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Churchwardens’ Report to the APCM

April 2018

Table of Contents 1 Progress since the last Half Year Meeting in October 2017 ................................................. 1

1.1 Garden Gate .................................................................................................................... 2

1.2 Secure ownership of Quiet Garden ............................................................................... 2

1.3 Church Toilet ................................................................................................................... 2

1.4 Organ repair .................................................................................................................... 3

1.5 Garden of Remembrance Boundary .............................................................................. 3

2 Other Achievements over the Last Six Months ..................................................................... 3

2.1 Revolutionised web presence ........................................................................................ 3

2.2 Churchwardenship Meetings for the team of five ........................................................ 3

2.3 Clearer roles and responsibilities for the main functions ............................................ 4

2.4 Less fidgety meditation sessions ................................................................................... 4

2.5 Vestry .............................................................................................................................. 4

3 New Developments................................................................................................................. 4

3.1 The Web Site and Social Media ..................................................................................... 4

3.2 Communications and IT and Data Protection ............................................................... 5

3.3 Health and Safety ........................................................................................................... 6

This has been a really busy six months, both in terms of supporting the exciting programme laid on by our clergy and others, and in taking forward what we planned to do as well as starting new things too. We’ll start with what we planned to do.

1 Progress since the last Half Year Meeting in October 2017 Here is a reprise on what we set out for ourselves last October.

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We are now reporting on each of these.

1.1 Garden Gate

After the loss of the old gate posts to rusting, all the necessary works were completed in good time for Christmas and kept carefully in keeping with the best of what we have. This is generally recognised as a significant improvement along with getting rid of the iron posts at the bottom of the drive.

It is very nice to report that the proposal last October attracted a most generous donation to cover the cost of the work for which we are most grateful.

1.2 Secure ownership of Quiet Garden

This was well underway but became held up by inefficiencies within the diocese. It is going again and subject to negotiation on the term of the lease and the cost of rent.

We have taken the advice of the CofE and agreed not to try and buy outright the garden but renew the existing lease which has been rolling over annually from 2013.

The negotiations are ongoing and are now transferred back to the Treasurer. The likely outcomes are:

• a new lease of 21 years: the Treasurer wants more • an increase in rent from the current £5 per year. Even a 100% hike is not too big a

concession and would be in line with inflation over the previous lease’s life • revision of any other restrictions there might be in the current lease along with

provision for any other changes we might want to make for the use of the garden.

1.3 Church Toilet

This is on target for completion by the end of July this year and within the outline budget set of £10k. We have confirmed in more detail the components of cost and therefore can be much more confident over the costings and the secured human resources.

2017 2018 Cost

Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 (£000s)

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5

10

7

3

17 9 1 27

Garden gate and railings

Secure ownership of garden

Church Toilet

Garden of Remembrance Boundary

Organ repair

Funding: church and friends

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We’ve got round many challenges from the planners and can expect spades in the ground next month. Huge thanks to Richard Frewer for keeping this moving forward so constructively.

En passant, we’ve now got the church onto the Post Office Address file which controls virtually every transaction we do with government and other bodies. It will now appear as a separate property under the correct postcode (BA1 8DR). This required installing a post-box for the church into which a postman can deliver mail which you will have seen near the church noticeboard at the bottom of the drive.

1.4 Organ repair

Our organists report that at least five of the foot pedals don’t work properly. We are not sure why. The remedial and preventative work has been completed in the week prior to the APCM taking place.

1.5 Garden of Remembrance Boundary

Despite securing a Faculty from the CofE for our proposed design, we had an 11th hour rethink which seemed to make such good sense and rapidly got approved at the last half yearly meeting.

This is the final project involving our resident architect quite understandably will be delayed a little, but is not critical. We are making progress on the initial concepts and costings and will soon be able to submit a new Faculty.

2 Other Achievements over the Last Six Months Sometimes in the flurry of never ending activity we don’t stop to think what else we have achieved. Hence this section.

2.1 Revolutionised web presence

5 new presences on the web:

• the 29 page BVM web-site at www.stmaryscharlcome.org.uk • the CofE ChurchnearYou website at

https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/11080/ • the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/stmaryscharlcombe/ • the Pastoral Services Diary at

https://www.pastoralservicesdiary.org/enquiry/wedding/11080 which has yielded two wedding enquiries in its first few weeks

• Guides for Brides at https://www.guidesforbrides.co.uk/find/church-weddings/bristol-and-somerset/the-blessed-virgin-mary-charlcombe/95449

2.2 Churchwardenship Meetings for the team of five

Sue has now hosted several of these. We believe this is improving knowledge-sharing and the general level of service at the main events.

