Church Council Update - October 2023

The PCC met on Monday 9th October and discussed the following:
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1. Ugochi opened the meeting with bible passages that reminded us that our strength comes from God and that we can say we are strong because he enables us to be. “Our Strength is in the Lord”.

2. Through the power of technology Josh took us through a Church of England plan to double the number of children and young people in our churches by 2030. The statistics showed that the Church of England had had a 10-year decline in this age group in 2 years due to the covid pandemic! We had booklets that showed us how we could get involved, using the acronym PRAY. Prioritise. Resource. Adapt. You.
We talked in small groups and there was a feeling that some people would like more time to spend on this subject. Josh took away our ‘sound bites’.

3. The church tower clock is in need of repair and a facelift! This was discussed and the PCC agreed that it was a once in a generation cost for the facelift. We also talked about applying for a grant and the idea of including the community in possible fundraising.

4. Some history was given of the journey we had taken to get to the point we were at with our building development. We looked at the latest plans for the parish hall which unfortunately still wouldn’t really give us the space we were hoping for. They were, however, the best we thought we could hope to get planning permission for from Southampton City Council.
As well as getting costings for the latest plans, the Building Development Group were going to start considering refurbing the buildings we have and comparing those costs. 

5. Safeguarding is on the agenda at every meeting and this month we looked at the list of activities that take place in our church buildings that are non-church activities. They were all agreed except for a query about one, which Rosie is looking in to.

6. We talked about the church finances and Marie explained that the deficit probably wouldn’t be as large as we had thought when we set the budget, largely due to the utilities not costing as much as we had thought.

Our next meeting is Monday 13th November.