## **CROYDE BAPTIST CHURCH Trustees Annual Report and Accounts January to December 2024** Charity number: 1195855 ## **Constitution and Charitable status** The Church is governed by a constitution which was approved by the Church members in May 2021. The Church became a registered CIO on 21[st] September 2021. The principal purpose of the Church is the advancement of the Christian faith according to the Biblical principles of the Baptist denomination. The Church may also advance education and carry out other charitable purposes in the United Kingdom and/or other parts of the world. ## **Structure, Governance and Management** Members of the Church are accepted in accordance with the Constitution which requires them to have been publicly baptised on the profession of faith in Jesus Christ, or to have made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ. During 2024 we had approx. 70 people who worshipped with us on a regular basis including 45 in membership, and 23 children and young people. During this year we had no resignations. In July we baptised one of the young women in the sea. In 2024 four Church members' meetings were held. These meetings have responsibility for the overall life of the Church. The AGM was held on 7[th] July. The two parts of the leadership team continued to meet: Trustees, who, together with the Minister, are responsible for the day to day running of the Church including finances, H&S and premises and plant met four times; and the Church Life Team, who, with the Minister, oversee the life and ministry of the church, met every month, except in August, for prayer and discernment. Despite some long-term illness making attendance difficult for one trustee the trustees consisted of five members. However, one of the trustees stood down at the end of 2024 meaning we ended the year with just four members. The Church Life Team remained unchanged with six members. We were always on the lookout for additional trustees, especially to fill the position of treasurer or buildings manager, but no one came forward. As a Baptist church we believe in ‘the priesthood of all believers’, when every member is encouraged to take an appropriate part in the spiritual and practical tasks involved in the furtherance of the Church's purpose. Relevant matters may be submitted to the Church members' meeting by the Trustees for guidance and decision or may be raised by members in Church meeting for further consideration by the Trustees. Though the Constitution permits decisions to be made at Church meetings by appropriate majorities, the Church seeks to work by consensus wherever possible. ## **Objectives and Activities** To achieve the principal purpose, which is set out above, the Church provides a variety of activities both to its membership and to the community generally. The aim is to show the love of Jesus Christ through our relationships, our words and our actions. It has been good to continue to meet together and strengthen our fellowship. Though we like flexibility we have continued to follow a monthly pattern of services including an All-Age service with Communion on the first Sunday and a joint service with the Parish Church on any fifth Sunday. A typical week by week pattern is gathering over refreshments from 10.15am to 10.45am, worship, teaching, prayer followed by further refreshments afterwards. We also have lunch together every month on the first Sunday. It still proves difficult to get people together to pray together. An early morning prayer group at The Chapel still continues. Although small it still feels significant and we continue to hope that more in the church would feel led to be part of the prayer life of the church. An additional prayer group was initiated on a Tuesday evening at The Chapel. This is open to everyone but seems to be mostly populated by females. We had four small groups meeting regularly during the week for bible study, worship, fellowship and prayer. Many of them studied Romans with some material provided by Andrew Ollerton of the Bible Society. Some of the women in the church had another weekend together at Lee Abbey and a group of about 20 attended CreationFest in Wadebridge over the summer holidays. This Christian Festival was significant for many people but especially for some of the young adults who came with us. Some of them have a church background but some of them don’t and are new to faith, but each of them would say that this time at CreationFest was significant for their faith in Jesus. Some of them would be baptised at Easter 2025. Hannah, one of our younger women, went back to the Gold Coast in Australia to be part of a YWAM DTS (Youth With A Mission Discipleship Training School). She and a friend held many fundraising activities including a curry and quiz night, sausage sizzle and ice cream sale. As well as individual support, the church also decided to underwrite her costs. She left at the end of August and would not return until the New Year but she was regularly in our prayers. It was a great shock and sadness for the whole church, but of course particularly his whole family, to lose Jonathan Bailey in April. Jonathan, along with his siblings, grew up in the church. The church sought to uphold Jo and the family with their love, prayers and practical care. The plan was to purchase a bench for the church and locate it under a tree that he particularly loved to climb when he was younger. We have a small but steady group of children who are taught on Sundays by a small and committed team. We are blessed to have a thriving group of teenagers who continue to meet at the Chapel twice a month on a Sunday morning with Christine and Matt from St George’s House. In addition to our regular Sunday morning gatherings, we continue to enjoy our monthly informal worship gathering at the chapel on the third Sunday of the month called Sanctuary. These evenings have been very much