AGM 2020

CHARITY REFERENCE NUMBER - SCO 23268

St Pauls Episcopal Church: Strathnairn

CHAIRMAN AND VESTRY REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDED 30 June 2020

Introduction

The Chairman and members of the Vestry present their annual report together with the financial statements for the year ended 30 June 2020.

We are a small, friendly rural congregation whose objective is to advance the mission of the Christian Church by proclaiming the Kingdom of God through worship, service and fellowship. We aim to do this through supporting each other in our weekly worship and on special occasions. We are involved in local community activities and welcome visitors to our services throughout the year. The church at Croachy is usually open for visitors daily between Easter and October.

This annual report and accounts presents a summary of our financial activities during the year and gives an overview of the general activities which have taken place in the life of our church in the past year.

2019/20 began as a time of special celebration for St Paul’s as the church building was consecrated 150 years ago in September 1869. A number of events, including visiting preachers and community lunches took place over a busy summer of celebration culminating in a special Anniversary Service on 8 September 2019 with The Most Reverend Bishop Mark Strange presiding.

We entered the Christmas and New Year season hoping to have a rest and restoration period. Sadly that was not to be as we were overtaken by global events in the Covid-19 pandemic. Our 150 year old church whose birthday we had just celebrated was closed for

worship in March 2020 with our last service taking place on 15 March 2020. At the time of this report the church building remains closed for worship. The church people, however, continue to worship through the St Paul’s, Strathnairn weekly podcast and other online

worship offerings from the Provincial SEC and Diocese of Moray, Ross and Caithness. To say this has been a strange and totally unexpected ending to our celebration year does not begin to describe the situation but the church of St Paul’s, Strathnairn, its’ people and

community remain in good heart.

ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Activities

• The Community Christmas Fair took place in November following the reopening of the Farr Community Hall after refurbishment. The new space hosted our most successful and vibrant community event as well as raising much needed funds.

• The Crafty Ladies continue to meet weekly for a blether and craft activities.

• We joined with Church of Scotland Parish of Daviot and Dunlichity on Remembrance Sunday.

• Christmas was celebrated with the usual strong support for the Christmas Eve Carol Service, where Humphrey the camel made a regular appearance to the delight of the children.

• Vestry met four times in person during the year and twice on ZOOM during the period of lockdown

Buildings

Ongoing maintenance of the church building and churchyard has improved over the year as new volunteers have come forward to help. The churchyard has been kept neat and tidy for visitors. Future work is planned to upgrade the electrics in the church/hall and the sound system. While the Vestry continues longer term plans to create a car park on Parsonage land adjoining the church and plan an initial inspection of all the large trees on both sites for the coming year.

Support for Charities

The congregation continues to show great generosity in supporting various charities both local and international. The Vestry adopted two charities to support for the next two years,

Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK) and Crocus Bereavement. We continue to collect for the food bank at Blythswood on a regular basis and once again provided shoeboxes with Christmas gifts for Romania. We also supported the charities of visiting preachers during

our Anniversary Celebration.

Income and Financial Review

St Paul’s relies heavily on the generosity of the regular congregation and our seasonal visitors for its day to day funding. Additionally, smaller but significant amounts are generated by fundraising activities, from bank interest, recovery of Gift Aid tax, investment income and solar panel feed-in tariff. We continued during this year to use a significant amount of our locally held reserves to balance the books. This situation is being monitored by the Vestry to ensure that we can cover our day to day expenses in the future without further depleting our reserves.

Statement of Vestry Member’s Responsibilities

The members of the Vestry must prepare financial statements which give sufficient detail to enable an appreciation of the transactions of the Church during the financial year. The members of the Vestry are responsible for keeping proper accounting records which on request, must reflect the current financial position of the Church at that time. This must be done to ensure that the Financial Statement comply with the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Charity Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006. They are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the Church and must take reasonable steps for the prevention and/or detection of fraud and the irregularities.

On behalf of the Vestry

Revd Canon Kathy Collins Chairman 4 OCTOBER 2020