2020 Report for Christ Church Annual Parish Church Meeting on Sunday 9th May 2021
2020 Report for Christ Church Roxeth Annual Parish Church Meeting on Sunday 9th May 2021
CONTENTS
Vicar's Report by Simon Durrant 3 Electoral Roll by David Arnold 7 Parochial Church Council by David Arnold 8 Premises Fabrics, Goods & Ornaments by Sue Arnold 9 Deanery Synod by Helena Tucker 12 Found Charity Shop by Found Trustees 13 Mission Giving by Clive Scowen 14 Finance & Stewardship by Ashok Thadi & Paul Gabriel 16 Annual Meeting Agenda 18
Vicar’s Report on 2020 1066. 1492. 1812. 1966 (especially if you’re a fan of English football). Years remembered for particular events. I fully expect that 2020 will long be recalled as the year Coronavirus disrupted our world. For our church it has been a time of difficulty, but all also a time of opportunity.Although increased ‘pastoral pressures’ have fallen upon most households, we also saw fresh contact with physical neighbours and online friends, making Church and the love of God accessible in new ways. The year began with freedom to travel.Clive Scowen and I travelled to Kenya (27 Jan - 3 Feb) to look at the work of our mission partner Just Earth and carry out some pastor training in the Diocese of Maseno-North, hosted by Bishop Charles Asilutwa. And in March a number of the Leadership Team journeyed to Harrogate for the national New Wine Leadership Conference. We also received new additions to the team: in February George Parsons became our Worship Pastor, and Rev Marj Mott was licensed as our associate vicar. All aboard… Then in late March lockdown hit. Our building was shut and orders to ‘stay at home’ in place. We quickly moved to online services streamed to our Facebook page and all meetings moved to Zoom; the blue background of the Vicarage office became a familiar sight to many. Creativity and flexibility were embraced. Thursday Communion and children’s groups went on zoom for various parts of the year. There was a concerted effort to look after each other via phone, as well as fresh efforts by church members to support and reach their neighbours. Carol Sormaz coordinated a team from CCR delivering meals to people on the Grange Farm estate in partnership with the Council and other charities. Church members recorded an Easter poem (produced by Amy) that saw hundreds of engagements. Several church members engaged in ‘street church’, or hymn singing from their doorsteps. We shifted the times and formats of Sunday services several times; we trialled a fun new service called Arise!… We all learned new skills and at various times our patience has been tested by the challenges of technology. Perhaps more fundamentally, we have also all begun to understand at new level what it means to be the Church wherever we are. At this point I would like offer a personal and special thanks to my wife Amy, whose pioneering work on prioritising our church communications over the past few years really bore fruit as we came to rely on digital platforms this year. The church has also hugely benefited from her skills and efforts through her navigation of the multiple service format changes that took place, as well keeping abreast of ever changing Covid regulations and leading the implementation of them in the church building [Sue Arnold deserves a special thanks in this too]. I certainly would not have survived 2020 without Amy! Our shift to a more digital life coincided with a re-brand and new website that reflected our ever-growing partnership with St Paul’s South Harrow & St Peter’s Harrow: OneChurch Harrow (1CH) Christ Church was one of the first churches in the diocese to attempt a Zoom online APCM on 19 April. At that event I outlined a desire to continue to focus on the priorities of 1CH, as we seek together to see 10% of Harrow following Jesus by 2030; through prayer, inviting, growth, training and planting: PRAY Online formats opened up new opportunities to join in prayer with others; our midweek noon prayer became a place for several to unite in prayer daily; new revival prayer groups sprung up across OneChurch Harrow. Our Prayer Diary went fortnightly (thanks to Anne-Marie and Richard Dennis); whole Days of Prayer proved more difficult to pull-off on online. INVITE We ran an online Alpha course for the first time, led by Elaine Weaver, and we found that our online services attracted and provided for many -often extended family members and friends - across the world. GROW We launched circles: 3 or 4 people using a simple discipleship tool to engage with God together (see more at www.ccrharrow.org/circles). Although developed before the pandemic, circles proved to be an incredibly suitable format for on-screen connections.While other church groups and fellowships also adapted and met online, circles became the predominant means of support and growth during the lockdowns. TRAIN As well as developing leaders through circles, we finished our joint 1CH Growing Leaders course, and explored further ways of developing leaders and future church planters. PLANT Hope Church Harrow View was launched online during lockdown (‘internally’ in June, publicly in October). Led by Rev Malcom Finlay, a small team, including the Morsley family and later the Goddards from CCR, began meeting and ministering in order to