2022-12-31-accounts - Trust Property Held In Connection With Sycamore Chapel (Independent Evangelical Church)

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St. Francis of Assisi Links Road Radford Coventry

Diocese of Coventry

ANNUAL REPORT 2022

The Parochial Church Council (PCC) of St Francis presents its annual report and accounts in respect of the year to 31st December 2022

The PCC is a charity excepted from registration with the Charity Commissioners.

Background

The PCC of St Francis has responsibility with the Vicar, (currently in Interregnum), for promoting the whole mission of the church, pastoral, evangelistic, social, ecumenical, in the Church of England parish, within the Deanery of Coventry North and Diocese of Coventry, together with the oversight of the Church Building of St. Francis, its two halls and grounds.

The new parish (pastoral scheme) will consist of a population of almost 20,000 people once it comes into place when the sale of St Nicholas is completed.

Membership

Members of the PCC are either ex officio or elected by the APCM in accordance with the Church Representation Rules.

Vicar: Vacancy Wardens: Sue Williams Representatives on the Deanery Synod (serving until APCM 2023) Sue Williams (Ex officio, Diocesan Synod, Bishops Council) Kate Hughes (PCC Secretary) (Licensed to Preach) David Brightwell (Electoral Roll Officer) Ogechi Ngemegwa (Treasurer) (Also Diocesan Synod, Bishops Council) Elected Members (serving until APCM 2023) Lawrencia Asare Patience Okojie Nkem Nwokeocha Penny Phillips Joanna Gerrard (co-opted) Sascha Eley Natasha Church Kevin Read (co-opted) Keith Oliver Rea Oliver Stacey Fennell (Safeguarding Officer)

The PCC met 5 times during the year (either by Zoom or in church) and had a social evening in November.

Standing Committee

The Standing Committee of the PCC consists of the Vicar (when appointed), Sue Williams (Churchwarden), Kate Hughes (PCC Secretary), Ogechi Ngemegwai (Church Treasurer), David Brightwell and Rea Oliver, and met several times during the year as needed.

Church Membership (Electoral Roll)

There are 53 members on the Electoral Roll as at the Annual Meeting, 18 resident and 35 not resident within the parish.

Officers

Sue Williams has continued to serve as Warden looking after and preparing for services, booking clergy cover along with a host of other responsibilities involved with an Interregnum. Kate Hughes, David Brightwell and Ogechi Ngemegwai have been the church’s Deanery Synod Representatives. Sue Williams has also continued as our Diocesan Synod Representive and has been joined this year by Ogechi, who has also been elected for the next three years. Kate Hughes acts as Parish Information Officer . Sue and Ogechi have also continued sitting on the Bishop’s Council – a very different experience and one which they are now getting to grips with.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

The great event of this year was that, after a second round of interviews in July, a new vicar was appointed for the parish of St Francis. Due to having to give notice in her present parish and problems with our vicarage, Revd Aggy Palairet was not inducted until 24 January 2023, but it was wonderful to have the prospect of our own parish priest again and she was given a great welcome.

In the meantime parish life continued, with the help of local clergy taking services on Sundays and special occasions – we are immensely grateful to them for their help, and they all seemed to enjoy being with us. Thanks to all the congregation helping, we maintained the normal life of the church, joining with the Methodists for a Lent course, ‘Living Generously’, produced by the diocese. In June we joined the Employability Project for a lunch celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, and had our APCM on 12 June. On a Saturday in September, the church was open in the morning for anyone wishing to pray for the late Queen and the royal family and sign a book of condolence, and on the day of her funeral the church bell was solemnly tolled. On 11 September we held a Songs of Praise in the church; Advent was marked by a lovely wreath, and twice during the weeks before Christmas we had an Advent Hush service – a quiet time of readings and reflection in preparation for the Nativity. On 3 December our Christmas Fayre was a great success, making nearly £1,000. And throughout the year the St Francis Dining Club has met every month at different local pubs and restaurants for an enjoyable time of fellowship.

Rainbows, Brownies and Guides are all flourishing and enjoying lots of activities. And as you will see from their own report, the St Francis Employability Project has been busier than ever. Many people comment on the friendliness of the people at St Francis, and we are grateful for God’s help that has enabled us to continue to show the love and care of Jesus to the people of Radford. We know that God will continue to go with us as we move into the future with Aggy, our new parish priest.

