Parochial Church Council (PCC) Meeting 20th March 2023

Regular meetings of the PCC occur every 2 months usually on the 3rd Monday of the month. These notes are to keep you informed of what we are up to and help you to pray for us and the issues facing the church. In March there were 3 substantive issue that we discussed:

Our response to the proposed Prayers of Love and Faith
Notwithstanding the fact that we currently have a very good working relationship with both the Bishop of Oxford and the Bishop of Dorchester the PCC is conscious that the proposed Prayers of Love and Faith [which is supported by both Bishops] is starting to make life complicated in this parish. The PCC discussed how we could or should respond. After a full discussion we decided that one thing we would do is to channel our parish share (the money we pay to the diocese to cover costs of clergy, safeguarding, legal advice and training) via the Oxford Good Stewards Trust. In our case 100% of our parish share will still go to the diocese but this is a mechanism that allows us to show gospel unity with other orthodox churches.

Annual Report and Accounts:

As a charity we are required to submit an Annual Report and Accounts to the Charity Commission. A draft report and accounts had been prepared for us by our treasurer Tom Douglas. The PCC reviewed and approved these and asked Tom to submit them on our behalf. The PCC is extremely grateful to Tom Douglas, Philippa Hughes the other members of the Finance Oversight team for all the work they do on this and other financial matters.

Heating in the Church

The Fabric Team (chaired by Andrew Butcher) have been looking into ways of improving the heating within the church building. There are lots of constraints on possible solutions including the fact the building is grade 1 listed and the Diocesan requirement that any new solutions must be green. Our external advisors (Environmental Engineering Partnerships) have proposed a combination of
i) air source heat pumps designed to maintain a background temperature in the range of 12-15 C and

ii) radiant heat emitters that could be switched on and off as when required to provide extra heat for the congregation during services or other events.

The proposals do not all need to actioned straight away especially as our existing boiler is still operation and provides some heat to certain parts of the building. We agreed to proceed on a phased approach which will enable us to deal with the most pressing needs and try out the effectiveness of the different approaches.

Other matters:
In response to the fact that some of our volunteer welcomers have, on occasions, had to clean up dog mess/urine from inside the church we reviewed our approach to dogs in our buildings. We decide that going forwards only guide dogs should be allowed in the church. Dogs (on leads) are still welcome in the café area of the Warwick Hall. However, as before, dogs are not allowed in any of the halls or meeting rooms in this building. This will be reviewed at the May PCC.

The PCC and Town Council are planning a joint event in the Warwick Hall to celebrate the Coronation on the 8th May. Ruth Reavley, Adrian Jackson and Linda Petra are representing the church but there will be plenty of opportunity for others to get involved.