Minutes of the Vestry Meeting after the Church Service on Sunday March 17th, 2024.

 

Present: All members of the PCC, with the exception of Veronica Eccleston and Tim Rogers who sent their apologies.

 

Rev Karen Wilson called the meeting so that the PCC could accept the financial report of St Piran’s Church, prior to the forthcoming APCM meeting.

 

Tricia outlined the general financial position as being very similar to last year. Tim Best had examined the reports as being a true representation. The accounts were accepted unanimously and a huge thanks was given to Trish for all the work involved.

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Minutes of PCC Meeting on January 16th 2024 at 2pm in the Church Hall

 

Opening Prayer

 

Present

All members of the PCC were in attendance.

 

Opening statement by Rev Karen

Karen thanked everyone for all the hard work that had gone into the funerals of Owen and John at the weekend. She had received many emails commending the warm welcome in the church.

 

Minutes of the last PCC meeting

These were agreed and signed by Karen.

Tony, David and Tim were all concerned that they were not receiving emails from me about the minutes, and Paul agreed to look into this.

They are always available to PCC members through the website.

 

Matters arising

Janet told us that following her visit to Perranarworthal School, Trish and her went into the school in December to make Christingles with the children.

The headteacher accompanied four children to take part in our Christingle Service. She also attended our Carol Service and played the harp for us to enjoy.

It is hoped that this is the start of a good school / church relationship.

 

Living in Love and Faith

Karen explained that from December 17th 2023, prayers and blessings for some sex relationships can now be used during a Church Service, but not as a stand alone service. The House of Bishops are still in discussion about a separate same sex blessing service.

If St Piran’s wanted to use these prayers for same sex partnerships in a Sunday Service, it would have to be approved by the PCC first.

There followed a lengthy discussion as to how this would work in practice and if we wanted to approve the use of them. Initially, any couple would have to ask Rev Karen first and have a pastoral discussion with her. Only priests could carry out the blessing, not lay worship leaders. It would be announced in advance that a blessing would be included in a Sunday Service. It was felt that we wanted to continue to be a welcoming church to all.

When put to a vote, 9 were in favour, and 4 were in favour too, but wanted to give the prayers that we choose to use, further thought and reflection.

Karen explained that the Liturgy can be found on the Church of England’s website under ‘Living in Love and Faith.’

 

Preparation of Reports for APCM on Sunday 14th April 2024

It was explained to the secretary that these reports would have to be collated and then displayed for a fortnight before the meeting, so the deadline to send them to Kay was agreed as March 1st 2024.

Kay was going to do a zoom course to help organise her first APCM.

 

Succession Management

Trish reminded us that she no longer wanted to be Treasurer after April. Tony offered to help any new treasurer appointed. A unanimous vote of thanks was given to Trish, for all the hard work she has done over the years.

David also said that he was standing down as Churchwarden in April.

Veronica may be leaving in July too, so we would need another Sacristan then.

Karen agreed to give out in the notices that we are looking for people to take over these roles. All the PCC members would also give thought to how these roles could be filled.

 

Finance

Trish reported that the finances were in a healthy state, with total monetary assets for end of year to Dec 31st being £63,438. (This is very similar to last year). £40,358 was in the CCLA deposit account, so that it could gain 5% interest.

 

The MMF paid for 2023 was £18,000.

Church/ Church Hall Insurance £2,890.

Churchyard Maintenance £1,100.

Wheelchair Ramp £126.

Deposit for Altar Frontal £1,704.

Welcome Cards £64.

Candle holders £60.

All other utility and maintenance bills paid in full.

 

Regular Giving and Plate Collections totalled £19,500.

A donation of £500 was received from Judy Carver for the altar frontal in memory of David Golding.

 

The Fundraising Total for the year was £1,695.

 

Breakfasts / Sausage Sizzler Total for year was £1030.85, and put in the Waterside Account.

 

Charitable Giving Total for the year was £2,165, plus Lent Lunches raised £1510 + gift aid £227.

It was decided to continue with the Church Coffee Money going to Save the Children, and some of the Coffee Stop Money to go to the Women’s Refuge, Truro.

 

Fundraising

There would be a plant sale again this year, and Paul was set to do another quiz in September.

 

Safeguarding

Lorraine asked if in future, Safeguarding could be higher up in the agenda, due to its ongoing importance. This was duly noted.

 

Lorraine had received an online survey to complete for the Church of England External Safeguarding Audit. She had already completed hers, but asked for the survey to be sent to all members of the PCC for others to complete too.

 

The new posters entitled The Five Standards (of safeguarding) had been received for display. The five standards concern

1 Culture, Leadership and Capability

2 Prevention

3 Recognising, Assessing and Managing

4 Victims and Survivors

5 Learning, Supervision and Support

These were unanimously accepted by the PCC, and will need to be reaffirmed at the APCM each year.

 

There is a Safeguarding link on the website for up to date information.

There is a Safer Recruitment Course accessible online which Janet had already completed. Other PCC members can do this too.

 

Lorraine was thanked for all her hard work involved in keeping up with the Safeguarding procedures.

 

Feedback from Ministry Meeting

The meeting had been postponed and rescheduled for a later date.

 

Lent Course

The Waterside Churches Lent Course would start on Wednesday 14th February at 2pm in the Church Hall at St Piran’s. The other dates are 21st, 28th February and 6th, 13th March. The course is based on a book called Balance.

 

AOB

Janet still needed more volunteers to help her run the Lent Lunches on Tuesdays 20th and 27th February, and 5th, 12th and 19th March.

 

Paul reported that a National Grid team had inspected the church on Monday morning to see why we had a power outage on Sunday. It was found that the cold snap of weather, and three days of services had overloaded the system and caused the outage. This could be resolved by them, but would need our approval for the go ahead. Trish proposed we approved, David seconded it and it was passed unanimously.

 

Date of next meeting

APCM to take place on Sunday 14th April after the church service.

 

Closing Grace

 

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