Parish of Crofton
Annual Report
2007 (for the year 2006)
Background
Crofton PCC has the
responsibility of co-operating with the Incumbent in promoting in the
ecclesiastical parish, the whole mission of the Church, pastoral, evangelistic,
social and ecumenical. In addition to the parish church of Holy Rood, the PCC
has had responsibility for the Church of St Edmund the Martyr. It also has maintenance responsibilities for
the Church Centre and the curate’s residence, 7 Darren Close.
Membership
Members of the PCC
are either ex-officio or elected by the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM)
in accordance with the Church Representation Rules. During the year April 2005 to April 2006 the following
served as members of the PCC:
Crofton PCC, April 2006
| Incumbent | Stephen Girling |
| Curates | Daron Medway Colin Prestige |
| Church Wardens | Eileen Stott Molly Howard |
| Administrator | Sue Martin |
| Reader | Joh Beavan |
| Deanery Synod reps | Stuart Forster Robin Green Olive Obin Ian Tilbury |
| Electred Members '05 to '07 | Andrew Trevithick (Hon Sec) Tony Scurr(Treasurer) Timothy Collinson Sorel Mitchell Martin Yeandle Ian Tilbury |
| Elected Members '06 to '08 | Stephen Bennett Sue Donald Dawn Elmes John Guest Jim Nolan Graham Sykes |
Sub groups:
Finance: Stephen, Tony
& Barbara, Eileen, Molly, Sue
Child protection:
Carla Grant, Phil Berry, Anne Prestidge
St Ed’s cong team: Robin,
Sorel Mitchell, Tim Sergeant, Gary Willcocks, Janice
Barley, Hazel Tilbury
Disability discrimination: Mara Curtis (supported by Molly Howard and Don Mitchell)
Stewardship: SG,
Malcolm Lewis, Mark James, Tim Sergeant, Alan & Sue Thorne
Kairos: Stephen Girling, Richard Binns
Health & Safety:
Nick Smart, Eileen Stott, Don Mitchell
Committees
This is the only
committee required by law. It has power to transact business of the PCC between
its meetings, subject to any directions given by the Council.
The MST comprises
Incumbent, Curate(s), Churchwardens and 6 lay members elected by the PCC from
congregational nominations. The MST oversees 6 ‘Ministry Areas’ in the life of
the church. These are: Prayer & Worship; Discipleship; Mission; Pastoral
Care; Youth & Children; Resources. Each Ministry Area is ‘overseen’ by a
‘Ministry Contact’ on the MST. Terms of
reference for the MST were reviewed in 2006.
This meets quarterly
to review the parish’s financial position generally, make any necessary
recommendations to PCC and prepare the budget for the coming year.
St Edmunds congregational team
Meets termly to
discuss the worship, teaching and pastoral care of the congregations at St
Edmunds.
Disability awareness
Meets to monitor
disabled access to church facilities and ministries, reporting to the PCC.
Child Protection Group
Meets to advise the
Child Protection officer and review policies and their implementation,
reporting to the PCC.
Health and Safety
Meets to monitor
Health and Safety issues around the parish, reporting to the PCC.
Kairos group Has
met this year to forward the research and planning phase of the Portsmouth
Diocese review of ministry and mission [Kairos].
Church
attendance
At the time of the Annual meeting 2006, there were 378
parishioners on the Church Electoral Roll, 119 of whom are not resident within
the parish. 31 names were added during the year and 19 removed 7 had died and
12 moved away from the parish.
The average Sunday attendance calculated during October,
taking into account adults and children at all services at both churches, and
midweek services, was 362. There was good attendance at all Christmas and
Easter services – Scout parades took place at Harvest Festival, and on
Mothering Sunday, plus Christingle and Remembrance Day services, with good
support from First and Second Stubbington Scout, Venture Scout, Cub and Beaver
groups.
Crofton Parish Mission, Vision & Goals
Vision:
To Glorify God. To follow Christ faithfully, authentically,
and purposefully. To seek kingdom growth in every
aspect of life.
Goals:
Prayer
and Worship
·
A
new way of exercising corporate prayer will be introduced.
·
A
new prayer room will be established.