appreciated by all who attend. A small team continue to provide Monday Mornings @ CBC, a drop in open to anyone in the community but in reality it is a toddler group for parents and their pre-school children. We continue to be thrilled with the way our Community Project in Georgeham is building community and strengthening our outreach. We continued to employ Liz two days a week to lead this work, which includes the toddler group above, a monthly community meal drawing together 30 plus people from the church and community, a termly Prayer Space at the local school, an Easter Trail on Good Friday, and our PopUp Café on a Friday which has been as popular as ever. We are still reliant on two grants we receive towards this, one from the Baptist Insurance Company and another from the South West Baptist Association. We need to review this arrangement in 2026. The Church operates Safeguarding Policy and Procedures to ensure that all people working with children and vulnerable adults are appropriately vetted with regard to the Disclosure and Barring Service. One of the trustees is the designated Safeguarding Trustee and we have a DPS and a deputy DPS who meet to review things as required. The responsible people have read, updated and monitored the guidance on Safeguarding provided by the SWBA, and are satisfied that the activities outlined above comply with our Policy and Procedures. We can’t measure ‘success’ with numbers alone so use rather less tangible things like fellowship, encouragement, spiritual growth and generally providing a positive, beneficial impact in the community. It felt that 2024 was a significant year for the church. As well as seeing new people joining us on Sundays it felt as though the church grew into a better place than it had been for a while. We thank God for this and credit him and the commitment of members of the church for this turnaround. Like most charities, Croyde Baptist Church is heavily dependent on its membership working as volunteers in all aspects of the Church’s activities, many of which run with little or no impact on the Church’s expenditure, but nevertheless contribute substantially to the achievement of the Church’s objectives. During the year, under the direction of Kerri Nias, we continued to have various focus’ on the environment and creation care. In March we had a tree planting and farm walk at one of our members farm. We devised a plan for the land attached to our church as our desire is that it will grow rich in biodiversity. And we continue to try and ensure that our activity and purchases are as environmentally care-full as possible. Purchases are not just made on the basis of cost but also on green and fairtrade credentials. ## **Ownership of property.** The church owns three premises: the premises known as Croyde Baptist Church, the property known as The Chapel, Georgeham, and the manse in Longland Lane in Georgeham. The legal titles to these properties are held by the church's custodian trustee (The Baptist Union Corporation Limited) for the church as the beneficial owner (subject to the relevant trusts). In August we made the decision to close the chapel as some of the walls had become saturated and were turning green. We thought it would just be a few months but in the end it turned out to be until May / June 2025. We received a grant of nearly £9,000.00 towards the costs of purchasing and installing a new kitchen so we undertook a small building project which included rectifying the underlying problem of leaking roof, new guttering, raking out old mortar and repointing with new, and installing a new kitchen. The impact of this was that we could not run Open House through the Autumn, we had to close the Co-Working space, we ran a series of Chapel Sessions at the Village Hall, we ran the PopUp Café from the Village Hall and the Community Meals at the church centre. We were thrilled with the improvements made and were very glad to eventually be able to return to the chapel in June 2025. During 2024 we continued to carry out improvement works to the main church building too. The main projects saw the front Gable End wall renovated, the renewal of two aspects of the church roof, the replacement of heaters, the installation of four destratification fans, and two blocks of solar panels on the roof. We continue to be grateful to a former member from whom we received a large bequest in 2023 which has enabled us to do so much of this work. Further maintenance work at the Chapel and The Church Centre is planned for 2025. ## **Financial Review and Independent examiner's report** The financial accounts for 2024 and report are set out in the accompanying financial statements. Apart from specific grants from external organisations, the Church raises all the funds which it needs to carry on its activities from within its own membership and congregation. In 2024 our new Treasurer, Ben Nias, kindly took over the role from Felix Milton. We were indebted to Felix for fulfilling this demanding role for a good number of years. Ben initiated a new accounting / expenses package called ExpensePlus. It took a while to embed but by the end of the year it seemed to be working well for us. The Examined Accounts and Trustees Report were approved by the Trustees at their meeting on Wednesday 16th July 2025 and was signed by the chair of the meeting. They will be presented to the church at our AGM on Sunday 20th July 2025. ## **Charity information** Trustees: Andrew McCausland (Minister and Chair of Trustees); Laura Nias (Church Sec); Cheryl Burge (Finance) and Jo Bailey (H&S). Registered Address: Croyde Baptist Church, St Mary’s Road, Cross, Croyde EX33 1PL Contact details: 07969969664 Email: croydebaptistchurch@gmail.com Web: https://www.croydebaptist.co.uk/ CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examiner's report on the accounts Section A Independent Exarniner's Report Rèport to the trustees c