This year the Annual Meeting and Annual Meeting of Parishioners will be underpinned by worship at 10:30 am on Sunday 21 May. 

A visual summary report of the Social Impact of St Barnabas 2022-2023 can be found here.

The revised Electoral Roll for 2023/2024 can be found here. 

The 2022 Trustees Report can be found here. 

The 2022 Accounts can be found here. 

The booklet with the previous minutes of the Annual Meeting in May 2022 and key reports can be found here.

Please contact the Vicar or the Churchwardens if you would like to stand for PCC or Churchwarden. 

*You are eligible to stand for election to the PCC if:

• Your name is on the Electoral Roll, and unless you are under 18 years of age at the time of the Meeting, you have been on the Electoral Roll for at least the preceding 6 months
• You are an actual communicant (i.e. have received communion at least 3 times in the last 12 months)
• You are over 16 years of age (Churchwardens must be over 21 years of age)

Questions from John Hudson

JH = John Hudson

NB = Naomi Breen

JHawk = Jonathan Hawkes  

JNorm = Julian Norman

JD = Justin Dodd

QUERIES—HARD COPY ACCOUNTS

1. This is a comment and has therefore been deleted. 

2. Balance Sheet. Why are the comparative 2021 figures not shown? That would have been helpful.

The external examiner has raised no concerns about the reporting in the accounts. 

3. Management Accounts Notes 1-10. Why are the comparative 2021 figures not shown? That would have been more informative.

The external examiner has raised no concerns about the reporting in the accounts. 

4. Note 2. Lady Peel Trust Legacy £2,500. What was this for, ie why is it in restricted funds?
Lady Peel Trust - advised as specifically for Children and Families ministry

5. Note 3. Stewardship Matched £1,830. What is this?
Offer made by Peter and Susan Haisman during the stewardship focus in 2022 to make an additional contribution commensurate with the value of new stewardship donations in 2022. Hence the term 'stewardship matching'.

6. Note 4. Activities for generating funds: Other/uncategorised/cash on hand £23,046.  This is a massive increase from 2021. Could I have a breakdown please? If it includes legacies, the vicar’s report mentions two, I think it would be better to show them separately, as it otherwise could give a misleading idea of how healthy the finances are. (We cannot assume we will receive legacies every year.)
The various activities of the church rely on manual records and a number of channels for receiving income in order to provide the management accounting analysis to the financial accounting. Starting with the bank statement and uncategorised transactions (prinicipally remittances of cash, cheques, SumUp and Churchdesk). I will extract the transactions and adjustments from the source and revert.
As requested, please find attached the reconciliation of uncategorised transactions of £23k in the accounts, as it stood consistent with the examined accounts. Points 3,2 and 1 - benefit of comparative figures noted for production of 2023 accounts - will pass on. 2021 accounts can be re-sent if helpful. No change to accounting policies.

7. This is a comment and therefore has been deleted.  

8. Note 7. Energy costs (Grant) £3,641. I am not sure why this is a cost. Did we pay someone/some organisation £3,641 to make claims for energy grants on our behalf?
No, essentially just recognises that the benefit of the grant income was fully absorbed in energy costs. 

9. Note 10. Music KP/PA & HT) £15,263. Given that we advertised the Director of Music post for £6,000pa, why is the figure so high? Also, were these payments made under PAYE?
This includes payments for Kavi Pau as Director of Music although he was on a higher salary than was initially advertised for the most recent recruitment for DoM; Henry Tozer and two other individuals who provided interim cover for the substantive staff position of Director of Music. Kavi Pau and Henry Tozer's payments went through PAYE but payments to the individuals providing short-term cover were on invoice although the fees involved were agreed ahead of time were in proportion to the salaried payments. I recall there would have been additional time commitments and therefore payment around Christmas - these were agreed in advance.

