As the Parochial Church Council for St Johns, we promote the Christian message and are legally responsible for the finances of the parish, including the care and maintenance of all church buildings and their contents here at St John’s.
2022 was challenging for us financially as we had no extra budget available for two very significant costs:
• Our utilities increased by £2,000 per month
• Our mortgage payments on the Church & Community Centre rose by £700 per month
We entered 2023 in dire financial straits and as a result were put in special measures by our Diocese of Southwark. As a PCC we sought advice and as a direct result strengthened our marketing activities and refreshed our website to drive hiring interest while at the same time, reached out to our congregation to increase our giving. Our Diocese also kindly allowed us to reduce our 2023 parish pledge (a sum every parish pays towards the costs of the central institutions of the Church of England) to allow us to continue to serve our community. We reduced our caretaker hours and tried to be as efficient as possible with other running costs.
By summer 2023, our Community Centre mortgage payments had continued to rise by an extra £1,100 per month along with our utilities costs. At the same time, St John’s nursery made the decision to consolidate to one location and so in July we sadly lost our largest regular hirer.
To prioritise the finances of the parish, as a PCC we had to make the difficult decision last summer that we would need to sell Meadvale Hall in order to pay off a significant portion of our Community Centre mortgage and thus return us to a stable long-term financial position.
In summer 2023 we started conversations with all our hirers who have all successfully moved across to our Community Centre, apart from High Trees nursery which required OFSTED reregistration before they could move – a process which is still ongoing. At the same time, our Vicar started conversations with a number of interested community groups and councillors to discuss a community buy-out and agreed, with the support of our Diocese of Southwark, that we would provide a 12-month window for these groups to raise necessary funds. Regrettably, this has not materialised for a variety of understandable reasons. However, as the PCC wants Meadvale Hall to continue as a community resource if at all possible, we have agreed to shoulder the additional costs associated with extending this window of opportunity for a further 6 months until the end of December 2024. We very much hope that the 34th Meadvale Scouts and other community bodies will be successful in raising the required funds in that timescale, but because of the costs involved, we will regrettably not be able to extend it again as we cannot continue to bear the financial burden.
Throughout all of this, our maintenance team have continued to work their magic maintaining our beautiful Grade II Listed Church building with very limited funds. Unfortunately going into the winter, our roof suffered extensive water penetration in the storms, and we launched our roof appeal and are actively seeking grants for matched funding to raise the necessary funds to undertake repairs.
We on the PCC will continue to execute our responsibilities to the best of our abilities – as we look to meet the needs of our congregation and the local community which we are very proud to be an active part of – now and for the years to come.
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