Employability Report

2022 was a very busy and exciting year for St Francis Employability, being the first year without any covid 19 restrictions for 2years we were able to plan forward more freely and explore more opportunities for us as a charity and our clients.

Throughout 2022 we have had 38 different staff members and 180 volunteers work with us across various roles to support our projects. We have continued to deliver under 7 key projects which have built our core service offer to the community. This has included our Reaching Communities project that provides community support helping members of the community with anything from benefit applications, school applications, bills, form filling, and much more. Our work club has continued with the computer area available for all to use with 121 support available for those needing it with job search, CV writing and job applications. Volunteering is also a part of our Reaching Communities project with 180 volunteers coming through our doors throughout 2022 to grain practical work experience, improve their confidence and gain workplace skills.

Our ESOL for All project has continued with numbers wanting to engage in ESOL support rapidly increasing. At the end of 2022 we had over 200 people on our class waiting lists. We did successfully gain funding to support these classes for the remainder of the year, however this has not allowed us to expand our delivery to meet the needs in the city. Within this project we have engaged with a significant number of clients across 63 different languages. The number of clients requesting ESOL is continuing to grow, and we are working on looking at how we can best support the highest number of students we can.

Our work with refugees in the city has also continued and expanded. We are continuing to work with Coventry City council very closely and are supporting newly arrived refugees in the city to learn English, gain skills accreditations, learn about employment in the UK and gain voluntary experience. We have successfully supported approximately 48 students through an Employability course and volunteering in the last year.

At the end of 2021 we also started a new project called Progress in Coventry and 2022 was the first full year that this was running. The project aims to support refugees who have come through the asylum route and recently gained their leave to remain with employment and housing. Our role is to support clients into volunteering and work experience placements.

Our My Coventry project has continued to be successful in delivering its outcomes successfully supporting 203 students through accredited skills courses and supporting 45 into employment. This project was due to end in December 2022 however towards the end of the year we were successfully granted a year extension on the project to continue to deliver integration and employment activities. It will now be ending in December 2023, and we hope to reach further 216 beneficiaries though this next year. We have held multiple awards events to celebrate the successes of these beneficiaries this year including a joint awards and Queens Jubilee celebration in the sun at the back of church.

We have continued to run our community café serving breakfast and lunch throughout the week and our food support offer of foodbank and our social supermarket have grown rapidly throughout the year with more people seeking out food support due to rising energy and food prices. We have served on average 300 lunches/week and have supported over 857 households through foodbank throughout 2022 and have given out 1204 number of social supermarket parcels. Our food support services are under huge demand and numbers rose rapidly throughout the year. We anticipate this will continue throughout 2023.

While we have continued to deliver our usual activities this year there have been many different and exciting things that have happened.

2022 was our first full year of supporting BNO’s. We first made engagement with the community late in 2021 and worked to learn the types of support they needed. We found they primarily wanted help into employment, learning about life in the UK and also learning English. We sourced funding to be able to provide integration classes for newly arrived BNO’s teaching them about UK culture, history and tradition. We also had many BNO’s engage in our employment support and skills training with many finding successful employment opportunities as a result. Throughout 2022 we have engaged with 155 BNO’s. We also planned and organised a BNO open day at the Coventry Building Society arena and invited multiple organisations, including schools, voluntary organisations, employment support agencies and more, that could offer support to the BNO community. We had over 150 BNO’s attend this event learning more about what support there is within Coventry for them.

In February 2022 Russia began to attack Ukraine and Ukrainians started to seek refuge in the UK. We ensured that our services were accessible to newly arrived Ukrainians and their hosts ensuring they had the correct support in place to learn English, gain work experience, skills and also seek employment. We successfully engaged with 57 Ukrainians throughout 2022.