reach the central/Headstone neighbourhoods of Harrow. Mosaic - an intercultural expression of church currently based at St Paul’s- also made preparations to become a church plant in its own right through the year. One important governance changes this year was the appointment of a Safeguarding Team and then the appointment Bola George as Parish Safeguarding Lead (in September), replacing Scott Flashman who served in this role for a number of years; thank you Scott. We also established a 1CH council in order to help oversee our partnership at a trustee level. CCR is represented on this council by myself, Sue Arnold (warden) and Sami Yohannes (finance team member). Our 1CH partnership also enabled us to team up, in collaboration with local schools, to offer ‘Bags of Hope’ to local vulnerable families during the summer and ‘Love Christmas’ gifts at Christmas. These projects became key in linking with and serving our community, where our usual outreach projects like Summer Days were not able to run, and our charity shop found was forced to close for much of the year. Underpinning these considerable changes and challenges, were teaching and hope held out in God’s Word. In Feb- April we engaged in whole church School of Prayer (which included the running of the Prayer Course); the Psalms were a particular source of comfort through the first Lockdown; in the autumn our theme was ‘Jesus looks at…’, focusing on various ethical and pastoral challenges through Luke’s Gospel; ‘Comfort and Joy’ was the theme of our - hybrid online and in the building - Christmas celebrations. We also sought to respond to issues raised at a societal level. The global spotlight on racial injustice, sparked by the murder of George Floyd, was significant for our church. It exposed the ostracisation felt by a number of church members, in part, if not fully, due to their background. Although some progress has been made in representation - with a PCC that better reflects the parish on many levels, including the appointment this year of CCR’s first Black warden, Paul Gabriel, - there is further reflection and action for us to do at a cultural, educational and institutional level concerning this complex issue. We were greatly helped by Temitope Taiwo, our Community Youth & Children’s Worker, whose own testimony, teaching and counsel, along with his social media capabilities, helped us engage with this -and other-challenges facing our community, particularly our young people. Sadly for us Temitope’s talents were spotted by a church in central London and, with our blessing, he followed God’s call there in September. In December we interviewed and appointed Andy Carson as our new youth worker, to start in spring of 2021. Thank you to all of those who have contributed to church life in this challenging year. Whether you have served in front of a camera for the first time, or been behind the scenes showing practical love to others, I am grateful to God for you. Your continued generosity has meant, among other things, that we have been able to continue to employ our staff throughout the year so that they could continue to serve. We will be suffering the bruising effects of 2020 for some time. The emotional, physical, economic and spiritual impact of what we and our society has gone through will ripple on. For the future, must entrust ourselves to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, and place our hopes for healing and restoration in his hands. Simon Durrant Vicar
Electoral Roll The Electoral Roll is the official register of church members. Anyone is entitled - and encouraged - to join who has been baptised (in any church which subscribes to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity), is at least 16 years of age, and either lives in the parish or has regularly worshipped at Christ Church for the preceding six months. Whilst it’s customary to encourage newcomers to join during the revision period preceding the APCM, you can join the roll at any time.However and whenever you join (via ChurchSuite or a paper form), you will remain on the roll until a new roll is prepared from scratch – this occurs every six years, and will next occur in 2025. At the last APCM on 19th April 2020, there were 188 names on the roll.Since then, one person has joined the roll, two moved away and one deceased, resulting in a roll of 186 at the close of the revision on 11th April 2021. David Arnold Electoral Roll Officer
Parochial Church Council The Parochial Church Council (PCC) is our board of trustees, who work with the vicar to establish the church’s vision and values.In addition, we have the legal responsibility to ensure we look after our staff, volunteers, premises, finance and uphold church and charity law.In total, there are currently 22 members, including clergy, churchwardens and synod representatives. The PCC has met seven times this year – although, of course, the concept of “meeting” has been unlike any other year, since all meetings have been on Zoom.Our various committees – The Enabling team, Finance, Premises, Mission Focus and Safeguarding have also met on Zoom. To a large extent, the focus of attention has been on dealing with the issues of the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular our response to it. Matters discussed included: The impact of Covid-19 on church operations Supporting the community (during the pandemic) Online services Covid-19 risk assessments Reopening our church building safely, and following the current guidelines Technology improvements, to provide live streaming of actual in-building services Nevertheless, we have also discussed other matters, including Racial Injustice, and our response to it Data Protection Recruitment & appointment of youth worker, Andy Carson Finance and Premises It’s difficult to predict when church life will return to “normal” – nevertheless, as Simon reminded us at one of our meetings, we need to live on faith; God’s purposes will work out. David Arnold PCC Secretary
