Church of England in Box, Wiltshire  

Harvest Festival Services: St Thomas' Sunday 28th Sept 11am, St Christopher's Sunday 5th Oct 10.30am, Chapel Plaister Sunday 5th Oct 6pm

PCC Minutes

(click on the relevant dates to download the PCC minutes)

PCC June 2008

PCC News

hat a dreadful Bank Holiday Monday for the last weekend in May and of course it was the annual Revels event.  It tipped down with rain all day and the wind howled!  The poor Social Committee always do teas at the Revels and had borrowed a large marquee from the Scouts.  This was managed to be erected but not so a smaller, lighter tent which had also been borrowed from the Scouts.  The committee and its helpers tried to erect it for 2 hours but ultimately had to concede defeat – and on top of that the tent poles had been damaged to the extent of it costing £30 to replace them!

Everyone got thoroughly wet but they managed to stay the whole afternoon pouring cups of tea and comforting the poor damp visitors.  Regrettably the profit from the tea tent was only just over £38 but at least that will help buy a few candles for the church.

he tea tent helpers had managed to dry out by the time we had our next Parochial Church Meeting on 19^th June.  We arrived at the church to find that the choir were still practising for our Patronal Festival  on 6^th July and there were lots of flowers scattered around as a start had been made for the Flower Festival which was taking place the following weekend.

Oger has had the church gates removed for repair as they weren’t in very good shape.  I read somewhere that 25 years ago when they were put there they should be coated in warm linseed oil twice a year for protection.  I fear that whoever was in charge of them then didn’t have time to do it and then it got forgotten.  Hope they’ll be back by the end of July.

lso the south aisle pews have been put up for sale with a notice in the parish magazine – so anyone who would like to buy one please get in touch with Roger on 742819.  If we have enough people wanting one it might make the price shoot up and that would be a good thing – at least for the fabric fund – we might be able to buy a few more new chairs or get a transporter for the ones already ‘en place’.

fter all that, Roger is going to see to the sanding of the south aisle floor to match the rest of the floor and, if there is any money left, see how we can improve the chancel lighting.

hen the boiler went wrong and was found to have a faulty ignitor and that, including labour and VAT, cost us £531.85, but at least we won’t have to wear double thermal underwear in church next winter.   And then, so as not to be left out one of the transmitter units on the portable microphone was defective and had been despatched for repair.  So all in all it’s been a pretty expensive month or two.

n and on goes the question of the organ repairs.  Some of the insurance questions have not been answered yet and on top of that we now need a certificate from the Diocese for making the console portable prior to applying to add this to the Faculty.  Oh dear, the work is not now likely to take place until early in 2009 but we must get the work done before the 2010 St Thomas à Becket Pageant.  We might need a celebration party after that!

atherine Hewes had suggested to Janet that to enhance communication with the congregation especially with controversial issues it would be a good idea to make the PCC Minutes more widely available.  After some discussion it was decided to put them on the church website with the possible exception of anything particularly sensitive.

t was unanimously agreed to give Jane Cox a free hand in producing the 2010 Pageant.  It would seem that she has been inspired by having some or all of it in plainsong.  For those who don’t know much about plainsong it was proposed that a party should visit one of the services at the Edington Music Festival in August.

he Finance Committee had met on 3 June and had been disappointed that the ‘Increase in Giving’ letters sent out earlier in the year had resulted in only 4 members increasing their standing orders and 1 new member starting a standing order.  In addition there have been a few CAF anonymous donations and 2 people have left the parish.  We very tentatively think that we might only have a deficit on our general fund at the end of this year of £1,500 instead of a much larger amount which was budgeted but it is still too early to be sure.

nsurance premiums for churches are due to rise by 8½% - 12½% mainly due to the widespread theft of lead from church roofs.  Our premium for St Thomas à Becket last year was £2,113 so if there is a big increase that will make a hole in our budget.

Associate Minister                 John Ayers    

 ost of the other topics which we might have discussed have been put on hold until Janet and the PCC have their Away Day in September at which their Growth Plan will be produced.  Should be interesting.

PLEASE FORWARD ANY IDEAS YOU MAY HAVE ABOUT THE FUTURE OF ST THOMAS AND ITS ROLE IN THE COMMUNITY TO JANET.  The more ideas the better.

Click HERE to download the June PCC News