We started to build a relationship with the NHS and UHCW. We want to ensure that our clients have accessible routes into key employment sectors within Coventry and we are beginning to establish good relationships with employers to aid this. We held meetings with ladies that work within UHCW and who wanted to support us in helping clients into work and volunteering, they recognised the barriers our clients can face sometimes and supported us in looking at ways around these. The relationship has resulted in regular tours of the UHCW for our clients looking behind the scenes at the different roles they have within the hospital. They also had some bank admin positions available and created a private link for us to share with clients who we believe would be good for this role. We had 14 apply and 8 successfully gain employment within the role. We hope this relationship will continue within 2023.

We have also strengthened partnerships already held. Coventry Building Society have always been a big supporter of the work we do and this has continued throughout 2022. CBS have supported us with funding this year to cover our community support officer. They have also donated computers that have allowed us to upgrade the ones we had making them easier and faster to use. They also nominated us for the Kings award, an award that recognises the impact of volunteering and the support volunteers have provided us.

Joanna Gerrard

Fabric Report and Church Warden’s Report

Church

Church Alarm – We had a new Key pad fitted plus maintenance. Church Bell Rope – was fitted in May Fire Extinguishers and Church Alarm System have both been serviced. Toilet was blocked a couple of times

The toilet in the church and church hall were refurbished free of charge thanks to Nando’s

Plus a few minor repairs

We also have had the usual problems with the church roof.

Hall

A new fence panel was fitted in June General wear and tear and blockages in toilets Nothing major just a few minor repairs. Grounds have been maintained with volunteers during the week.

Church Warden’s Comments

My thanks to Richard Tarver for playing the organ Sunday by Sunday, and for the opportunity for me to play the clarinet during Holy Week.

Many thanks to Ogechi the Treasurer, David Howarth for taking care of the weekly collections with me, David Brightwell for helping me with serving, and Joan for arranging the flowers with me. Also to Kate, PCC Secretary, for all her assistance, David the Sacristan and Electoral Roll Officer, Recky for her help with refreshments on Sunday mornings, and those who have assisted me in various other ways when needed.

We really need to find another church warden to share the load as St Francis moves into an exciting new phase of its life. This needs to be someone who is a communicant, attends regularly and is able to arrive by 9.30 am on a Sunday to set up and clear away following the service. Churchwardens are officers of the Bishop and it is a legal position where you are sworn in after making an oath and declaration. Please pray about this, and if you feel that God may be calling you to serve the St Francis family in this way, please talk to me (and the new Vicar when she arrives).

Thanks be to God and to all who have supported us throughout the year.

Sue Williams, Church Warden

Deanery Synod Report 2022

In the past year Coventry North Deanery Synod has met 3 times. David Brightwell, Ogechi Ngemegwai and Kate Hughes are the elected representatives from St Francis, and Sue Williams is a member because she is on Diocesan Synod (so is Ogechi now, so we can elect another member in 2023). A lot of every meeting is taken up with business, especially setting the Parish Share for each year, which is each parish’s contribution towards paying the clergy. Coventry North is one of the poorest deaneries in the diocese, so although all the parishes pay their Share, we are subsidised by wealthier parishes in the diocese, and limited as to how many clergy posts we can afford to have. We meet each time at a different church in the Deanery; the Area Dean is Gareth Irvine, Vicar of St Laurence’s Foleshill.

As well as business, we usually have a talk or discussion at each meeting. In the past year we have worked on the Deanery Mission Plan, looking at the resourcing of current and new clergy posts, church planting and the use of the diocesan Mission Hubs. We have had a presentation by the Intercultural Mission Enabler for the diocese, Neil Masih, on ways in which churches in our city of many diverse cultures can encourage people to come together in Christ. The third meeting of the year had a talk by Canon Mary Gregory from the cathedral, on the arts and reconciliation; she spoke of ways in which ‘art in ministry can reach parts that others cannot reach’. At the same meeting Rob Harrison spoke about the ways the diocese will be encouraging and equipping lay ministry. We also receive reports from Diocesan Synod and General Synod and get regular updates from the parishes about what is happening and what they are doing. The meetings are a chance to get to know clergy and laity from other parishes, which is one of the parts of being a Deanery Synod representative that I particularly value.