Premises Report including Fabric, Goods & Ornaments The Premises Committee consists of Sue Arnold (Chair), David Arnold, Alan Dempster, Paul Gabriel, Bola George, Mark Slatter and Jonathan White. 2020 has been a challenging year, with long periods when the buildings were completely or partially closed. This has made it more difficult to progress some of the work, but none the less premises works have been ongoing. Fabric, goods and ornaments (Church Building) The guttering above the lower vestry was investigated and new drain pipes were installed. A damaged down pipe outside the prayer room was replaced and the wall repointed. The lower vestry has been re-plastered. The eight spotlights at the front of the nave have been replaced. Work has started on upgrading our sound and vision capability, including live streaming. The church electrical inspection was carried out and found to be unsatisfactory. Guttering above the south aisle has been replaced. Lounge, Hall and Grounds Entrance and foyer: Cracked tiles by the main door have been replaced. The stairwell to the downstairs hall has been decorated and a new notice board installed. The roof above the foyer and toilets has been repaired. Grounds: The hedge behind the lodge has been trimmed back. Branches in the graveyard damaged in summer storms have been removed. This led to a survey of the trees in the grounds and graveyard, and substantial maintenance work is planned for summer 2021. Planning permission for the patio project was granted with the condition that grey tiles (rather than red) were used. The PCC decided to appeal and this is still ongoing. The South West corner of the grounds has been cleared and grass seeded. Other Properties 69 Southdown Crescent – Ongoing minor repairs have been carried out to the roof and some windows. An outside electric socket has been installed. The Lodge – The loft has been insulated and the roof aerial repaired. 9 Shaftesbury Parade (Found) - Ventilation has been improved by the installation of permanent fans. The mezzanine floor has been strengthened. Future Works 2021 Prayer room and lower vestry area still has a small damp area, which is being monitored. Repairs needed to the pulpit stone steps, which are loose and impede its use. Repairs required by church electrical inspection and survey of hall and lounge electrics to be carried out. Completion of the planned upgrade to the sound and vision system. Installation of new fridge and dishwasher in the upper kitchen. Completion of the new patio area. The installation of Closed-Circuit TV to the outside of the building. Tree pruning and removal of dead trees, and tidying up of the grounds and graveyard with a view to expanding its use in line with Eco-Church values. I would like to thank the Premises Team for their contributions this year. Special thanks must go to Alan who has coordinated most of the actions and to Jonathan, David, Arthur Akhurst, Ken Stocker and John Tucker for carrying out various DIY, gardening and maintenance tasks in and around the premises. Sue Arnold Chair of Committee Churchwarden
Harrow Deanery Synod ("Anglicans in Harrow") Harrow Deanery Synod ("Anglicans in Harrow") includes four elected CCR representatives (currently Penny Carballo-Smith, Andrew Morsley, Helena Tucker and Sami Yohannes) and all clergy as members. It usually meets three times a year. 2020 started with a meeting about Outreach and Mission on 5th February led by the Bishop of Islington, Ric Thorpe in St Anselm's Church, Hatch End. Malcolm Finlay spoke about Hope Church Harrow View and Simon Durrant led a group discussion. Since then, due to Covid-19 restrictions meetings (all well attended) have been held on Zoom. The first such was on July 22nd, 2020. Opening worship was led by Simon Durrant and then churches shared how they were continuing with Mission and Ministry. Four grants, each of £1,000, were approved from the Deanery Mission Fund. These were to St Alban's North Harrow for part funding of a youth support worker, to All Saints Harrow Weald and to St Edmund's Northwood Hills for Audio-Visual equipment for the live-streaming of services, and to Mosaic Harrow (based at St Paul's South Harrow) for an inter-cultural outreach event. The Deanery Accounts for 2019 were also approved and the usual reports from The London Diocesan and General Synods were received. The next meeting in January 2021 was the first of the postponed new Deanery Cycle. The new Archdeacon of Northolt, Catherine Pickford was welcomed. She led a helpful, focused discussion about what different churches were doing in "lockdown" and lessons learnt. Every four years Deanery Synod members elect representatives for the Church of England's General Synod for which any church member can stand. This election was delayed for a year and will now take place in Autumn 2021. If you wish to stand do speak to a Deanery Synod member or other church leader about it. Helena Tucker Deanery Synod representative Found Charity Shop On Saturday 19 December a small team of us in the Charity Shop held our breath as we realised that we were having to shut our doors and close once again in the light of Government requirements. This was now the third enforced closure; we walked out on the remains of our Christmas Stock and that last week of potential happy interaction amongst the team and our customers. During 2020 key staff and management moved on, our finances were hit hard by the pandemic yet through the trials God proved to be so faithful and we have so much to be grateful for.Our staff team remained well throughout and were amazing in their energy and dedication. A small number of volunteers gave many hours in reordering the shop and creating new systems to ensure safe practices. Financial provision was received through a Council Grant and the furlough scheme and we are grateful to Christ Church for their support, all very essential. However, our main objective is to show the love of Christ and throughout the lockdowns bags of items have been donated to support households in need.We have also distributed many tracts and church invites to our customers and volunteer team.Plans are afoot as to how we can develop further interaction with customers during 2021.Thank you to all those who pray and support us. Rachael Matthews For and on behalf on the Trustee Team. Richard Antcliffe, Mark Dunning and Hope Dieobe
Mission Giving The Mission Focus Team has an exciting remit to encourage engagement with and active financial support of an integrated vision for mission globally, locally and on our frontlines. The membership of the team now reflects a wide mix of passions and involvement in all aspects of our mission, although we would love to welcome new members. The Team has been chaired by Simon Durrant. Other members include Clive Scowen, Rachael Matthews, Ron Jeeves and Anne-Marie Dennis. We continue to support a number of Global Mission Partners (see overleaf) who are transforming hearts and lives by sharing God's extraordinary grace both in the UK and around the world. Throughout 2020, we continued to include prayer for our mission partners in Sunday services and as part of regular Days of Prayer. In addition, we have made smaller contributions to various organisations, including ALMA (£100) Open Doors (£750) Christian Solidarity Worldwide (£200) ACAT (£40) Donations to global mission partners: Esther Challis Teaching and ministering inner healing to believers from around the UK and the world, at Ellel Pierrepoint in Surrey £4800 Just Earth (formerly Maseno Project Trust) Supporting a Farmers' Field School in the Diocese of Maseno North in Western Kenya, plus a very small contribution to the trust's administration £5000 Re: Generation (Harrow Churches Schools Link) Educational and evangelistic work and supporting Christian groups in Harrow’s primary schools £4500 Susie Philps Work among those struggling with homelessness and addiction, based at Betel UK in Birmingham £3600 Mission Partner involved in Church planting and microfinance in Mongolia, former Soviet Union and other Eurasian countries. 2020 giving includes a one-off donation of £1000 towards the provision of facemasks against smog, raised by our Christmas 2019 Appeal FSCI (Foundation for Social Change & Inclusion) Preventing modern slavery, fighting poverty and transforming lives in South East Europe. Annette Glaw (current member of Christ Church) actively supports their work £3600 TOTAL £27300 We supported CCR Foundation with £2,939 to enable release of Teresa Davenport for community mission through the Found charity shop, though sadly Teresa was on sick leave throughout 2020. We also contributed an additional 10% (£8520) above our core Common Fund costs to support the wider work of the Diocese. Thank you for your prayers and for your generous giving, which have enabled us to give generously to our Global Mission Partners around the world and to invest in the growth of God's kingdom. Clive Scowen
Finance A big thank-you to everyone involved in the church’s activities and ministries, for all your love, service, kindness, commitment, prayer, leadership and fellowship. We are all dependent on each other, and we’re so grateful for this partnership in God’s work. It has been a difficult and strange time; however, we have seen God’s love in action and with many blessings, we continued with our Church priorities - working with our mission partners, prioritising outreach programme within the parish as well as continuing our commitment to children and youth. In 2020, despite COVID restrictions and service mostly moving online, our church financials benefited from our generous congregation's regular donations through standing orders, envelopes and other donations. While there has been a reduction in plate offerings, Hall lettings, it has been off-set by increased donations online. Despite cutting back on