Annual Report of 2021 by Holy Trinity & St Saviour's Church

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MINUTES OF THE 22nd ANNUAL PAROCHIAL CHURCH MEETING Present: 62 members of the Church Electoral Roll and 8 Non-Electoral roll. Chair: Neil Hopkins, Vicar Apologies: Apologies recorded for 2 members. Electoral Roll Caroline Bowen advised the number on the Electoral Roll as of 9th May 2021 is 144. Election of PCC Representatives Becky White and Anne Parsons will come to the end of three years. Becky will stand again but Anne will stand down. Yvonne Frew will also stand down from the PCC and as PCC Secretary. Vicky Veness will take over as secretary. Helen Simmons will also be stepping down as Treasurer later this year. Two spaces are currently available for new members. Kevin Grieve will be co-opted onto the PCC. Neil asked if any others would stand? Neil proposed the following be accepted as PCC members. All in favour. Members of the PCC: Neil Hopkins (Chair) Helen Simmons (Treasurer) Julie Levett Clare Leigh Chris Hunt Sue Kaufman Mike Hawkins Thomas Bowen Bob Bailey Jill Robson Jon Darley Chris Benson Becky White Josh Levett Kevin Grieve Vicki Veness (Secretary) 38

Election of Deanery Synod The current members are Mike Hawkins and Bob Bailey. We have 1 space remaining. Neil led prayers for the PCC and Deanery Synod members. Review of Welcomers / Duty Wardens Neil Hopkins advised many positive reviews of welcomers and thanked the welcomers for their work. Neil also thanked Simon Holroyd for leading the welcoming team. If there are others that would like to join the team, we still need more welcomers on the team. Appointment of duty wardens Simon Holroyd, Joy Rawlings, Nick Webster and Julie Stern at Holy Trinity Kath Brooks and Chris Benson at St Saviours. Neil Hopkins led thanks for the work done by the duty wardens through the last year with the increased COVID requirements. Appointment of independent examiners Helen proposed the appointment of Brewers as the independent examiners for the accounts. Seconded by Becky White. All in favour, none against, no abstentions. Finances Neil invited Helen Simmons (Treasurer) to present accounts for 2020 / 2021. HS referred to accounts in the annual report which was originally in draft but now approved. The accounts show surplus of £28k for 2020. The Income held steady from giving, there was not much received from hall revenue but also few expenses were incurred. For 2021 we are budgeting deficit of £22k. The PCC approved this deficit as it balances the surplus from 2020. HS advised that a number of givers have stopped giving for a variety of reason and that new giving does not match the decrease we’ve seen in giving. HS noted that the national salary average is £36k. A 10% tithe on this would be £300 per month. HS asked members to listen to Neil’s talk this morning 39

and to examine their current giving amount. Any gift aid can be claimed back which is additional revenue for the church. HS showed how giving can be done on the church website through Parish Giving scheme as well as via standing order or cheques. However, the preferred method is Parish Giving Scheme as the gift aid is calculated and the amount increases each year with inflation. Receiving of the-accounts This was proposed by Clare Leigh. Seconded by Chris Benson. All in favour, none against, no abstentions At the last APCM, HS advised she would be stepping down as Treasurer. However no-one has stepped forward yet. This could be due to people thinking that specialist knowledge was required. However, the role can be split into several smaller roles: ·

Lead role – PCC member

Book keeper

Gift Aid secretary

Payroll clerk

Banking team

The book keeping is now done via a cloud-based tool through SAGE. This is now very straightforward. HS owns the license for the payroll software and will continue to do this. We still received a few cheques through the year and we will receive some cash. Banking could be done fortnightly going forward. HS will work alongside any new persons wishing to take on this role. Neil led thanks to Helen for her contribution and work in the role. Members on Zoom also contributed to the thanks for HS. Question raised whether Gift Aid could be automated? HS confirmed this is done through the parish scheme and that GIVT is also automated. Matters Arising No Questions

