At the beginning of the year Mark Trafford gives us an update on our finances…
Hello everyone,
Once again a big thank to all who are helping with Church in whatever way. During 2011 I provided a number of updates on our quest to balance our books by the time we got to 2012. Well here we are (1st January as I write this!) and I thought it right to give you all a brief update on the situation.
Just to re-cap, we entered 2011 with our ‘budget’ (or ‘plan’ as it is termed by some) to have a deficit of almost £19,000 (estimated income of approx £75,500 and expenditure of approx £94,500). The actual numbers for 2011 will be approx; income £79,500 and planned spending of £94,500, giving a deficit of approx £15,000. In 2011 we made great strides to reduce our deficit, you may recall my updates on these through 2011, they included; a reduction in Youth Ministry that we pay for, a reduction in paid administration, the stopping of paid cleaners and the work being done by volunteers. For a full year these savings equated to approx £15,500.
We have prepared our draft budget (plan) for 2012 and the initial result is; expected income approx £80,000 and planned expenditure approx £89,000, giving a deficit of approx £9,000. Given the above, the obvious question is why still an approx £9,000 deficit? There are a number of factors; the Diocese Common Fund payment we make will increase by approx £2,000 for 2012, Axmouth will not pay us £2,000 for administrative support services (as this service will cease), income from the Parish News has been dropping drastically and we have reflected that in our budget, expenditure for it is £2,500 per annum, yet income is budgeted to be as low as £500. There are a few other things also that will cause expenditure to rise (e.g. gas & electricity continue to increase). The PCC have not yet finalised the budget for 2012, they will do this in early 2012, and they are considering what actions to take; accept a deficit (a reduction from 2011 due to the great strides taken), cut our expenditure elsewhere and/or increase our income in some way. I will of course keep you updated of events as they unfold. By the time you read this in February via the Parish News or during January via News Update or the website, some of these decisions may well have been taken. Nevertheless, we welcome views from our Community here in Uplyme and the surroundings so please do let me, any PCC member or the Church Office know your views.
I list some of the ideas the PCC will consider, I must stress they are only ideas as I write; decisions have yet to be formally taken by your PCC:
- Methods of increasing our income, e.g. fund raising events, getting more of our income ‘gift aided’ (so that we can claim the 25% tax back on it) and so on.
- As indicated above, income (i.e. donations for its production and delivery) has fallen drastically in recent years for the Parish News, we could strive in the first part of 2012 to get recipients to cover the cost, £5 from each house would cover the production costs. An alternative solution would be to stop the publication and delivery of a printed Parish News and have it on-line (internet access) only. This would not happen in the immediate future, it would be a reluctant move, but if we can’t balance our books we may have to do it.
- We could introduce ‘advertising’ in to the Parish News and of charge for it (to increase our income).
- During 2012 we may investigate some alternatives for maintaining the churchyard, one option being the possibility of handing over responsibility to the council from 2013 onwards via formal closure of our Church yard. Current budgeted expenditure for this work is £2,500 per annum.
- Our thinking caps are on so we’ll identify others, but we welcome your views.
So many more people are contributing to your Church via ‘standing order’ (thank you), this helps us to calculate income more accurately in advance and thus to plan better. If you’d like to do the same then contact the Church Office, go to the Church website for details, or of course do contact me.
Our ‘mission’ work continues, in 2011 we donated over £6,500 to your ‘water project in Zambia’. What fantastic news and a great tribute to the people of our Community and Church that they contributed to those really in need, thank you. We aim to continue this vital ‘mission’ work in 2012.
We are blessed that people provide us with money via donations, legacies or the like and they want it spent on specific things, we call this ‘restricted’ funds, i.e. we can’t spend it on the day-to-day running of the Church. We do have money for such projects and during 2012 we’d hope to implement a number of these as we shared and discussed with our Community in 2011. e.g. the re-instating of a bell ringing floor in the bell tower, the re-ordering of the Church with chairs to give a more flexible arrangement for Church, School and other uses. We will of course keep you updated on these events.
If you can volunteer to help with the running of your Parish Church please do say. I will continue to provide more updates during 2012.
Thank you and may God Bless you,
Mark Trafford, PCC Stewardship Advisor
I think that we need to take a good look at the parish news and ask, ‘What is it for’? At the moment it’s not the most exciting read, I think that this is mainly the result of passive editorship; Robin is reliant on whatever is submitted. As a reader I’d like to see a bit more grit in the columns; people expressing views about church, worship, or other things in the parish, I’d like a letters to the editor bit. Interviews of interesting people in our midst. In other words we would benefit massively from active editorship. Do we have any literary people in the church who might take on this challenge? The PN goes through the letterboxes of everyone in the parish so for us as a church it’s a massive missional activity, I think that we need to view the PN in this light and have a vision for it. I have never understood the aversion to advertising, this is surely a no-brainer if the news is making a loss. Take a look at the 5 Alive magazine (Kilmington – Shute – Dalwood – Stockland – Yarcombe) to see what an interesting Parish mag might look like. By the way nothing in what I’ve said is in any way a criticism of Robin’s editorship, the way that the mag is set up at the moment means that it can’t really be any better than it is.
Hi I know that as a charity our accounts are public, but I don’t know where to find them. Perhaps you could provide a link or give a summary so that we can see where the money goes.