(or A Costa Coffee!!)
It came as a complete shock to me at our recent PCC meeting when our treasurer, Catherine announced that we did not have enough money in our account to pay our immediate bills, even though we have kept our expenditure to a bare minimum and delayed key projects for a future date in order to save money.
Catherine went on to tell us there were number of reasons for this lack of money. Firstly, we have not had a gift day this year where villagers generously give to help run the church and this has directly affected our finances. The irony is we would have had a gift day at our normal time of June this year, but just during the organising of a gift day it was the Coronation and all hands at the church were planning the Coronation weekend our village fully enjoyed. Consequently, our gift day has been delayed until our harvest festival in September which is why there’s a gift day envelope with your magazine this month, together with articles on what your gift means to us from our churchwardens Charles and Maggie.
However, this was not the full story, as Catherine told us that although we have people who regularly give, their numbers have declined somewhat over recent years as some people have moved away or sadly passed on. Once again, we need to ask if more people would be willing to give and again this is a task that will now happen in autumn of this year.
And there was one final thing she mentioned. Like everyone, the cost of running our church have gone up in recent years, yet the level of giving from regulars like me have not gone up equally to match our rising costs.
At the end of the meeting, I asked Catherine why she thought this situation happened. Catherine took a deep breath and replied; “In simple terms, with the exception of a few good souls, most of us who use the
church are not supporting the church enough. Our overall giving has remained pretty static over the last five or six years, even before the current inflation issues and of course costs have risen significantly in that time. It could be we’ve just forgotten to look at raising our giving over that time and I think we simply haven’t asked people. People come to the village, people leave the village and sadly some of us depart this world every year. You have to ask people; if you don’t they don’t know you need the money, and don’t realise they need to give”.
I suppose so, I said, but it’s a bit embarrassing asking people for money, we don’t want to upset them. Upset them! you will upset them if the church has to close because of lack of funds, that will really upset them. You only know how much people value something when it’s gone. It won’t be this year or next year but we are already using up long term funds to keep the church for future generations and that means if we don’t get more money, it will run out of sooner or later.
Catherine saw the look on my face, Its not all bad news though. If we have a good Gift Day, do some fund raising this Christmas, get a few more people to give on a regular basis and ask existing people to give a bit more, we should be OK.
As a regular giver, the last bit of her good news sent a bit of a shiver down my spine. What does give a bit more mean? Another deep breath from Catherine, ‘Not a lot, we would need to ask people to give just an extra £3.90 a week that’s all, but of course every week , which is why a direct debit works best of all, then
you don’t forget; and that extra money goes right back to the article you wrote about saving your church for cost of a pint or as I would prefer ‘Saving your church for a cup of coffee’ for that’s what it costs me when I’m in Costa in Ashbourne. In fact my latte now costs 10p more at £4 so for one the price of one
cup of coffee a week, it all changes for church and the church is saved in Mayfield.
OK. Then for the cost of a pint a week, or (Catherine gives me a look), a latte in Costa, we can change things for better?
Exactly, said Catherine.
So, we’ll get a small group of PCC members to work on this over the coming weeks, me included, and we may well be asking YOU if you could help! I will make sure Catherine keeps you all updated on what’s happening via this magazine. Meanwhile think about giving up just one coffee or a pint of bitter a
week to help the church. And if this article inspires you to do something and you would consider setting up regular payments call our church wardens Charles Wimbush on 01335 324083 or Maggie Cook on 01335 345691 and they can assist you. Any help you can give will be of great help. Thank you.
Stephen Dunn