The monthly
parish prayer evening has ceased and the prayer life of the parish is being
developed through both pastorate meetings [clusters of small groups] and
through the lower prayer room which was opened in early March 07.
Teaching
and Discipleship
·
The
‘Life-group’ discipleship format will be a part of every Home-group and 10 new
Lifegroups will have been established.
·
Between
24 and 30 people will be participating in the CPAS Growing Leaders course.
Half the
homegroups are using the life-group material on a regular basis and there are 3
separate life-groups. 15 people are
enrolled on the Growing Leaders programme
Mission
and Evangelism
·
The
way that the congregations of Crofton Parish understand and approach mission
will be addressed.
We continue
to attempt to close the gap between global and local mission and continue to
explore and participate in new mission initiatives. Much planning has gone into Café church.
Youth
and Children
·
Our
All-In Family Services will be All-Age appropriate in both content and
delivery.
·
The
Youth Vision Strategy will be in place and in progress.
·
A
monthly 9.30 “children’s church” will be established.
All-in
services continue to be a challenge with so many competing demands, however
focussing on a smaller child age-range has helped [Climbers and Explorers
largely]. Simplicity and creativity
have become the 2 watchwords rather than complexity and variety. The youth vision strategy is in progress,
including the launch of the Beacon midweek group and 2 youth homegroups and the
continuing development of the Ignite gathering [monthly]. The monthly children’s church is proving a
great success.
Pastoral
Care
·
There
will be full training for the Parish Marriage Preparation Team.
·
Our
Pastoral Care system will be fully integrated and cohesive.
The
marriage prep. team have had training through the HTB marriage course and
through input from other Fareham Town leaders of Marriage Prep. The focus of pastoral care development has
been towards improving our care of residents of care and nursing homes in the
parish. Each of these 4 now have 2
parish link people to develop the support.
Resources
and Communications
·
A
treasurer’s assistant will be recruited.
During the
year a lot of work went into the terms of employment of the treasurer’s
assistant and they were appointed in February 2007.
Other noteable events in the year
Prayer and
Worship
In the Autumn much effort was put into clearing and preparing the lower
prayer room for use by the prayer team, by Café church, for prayer ‘events’ and
ultimately for community prayer also.
‘Dynamic prayer’ ideas have been introduced, from HTB training
conference. The CSW prayer group has
grown and the men’s prayer group now shares scriptures with the Sunday
congregation. The worship team were blessed
with a thank-you meal [Feb 07] and the prayer ministry team now have a regular
termly training programme. Two parish 24
hours ‘pray-ins’ have been run and the prayer chain has been improved to make
it work more efficiently. Increased
prayer and worship through pastorates has been a joint working with
Discipleship.
Discipleship
An estimated 270 are now in homegroups or small groups with some
discipleship emphasis. Much effort has
gone into sharing the vision for pastorates [‘middle-church’ by way of clusters
of homegroups, providing a forum between homegroups and Sunday services]. It is hoped to develop 4 evening pastorates
and 1 daytime. Growing Leaders course
was begun in September, with 15 participants, all mentored by others in the
church. This will help develop lay
leadership skills. The baptism policy is
in the process of being reviewed with the aim of increasing the mission focus
and creating a bigger gap between thanksgiving and baptism. The teaching programme had continued to focus
on the parish values enshrined in the Lifegroup material, as well as expounding
scripture and helping 21st C discipleship. Staff and authorised ministers now meet
termly to discuss the teaching programme and other issues.
Resources
2006 saw the completion of the WC / Kitchen facilities at St Edmunds
after a great deal of effort and hard work.
The SE roof survey was completed and efforts now focus on securing the
funding for work to begin in 2007.
Design of the HR AV system is nearing completion and faculty approval
was gained in Jan 07. Networking of
computers at HR is being explored and much prayer has gone into the recruiting
of a new treasurer and churchwarden for APCM 07 onward. New carpeting was introduced into HR centre.
Mission
A breaking news course was run in Autumn 06 to increase confidence in
Evangelism. HR centre continues to be
almost fully booked by community groups and the 3 baby / toddler groups
continue to thrive. Local / global
mission support is being introduced into St Edmunds as well as Holy Rood. Support of the nursery school in Ghana has
continued as well as support in prayer and financially of the other charities
identified in last year’s report. An Easter
parish newsletter was distributed.