Kate Hughes

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CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Chapel Ilndepondont Evangical Church) Receipts and payments accounts CC16a For th8 pgricsd from To 01101120 3111212022 Section A Receipts and payments Unre$tricteiJ funds to thg nearg$t Restricted funds Endowment lunds Total funds Last year tothe nearest£ ¢0 the nearest £ to th• nèarest£ to the near•st£ A1 Receipts D018110n$ L8gacy Other income- Gitt stsndard E8mtd Incomè 44,812 44.813 17,603 2,377 2,377 4,449 1.0S0 Sub total (Gross income forAR) A2 Asset and Inve$tm?nt sales, 15ee tablel. Investment Incom• 47,195 47,195 20,093 Sub total Total recelpts 47,196 47,196 20,094 A3Pa ments Support C05ts- Heal. Light and Power Support Costs- Pnnbng and Stationery Support Cos15- Tplephone and Computer 1,080 1,623 5.825 5,825 420 Support Costs- Equipment Hire and Rental 832 3.586 4,80T 63 31,499 832 3,586 4,80Y 63 31.499 SupptstCo$i$- M8intenafjce Support CDsls- General Expellses Marnagemeni & Admin- 88nk Charges Mar.agetnenl & Admin- Gros5 W3ges 5,376 2,157 9,219 Sub total 48,972 48,972 19,455 A4 A¥set and investment urchases, (see table) Sub total 48.972 48,972 19.455 Net of receipts/(payments) AS Transfers between funds A6 Cash funds last year end Cash funds thls year end 1,776 1,776 639 9,554 7,778 9,554 7,778 B,915 9,554 CGXX R1 accDun15 ISSI 2410812023

Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period UnrestriGted funds Restricted funds to nearest £ Endowtnent funds to ne*ro8t£ Categtsries Q£tails to nearBstE B1 Cash funds Bank Cwrènt account 3,771 B£nk Deposit acwunl 4,007 Total cash funds 7.778 lagree b&lance5 rep1S anrf paynIS ac(5)) Unrestrleted funds Rèstrictèd fundB to neart £ Endowmènt funds to nearest £ Details to nearp5t£ Furnd to whlch asset belon Cost loptionall Current value iohal Details B3 Investment a55ets Fund to which 8StsÈt belon Details Cost loptsonall CurrÈnt valup lonal B4 Assets retalned for the charity'8 own use Fund towhlch Ilablllty relatès Amountduft onal Wh8n tional Detai15 B5 Liabilities Signad by one or two trustee$ on behalf of all the truslÈÈs Signature Print Name Dale of roval CCXX R2 accounts ISSI 2410812023

To the Trustees of Trust Property Held in Connection with Sycamore Chapel Ilndependent Evangelical Church) (Charity> I report on the attached accounts of the Charity for the year ended 31 December 2022. Respective responsibilities of trustees and examiner The Charity's Trustees are responsible for the preparation of the aG¢ounls. The Charity's Trustees consider that an audit is not required for this year under section 144(21 of the Charities Act 2011 (the 2011 Act) and that an independent examination is needed. It is my responsibility to.. examine the accounts under section 145 of the 2011 Act., follow the procedures laid down in the general Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 14515llb) of the 2011 Act., and lo stale whether particular matters have come to my attention. Basis of ind8p8ndent examiner's report My examination was carried out in accordance with the general Directions given by the Charity Commission. An examination includes a review of the accounting records kept by the Charity and a comparison of the accounts presented with those records. It also includes consideration of any unusual items or disclosures in the accounts and seeking explanations from you as trustees concerning any such matters. The procedures undertaken do not provide all the evidence that would be required in an audit and consequently no opinion is given as to whether the accounts present a 'true and fair view, and the report is limited to those matters set out in the statement below. Independent examlner's statement In connection with my examination, no matter has come to my attention= (11 which gives me reasonable cause lo believe that in any rnalerial respect the requirements.. to keep accounting reGords in accordance with section 130 of the 2011 Act., and to prepare accounts which accord with the aG¢ounling records and comply with the accounting requirements of the 2011 Act have not been met; or (21 to whiGh, in my opinion, attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. sr<202S Signature ROGER FRANK DOWNES FCA for & on behalf of Andorran Limited, Chartered Accountants Date Professional designation{s} Address.. 6 Manor Park Business Centre, Mackenzie Way, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, GL51 9TX