustees of the Trust. you are responsible for the preparation basls of report of the accounts in aCC(￿nce with the requirements of the Chartti8s Act 2011 {-the Acr). I report In respect of my examination of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Direction5 given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5Xb) of the Act. I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that In, any material respect: accounting rec¥)rds were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or th8 accounts do rK)t ￿ wbth ac(￿ntIng re(xxds Independent examlnerfs stalement I have no concems and have C￿ne across no other matters in connection with the examination to whith attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper undetstanding of the accounts to be reached. Slgn•d: 1)911012023 Narno: Graham Squibbs Relevant professlonal quallficatlon(s} or body (If any): Address: 15 Springfiekl Road, Middleton. Manchester M24 5DL **----- Start of picture text -----**
Wormley Free Church 1194850
Receipts and payments accounts CC16a
For the period !st July 2022 30th June 2023
To
from
Section A Receipts and payments
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
Total funds Last year
funds funds funds
to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
A1 Receipts
Voluntary Income 38,890 11,005 - 49,895 37,664
Activities for Generating Funds - - - - -
Income from Investments 57 - 57 15
Income from Church Activities - - - - -
Other Incoming Resources - - - -
Gift Aid Tax Refund 1,453 - 1,453 8,295
Rent 2,711 - - 2,711 1,708
Gifts for Sierra Leone Mission - - 50
Gifts for Individuals 510 510 1,958
Drop In 1,333 1,333 801
Parents and Toddlers 943 943 808
Social/ Community Fund Fund 286 286 -
Sub total (Gross income for
AR) [ 43,111 ] 14,078 - 57,188 51,299
A2 Asset and investment sales,
(see table).
- - - -
- - - - -
Sub total - - - - -
Total receipts 43,111 14,078 - 57,188 51,299
A3 Payments
Salaries, Expenses and Pension 38,452 - - 38,452 34,418
Repairs and Maintenance 166 600 - 766 1,064
Insurance and Water 1,564 - - 1,564 1,496
Overheads and Expenses 7,312 - - 7,312 5,922
Conferences 200 - - 200 190
Independent Examination Fees - -
Youth Work - - 17
Other Charities 160 5 - 165 390
Mission 400 - - 400 400
Sierra Leone Mission 400 400 450
Gifts for Individuals 510 510 1,957
Drop In 1,086 1,086 643
Parents and Toddlers - 217 - 217 317
Social/ Community Fund - 416 - 416 20
Sub total [ 48,655 ] 2,834 - 51,489 47,284
A4 Asset and investment
purchases, (see table)
- - - -
- - - -
Sub total [ - ] - - - -
Total payments 48,655 2,834 - 51,489 47,284
Net of receipts/(payments) - 5,544 11,243 - 5,700 4,015
A5 Transfers between funds 1,204 - 1,204 - - -
A6 Cash funds last year end 12,555 12,470 - 25,026 21,011
Cash funds this year end 8,215 22,510 - 30,725 25,026
**----- End of picture text -----**
10 CCXX R1 accounts (SS) 24/01/2024 1 |**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at**|**Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at**|**the end of the period**|| |---|---|---|---| |**Categories**
Signed by one or two trustees on
behalf of all the trustees
**B1 Cash funds**
**B2 Other monetary assets**
**B4 Assets retained for the**
**charity’s own use**
**B5 Liabilities**
**B3 Investment assets**|Signature
Outstanding Tax Payments
**Details**
**Details**
Bank (Business Bank Instant Account)
Short Term Deposits (Treasurers Accounts)
Cash
**Details**
**Details**
**_Total cash funds_**
(agree balances with receipts and payments
account(s))
Gift Aid Tax refunds due
**Details**|**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**5,018**
**10,000**
**3,187**
**11,892**
**10**
**618**
**8,215**
**22,510**
OK
OK
**Unrestricted**
**funds**
**Restricted**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
**to nearest £**
**18,159**
**3,250**
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**-**
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**Fund to which**
**asset belongs**
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**liability relates**
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Unrestricted
**567**
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Print Name
JENNIFER VALLELY|**Endowment**
**funds**
**to nearest £**
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**funds**
**to nearest £**
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**When due**
**(optional)**
**05 July 2023**
Date of
approval
09/10/2023| CCXX R2 accounts (SS) 11 2 24/01/2024