The annual income of the
church has again been tithed. 10% of 2005 income was shared between 18
different local, national, international charities and youth projects, keeping
2 shares in reserve. 2 gap year students
were supported in Christian ministry.
Pastoral Care
2 welcome events were run in the year to help
newcomers feel more part of the parish.
In January a 5 session Acorn Listening Course was held in the Church
Centre. Training for the bereavement
visiting team and prayer ministry team has continued on a regular basis.
Occasional
offices: during the year 14 infants under 1 year
and 5 between 1 and 12 years, were baptised; there were 22 Marriages in the
parish (down 3 from 2005), and 1 Affirmation of Marriage. The Baptism and
Marriage Preparation Teams continue to do a tremendous work, encouraging
parents, God-parents, families and couples to see and hear the gospel
proclaimed in corporate worship. 5 adults and 8 under 18s were confirmed this
year.
During the year (Jan to Dec 2006) there were 57 funerals held at the
local crematorium and 38 church funerals conducted in either Holy Rood or St
Edmund’s. The Bereavement Ministry Team have had a very active year and once
again the Memorial Service in October was greatly appreciated by those who had
recently lost loved ones.
Youth and
Children
‘Thank-you’ socials have been run to express appreciation for the work
of the huge team of leaders and helpers.
Kingsway teaching material continues to prove very useful and
useable. A ‘lights party’ at Halloween
and a ‘live nativity’ in December were both very successful community /
outreach events. A new monthly Beacon
group for non-churched and churched youth has started after much careful
preparation and the youth leadership of the Ignite gathering has been
strengthened and broadened. Developing
contacts with Meoncross and Crofton Schools has been explored for 2007. A master ‘Ignite plan’ has been developed to
help give shape and direction to the youth ministry. The year has shown that we need to continue
to make efforts to keep children and young people integrated into the life of
the church.
Finance
In our 2006 budget, we set an income target of £ 237,131 and
an expenditure target of £ 252,899 (the deficit of £ 15,768 arose because of
the extra costs involved in employing a Youth Minister and was to be financed
from the YM restricted fund).
Actual total income (including tithe reserve) was £
248,940 i.e. £ 25,795 (11.6%) up on 2005 actual income, due to a
number of factors including:-
·
Increased
giving to the General Fund, including Gift Aid (up 14%), the envelope scheme
(up 11%), collections (up 5%) and tax rebates (up 4.5%). Overall increase was
about £ 17k (9.3%).
·
A
£ 9k transfer from the CBF Youth Minister fund.
·
Centre
income was up £ 0.8k (9%); weddings & funerals down £ 1.4k (6%) on 2005.
Expenditure was £
258,458, £ 49,022 (23.4%) up on 2005. Main variations in expenditure were:
-
·
A 4.6% increase
in our Parish Share up £4.3k, to approx. £98000.
·
Total cost of
employing a Youth Minister was £ 28.9k.
·
An
increase in overall maintenance costs (kitchen refurbishment) of £ 4.9k (52%);
Centre cleaning costs (outside contractors) up £4.8k (115%); salaries +
expenses £2k (Stakeholder Pension) ;
·
An
extra £ 11.5k on mission/outside giving including £ 5.8k ‘extra’ tithe given to
Tear Fund for Tsunami relief.
To reserves for 2007 giving an extra £ 2.7k (16%).
A saving of about £ 12.6k on (gable) repairs/renewals.
·
Due
to the generosity of Church members, in addition to the increased giving to the
General Fund above, specific donations resulted in an extra:
·
£ 7k to the Youth Minister fund.
·
£
3k for the Holy Rood building repairs
·
£
2.3k into the Audio-Visual Fund
2007 to-date: first quarter expenditure and income are on target.
2006 has been another good year financially and despite the substantial extra costs of Centre maintenance and cleaning, increase in Parish Quota and employing a Youth Minister, we have been able to cover the funding deficit with specific donations and surpluses built up in the previous years.
We, the PCC, thank God for His gracious
provision and the Church for responding so generously to God’s prompting.
On behalf of the PCC
The Revd Stephen Girling [Chairman]