Giving 2023

 

Thank you so much to everyone who thought and prayed about their giving to the church. Your response has done a lot to ameliorate our immediate worries. 

The situation I outlined in our Giving leaflet here is that for a number of years the giving to our General Fund has not been enough to meet our ordinary expenses. That is a problem because we then had to rely on other uncertain sources of income and on our capital reserves - which we are going to sorely need for the ceiling, the boiler and other capital costs - to fund day to day activities. 

So here is the good news, and it is entirely the result of your generosity. Our monthly regular giving has gone up by £510 per month, which is going to come to £2,550 over the remaining 5 months of this year, and will be £6,122 over the whole of next year. These are figures before the additional Gift Aid. 

It is a little hard to say exactly what effect this will have. At present rates of expenditure I think it will roughly halve the deficit on our current spending out of the General Fund. I had hoped to eliminate it entirely, but this is a hugely encouraging start in very difficult times. Thank you all!

One of the reasons I am being a little cautious is that until December this year most of our energy bills are on favourable fixed rates. We are looking into getting a new fixed rate deal, and the one certainty is that our energy costs are going to increase, probably by around 30% in the case of electricity, and around 90% in the case of gas. We are going to have to use them less!

There is more about how to give to the church here. 

God bless,

Simon

(figures updated 4 September 2023)