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2.3 Clearer roles and responsibilities for the main functions

We have pretty clear responsibilities for those lining people up for the service rota and we think this is working as well as it can.

2.4 Less fidgety meditation sessions

This is all down to SH’s commissioning of 20 comfy cushions which are proving most popular.

2.5 Vestry

The installation of the dehumidifier during the summer, when the church heating is not on, did reduce the level of moisture. CWs will repeat using the dehumidifier this year during the summer to keep books and vestments dry.

3 New Developments Now to the new things…

3.1 The Web Site and Social Media

The website went live at the beginning of December last year after 7 weeks of development and has been kept up-to-date ever since. There are 29 pages of content covering all aspects of the church and the life surrounding it. The blog is being used for three main reasons:

• to repeat most of the messages from the rector and thereby keep an interesting record of activity and in the church for those researching us – maybe as prospective congregants!

• to publicise events in the near future such as the Christmas and Easter programmes • to provide news items

At the moment there are only seven followers (sometimes called subscribers) of the blog. As a subscriber you will receive email notification of new blogposts, as and when they are published and you have the opportunity to post a comment about any blogpost.

The management section is the most used part of the web-site and enables anyone given access to refer to the key information and controlling documents for the church. Of the 29 people invited to do this, over 50% have successfully got going now. The overly complicated password structure has not helped at all and this has been fed back to the web-site providers but does give us tight security over access to some documents which contain personal data The level of usership really needs to reach 100% for us to feel confident that everyone is in touch.

I’m confident that once more people subscribe to the blog and use the management section the more they will appreciate the benefits of having everything to hand so readily and easily. As many of us are finding there is no need to hold paper versions of stuff like names and addresses or even the service rota.

The events calendar is kept up-to-date and shows our regular weekly events as well as special public events such as this APCM.

We have a small budget to produce ‘business cards’ for use in the church with the web-site address and a statement suggesting why it might be good to subscribe. I’ve still to get this

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done. For now, the main thing to note is the web-site address www.stmaryscharlcombe.org.uk.

The search engines, like Google, readily find our new web-site now when searched for. All this augurs well for reaching and finding new audiences.

In addition we also have three further web presences:

• a Facebook page which has news and photos which are a bit more jocular in tone and make us accessible to the worlds 4 billion Facebook users, many of whom will be the next generation of congregants

• a fully updated presence on the Church of England’s ‘A Church Near You’ which gets 2 million hits per year

• we are now aligned to the CofE Pastoral Services Diary and have a link on our marriage page. This got us our first online wedding booking within three days of going live and has now kicked off another booking.

As far as utilisation is concerned the key facts are:

1. We are averaging 150 hits per week – a large number are mine(!) as I check that new stuff and tweaks look right from your perspective. All time, we have 3,000 hits.

2. We have posted on the blog 14 times since we started which is about once every 10 days or so.

There’s a long way to go to build interest and hopefully loyalty in our site but we can readily check progress. There is no doubt in my mind that it’s a powerful tool working in a medium which is highly popular to the next generation of people who will want to relate to the church in new ways and through new channels. We mustn’t simply judge it by our own current views.

3.2 Communications and IT and Data Protection

3.2.1 External Communications

The external communications aspect has been touched upon in the web-site section. It is intended to support the Mission of the church.

Were we to run a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) of the church we would find amongst the many strengths the church has, there is also a threat over who will people and run the church in 10 years’ time. Undoubtedly this will require a reaching out to younger people who run their family lives in a much more ‘digital’ way. The CofE is strongly encouraging all churches to embrace the modern web technologies.

3.2.2 Internal Communications

Internal communications are improving to make the running of the church easier to manage and be less prone to error.

The latest service rota is now available on line and is kept up-to-date there. Changes can be suggested by anyone on the on line document but have to be ‘accepted’ by Jeremy.

It is available via the ‘management’ section of the web-site.

We have also managed to publish the rota for the complete year, rather than in smaller chunks throughout the year.

The paper rota in the vestry is never totally up to date but Sue updates it regularly.

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Other pieces of day to day documentation have been standardised and included in the ‘management only’ section of the web-site. Here’s a snapshot of what’s currently available.

3.2.3 Data Protection

The law relating to Data Protection is changing on 25thMay 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), will take effect.

The GDPR covers information about any living individual held by any organisation. The changes mean that organisations, including PCC’s, will have to be more accountable for the data they hold and the purposes for which they hold it. Personal data must be collected for “specified, explicit and legitimate purposes” and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes.