costs where possible we had minimal impact to effective running of the church. Some of the key finance highlights from the past year: a)We have received nearly £226000 of generous giving from members of the congregation through standing orders, envelopes, collections and one-off gifts. While this is an increase of approximately £7000 over 2019, it does represent a sustained reduction in giving of nearly £20,000 in the past two years due to the departure of longstanding church members. b)Our rental income from The Lodge, 9 Shaftesbury Parade, 69 Southdown Crescent remained fairly consistent in view of Covid 19 with found having some necessary rent relief. This income ensured our planned funding towards reserves for premises costs as well as supporting fund for community mission including funding to develop mission in the shop and to support our community youth work and children’s work roles. c)With our general fund, we honoured our commitment towards Dioceses common fund, a sum of £93500 (including additional 10%). d)We have kept £116,166 of the capital funds released from the sale of the Grange Farm Community Centre on deposit as we explore how we fulfil the “Grange Farm purpose” of mission to the estate and surrounding area. The value of these investments stayed steady during the course of 2020. e)We continued receiving generous grant funding from Orley Farm School, the BLMF and CCR Foundation which enabled us to continue funding our Youth leader role (initially funded till May 2021). However, with Youth Leader role being vacant since September 2020 and being filled in April 2021, this enables us to fund the role until Dec 2021. f)Carol Sormaz, as Children & Families Worker, did an amazing work with our Children and youth during this pandemic time. While the role was initially funded until Dec 2020, with some financial planning and utilizing unspent budgeted reserves, we are in a position to continue this important role for another year. g)These above roles continue to be outside the core budget. We need to renew our efforts to secure new grants to fund youth role beyond Dec 2021 and also fund the Summer Days programme and planned development of the patio outside the downstairs hall is still pending h)We also appointed George as our worship lead last year and will continue to fund this for another year as part of the core budget. Overall, CCR is blessed with a relatively healthy financial position and with continued support from the congregation we managed 2020. However, we will need our increased efforts continued into 2021 – increased giving, increased fellowship, look for opportunities to generate new grants or fund-raising events while we continue to carefully manage our costs in the months ahead. Highlighting FY2021 budget and initiatives ·We continue our commitment towards the dioceses’ common fund an amount of £93500 (including 10% additional) no change from last year ·Our commitment towards Mission partners remains unchanged from last year. ·We continue to fund our critical roles – -Operations Coordinator, Worship leader through General fund -Youth leader and Children & family worker via Grant funding ·2021 budget also includes significant amount of expenditure towards Capital Projects – Core of them being -Church Service Digitalisation project (Sound, Vision and Livestreaming) -Tree Work, Garden and Graveyard Improvement -Completion of Patio Project -CCR Security – CCTV installation The above initiatives are necessary to enable service during this COVID time and also bringing the property up to a more commercially acceptable standard. The Budget also includes provision for a maintenance reserve, to build up resources for the next large items of expenditure that cannot easily be paid from day to day revenue. A huge thank you to the PCC who have graciously approved the initiatives. We hope that you will all be gracious enough to continue or commence regular giving where you are able to do so, and to complete a gift aid form if you are a taxpayer, so that this parish also continues to support Christian fellowship in the year ahead. Our sincere thanks go to the members of the Finance Team who have helped to keep our finance system in good order. These include Alan Dempster, Arthur Akhurst and Clive Scowen.Also special thanks to our Vicar Simon Durrant, Churchwarden Sue Arnold for their continuous guidance and support. We continue to have a positive relationship with our accountant and independent examiner (David Green from Gowers Ltd). Ashok Thadi - Treasurer Paul Gabriel - Chair of PCC Finance Team
Appendix 1: Financial Overview for the year ended 31 December 2020
Annual Parish Church Meeting Agenda 9 May 2021 11am - 11.30am Worship and Teaching 11.30am -12.15pm [broadcast via zoom (to allow voting)] Annual Meeting of Parishioners Election of two Churchwardens Annual Parochial Church Meeting Apologies for absence Approval of minutes from APCM on 19/04/2020 Electoral Roll Report Election of Deanery Synod member (1 vacancy) Election of PCC members (4 vacancies) Appointment of Assistant (Service) Wardens Fabric, Goods and Ornaments Report Finance Report Appointment of Independent Examiner Any other business Prayer 12.20 -12.30pm PCC meeting to elect vice-chair, secretary, treasurer and electoral roll officer.