Treasurer's Report - First Half of 2023

Treasurer’s Report

First Half of 2023

This report is designed to update you on how our Finances have fared over the first half of 2023 across the Parish.

As a reminder, our income mostly comes from donations, together with tax that we can reclaim on Gift Aided donations, and any income that we generate as a Church from weddings and funerals or renting out our premises.

Out of that income, we pay for our own expenses and we make two major contributions to the wider Church of England – firstly we pay an amount to the Parish to cover expenses like the Parish office, outreach and local clergy expenses. We also make a contribution to the Diocese as a contribution towards their costs of providing us with clergy and the wider Diocesan functions.

We knew that 2023 was going to be a challenge due to cost of living concerns, utility costs, inflation, and the fact those costs not only impact the Parish but also our donors who kindly support us.

The following table shows you how we have done in each of the churches from 1st January to 30 June 2023.

Church 2023 first half £ 2022 first half £ Variance £

St Mary: Income 35,893 31,149 +4,745

St Mary: Expense (52,787) (32,460) (20,327)

St Mary: Net (16,894) * (1,311) (15,583)

St Nix: Income 31,015 26,290 +4,725

St Nix: Expense (28,407) (25,240) (3,167)

St Nix: Net 2,611 1,050 1,561

St James: Income 9,585 10,121 (536)

St James: Expense (12,604) (14,118) +1,514

St James: Net (3,019) (3,997) +978

St Peter: Income 7,093 5,235 1,858

St Peter: Expense (7,622) (3,762) (3,860)

St Peter: Net (529) 1,473 (2,002)

(* St Mary’s expenditure includes £9k for the final payment on the roof project and approximately £1k on other one off project related items)

As you can see, it’s good news that in many cases our income has risen and that’s largely down to the generosity of our donors (for which we are very grateful indeed), and partly down to higher interest rates and faster collections of rents and similar sums.

However in most cases our expenses have risen faster than our income and that’s why, when you add in the central parish items such as Youth Work and the St Nix Youth Centre, in aggregate in the first half of the year we saw our total funds drop by £23,723.

We did see a slight improvement in that position in July, and we’ve been able to get a few tax reclaim payments in through the door in August so today’s position is slightly better than you see above, but the general financial environment is still challenging.

To try and make it easier to attract new donors we now have card machines in most of our churches, we have a Just Giving and Paypal presence and links to the Parish Giving Scheme are available on our Parish website.