Vicar’s report – Neil Hopkins The previous APCM was October 2020. Covid is still impacting us through grief, isolation, mental health issues and although restrictions are easing, we are still seeing issues around us. In October we were hoping for easing but we returned to lockdown. All plans for Christmas were disrupted and the PCC took hard decision in January to move services back to online only. We have now returned to a hybrid type of service. There is a toll of social distancing, isolation and people being on their own for months. People don’t come in person because we can’t sing and they have to sit so far away from people. However we are grateful that God is at work, He is faithful and He is with us. We have seen lots of people stepping into roles to help with work needed. We have a gifted staff team who have given way beyond. Neil expressed thanks to the staff, to the wardens, to the Treasurer, to the PCC, the worship and tech support team. Neil also expressed thanks to Jon Darley for the work in setting up the technology to allow the online services to take place. Looking forward, some of the things we want to do as a church: · · · · · · · ·

Talking Jesus course as well as the Bible course and Holy Spirit course in recent weeks. Community Fridge: The new shed is near completion and we are engaging with lots of people in the community. Youth: Pete joined in September and is actively engaging with the youth. Family: Jo has done an amazing job over the past year engaging with church families. Dean has been with us for 2 years. He has received a curacy in Holy Trinity Aldershot. NH expressed thanks to Dean. Wednesday gatherings. Kinsugi Group to help mental health. Job club: John Durrant still setting this up.

We wanted to open up other activities but lockdown has prevented us from doing so. 41

As much as we’ve done some amazing building work at Holy Trinity and at St Saviour, a number of things have stopped. We can’t engage with the architect to continue the work on Holy Trinity at present due to the lack of finance. We wanted to ask for a curate. The PCC decided that we could not afford the cost of the housing so have decided to defer to 2023. The Archdeacon called to ask if we were willing to take on a curate. The Preaching on giving this morning was poignant due to pressing financial pressures. What does year ahead look like? We don’t know. Things can change overnight. When can we have regular events and when can church services can go back to normal? We are hoping that the relaxing of social restrictions on 21st June that will spill over to church. What are we going to open up to offer? It would be remiss to simply go back to what we did before. What we go back to has to be something that helps people seeking Jesus. Each person needs to think ‘what is my purpose?’. We will be asking those overseeing groups to think about purpose and how their activity will speak about Jesus. We would like to go back to a review of small groups as we grow in small groups. Through relationships we grow in our faith and our home groups need to multiply. We are also looking at how we disciple one another. We will be pushing Alpha and it is noted that the most people who come to Alpha come from a personal invitation. We want to grow as a church in prayer. We pray to the Father for Him to move as without Him nothing will happen. Church of England statements: Carbon neutral by 2030. Julie looking at how we become an Eco church with A Rocha in order to be good stewards of resources. Living in love and faith project. We have been provided a book and course on Christian teaching on tough questions about love, sexuality and relationships. All churches are being asked to engage with this material. The feedback has been positive from this course. We keep pushing forward to help people discover faith. We have to keep trying. 42

We are entering into Pentecost. We are asking people to pray and fast that people will come to faith. Let’s pray for God to guide us on next step. Questions: ·

Sent via email: When is StS due to re-open for services and regular events? Neil advised that we are not a commercial business so we can’t serve refreshments at this time. We are still waiting for guidance from the government. In terms of worship, StS has a capacity of 14-16 people under current restrictions. We would need more people to welcome and would need two booking systems. We are also not able to live stream at StS. We can’t do café church as we can’t serve food but could do a reflective service. We need to make sure that we go back to is the right thing and could re-open from 21st June 2021.

Could small glasses be used for communion? Neil advised that the Church of England serves wine from the ‘common cup’. As soon as you split into smaller cups, you lose the common cup. Serving communion in one kind prevents sharing of the cup. We looked at Intinction but this would result in lots of movement around the church and therefore considered not suitable.

Neil closed in prayer.