10. Note 4. Pitshanger Pictures Income £830; Note 8 Pitshanger Pictures Expenditure £550. Resulting profit £280. The income figure seems very low to me, and expenditure probably too high. Are these figures correct? Especially as the Official Report from Pitshanger Pictures states a net income figure for 2022 of £3,726.45. Both cannot be correct.
Pitshanger Pictures - I'm afraid Pitshanger Pictures requested info was not received by me in time for the accounts or finance report so would be happy to acknowledge adjustment based on manual record-keeping

11. Note 8 concert costs £6,739. Could I have a breakdown please?
These were the recorded direct costs of the concerts including advertising, hire of speakers and payments to musicians as well as individuals who supported the provision of hospitality and the communications campaign. Further analysis was required to attribute elements from manual record-keeping such as hospitality re-stocks and cash takings.

12. Note 6. Hall and Church lettings  - net £108,369. Why is this a net figure? What amount has been deducted from the gross and for what?
Net on Hall / Church lettings - is the net income after any relevant income deductions such as deposit refunds or cancellations. It's more appropriate to show as a net of income than as a cost. 

QUERIES/COMMENTS—REPORTS

13. Vicar’s Report. Jazz on the Lane night concerts ‘raised nearly £8,000 in profits’.  But accounts Note 4 shows concert income £9,799 Note 8 shows concert costs £6,739 giving a net profit of £3,060. (And possibly less depending on what the sponsored singer net costs relate to.)  Which figures are correct - Report or Accounts?
As Pitshanger Pictures activity is based on manual records by the individual running the programme, there is less transactional identifiability for this - the content of the finance report reflects that seen in the year's transactions.  It  makes sense to remove any reference in the Finance Report and refer to the Vicar's Report for information on the contribution of Pitshanger Pictures, both from a financial and community standpoint.

14. Jazz on the Lane night concerts have included Beatles nights and Leonard Cohen nights. Is the church making PRS returns for these (copyright) events.  (The licences we hold for some church service music will not cover these events.)

You are incorrect. The PCC is fully covered by a CCLI streaming license which (and I quote from their website) "As an agent for PRS for Music, CCLI tailors coverage for churches to host live music performances, concerts and recitals on their premises."

15. Churchwarden’s Report. ‘Pitshanger Pictures continues [present tense] to run on a regular schedule.’  So far as I am aware the final Pitshanger Pictures film tool place in December 2022. (With the exception of the screening of the Lent Course film.) And there are no future films shown on the St Barnabas website. The Report needs to be corrected.

You are incorrect. Pitshanger Pictures has had a number of screenings in 2023 including West Side Story in April for which your wife kindly provided the catering! All these screenings have been publicised well in advance of the dates in the weekly enews and the printed bulletin. 

16. Finance Report. Concert Income is stated to have brought in £14,407 of income, [less direct costs of c £7,407] = net in the region of £7,000. These figures bear no relation to the accounts where concert gross income is shown as £9,799 and concert costs £6,739.   Could I have a fuller explanation of the £14,407 gross and £7,000 net figures and why these differ from the accounts? And see also point 13 above where yet another figure is given.)

Concert figures in the Finance Report reflect further detailed analysis subsequent to the submission of the accounts to be examined and therefore we will add a note that they should be viewed as such - ie as and for management information only - as they were based off aggregated manual records, analysed in more detail up to the extent that we were able to identify all financial flows. (For example, we wouldn't necessarily have been able to capture voluntary donations to the church, made in connection with people attending the concert, but that is something we could perhaps interrogate in future) The concert figures as per accounts as examined, should be used. This applies also to point 13 - the report should be amended to reflect the same theme. The underlying direction is that the concert programme in 2022 brought in a healthy contribution to the costs of running St Barnabas, in addition to reaching many members of the community who may not normally attend our church. 

17. Report states 2022’s net unrestricted funds position is £28,313. But the SOFA states £30,711. Why the discrepancy and which is correct?
SOFA of £30,711 is correct as per the examined accounts. We will note the amendment for the annual report.