The work done over the last six months on IT has been influenced by the likely needs of the GDPR and has got us much of the way. There will be more to do.

3.2.4 Dementia Awareness in the Benefice

Through Mike Renton’s encouragement both churches in the Joint Benefice now have some degree of dementia awareness and a number of us are registered dementia friends. A joint awareness building session was run by the Bath Dementia Action Alliance on 17th February (see http://stmaryscharlcombe.org.uk/2018/01/22/dementia-awareness-workshop/)

Of the 24 there, we were glad to see from BVM:

• both clergy (2) • both churchwardens (2) • the PCC secretary (1) • three congregants (3) • total: 8

This is now in the hands of Mike Renton for BVM and Mary-Jane King for SS. There is to be a major article in the next BVM newsletter.

3.3 Health and Safety

There is little to say about health, but plenty regarding safety in all aspects, but my main focus has been on fall hazards as these are well known to be the single cause of life changing events in the lives of older people which makes up the bulk of the congregation, myself included.

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3.3.1 Insurance coverage for casual labourers

This has been sorted out finally with the insurers at minimal cost to the PCC, which has avoided us having to use a formal garden services contractors at greater expense.

3.3.2 Drive

This presents hazards when it is wet and after dark.

3.3.2.1 Lighting

The PIR solar powered lighting trial has made a difference to confidence to those walking up and down the drive in the dark. The lights have been temporarily placed where they are to check on their positioning. There is more refining to do, after which can position and fix them permanently.

3.3.2.2 Slipperiness

We still concern ourselves with the slipperiness of the drive. It gets like this because of overhanging trees which reduce light and heat to dry the surface off and because the trees deposit fruit on the drive. The strawberry tree is close to death and will probably have to be felled this year. The other is a the laurel which would need a significant prune and would open up the bottom corner significantly.

3.3.2.3 Steepness and Support

The clergy have recently brought up the idea of creating a stairway with bannister alongside the drive. This is in response to our aging population and inevitable mobility issues, now and in the future. Our view is that the needs should be formally assessed first which will evoke all sorts of solution ideas, of which this is one.

3.3.3 Other outside areas

3.3.3.1 Holy Well

I continue to worry about the deep secondary part of the installation which presents an unprotected and unlit fall-hazard close to the popular main pond. There are two paths linking the lawn of the Quiet Garden with the eastern gate. One of these encourages people to skirt the hazard and the other virtually avoids it. I’ve discussed this with Richard Frewer, one of regular users. We aim to block off the former with a bushy shrub and we are asking for contributions of bushes for this. This is not a total a solution but reduces the risk.

3.3.3.2 Graveyard

The most pressing issue here is the oak tree in the NE corner which needs a branch lopping to stop acorns from it collecting in the gutters and drain pipes before next summer. Last year four wheel-barrows of acorns were removed from the gutters and drainpipes.

3.3.3.3 Garden Tidiness

A risk of fire was identified last Autumn owing to the mass of dead wood on the west perimeter of the quiet garden. An extra burning session in November was organised to deal with a large proportion of this.

3.3.3.4 Perimeter Hedging

The bank from the edge of the Quiet Garden down to Charlcombe Lane constituted another fall hazard with the risk of serious consequences were a vehicle passing at the wrong moment. This applies to any guests, hedge pruners and children running exuberantly.

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We have arranged for the hedging to be improved by tree layering and planting, as well as un-choking the existing hedge of the ivy which was started at last March’s work session. Thanks to Judy Kinsman for putting us in touch with a highly recommended practitioner at very low cost.

3.3.4 The Church

3.3.4.1 Lighting

Alastair MacKichan, leader of the church opening and closing team, reports that the new lighting and the resetting of the mains-driven outdoor PIR lighting means that church-closers are more confident than they were at night.

3.3.4.2 Font Lid

The moving of the very heavy font lid came up in the Ecclesiastical Insurance risk assessment conducted last Autumn. SueH has changed the previous Sunday practice of secreting items in the font to transferring them temporarily into the vestry which is an excellent tactic which has been added to the churchwarden’s checklist.

3.3.4.3 Fire Drill

The E.I. risk assessment obliges us to improve our procedures in the event of a fire. We need the DCWs and CWs to act as fire wardens at each major event and understand what extinguishers we have and how to use them. We also need to measure the speed of evacuation by rehearsing a fire drill. We will arrange both shortly.

Jeremy and Sue, Joint Church Wardens, BVM