Churchwarden’s Report to the APCM
May 2022
2021 was a hugely challenging year for all of us,due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic,which impacted on us in so many ways on our church and our church family. However, we as a church adapted and responded in the best way we could in order to maintain a sense of community and connection. Matthew’s leadership and care was key to the nurture of our faith during difficult times and we are very grateful for the work he has done and continues to do.
A system of ‘phone buddies’ was put in place, weekly telephone calls,to connect members of the congregation and reduce the impact of isolation when we were unable to meet in person. When we were able to meet again in person, although in very restricted numbers, a telephone booking network was implemented. This allowed us to manage social distancing and maintain a safe environment for worship. The vulnerability of our older members led to an appeal for others to step up to roles that they had not previously filled and we were extremely fortunate that they agreed to do so and worship was able to continue and to which we offer our sincere thanks. Happily many have continued in their roles and I’m hoping that more new names will appear on our rotas.
Sadly, we lost members of our church community during this time and we were unable to celebrate their lives in a way we would have wanted to. Our thoughts and prayers go to their families and friends.
The hugely successful introduction of live streaming allowed us all to continue sharing in worship when the church was closed to the congregation. The streaming of funerals has been a vital link for mourning families and is ongoing as a facility used on happier occasions such as weddings and baptisms. We are fortunate to have such a wealth of I.T capability available to us here at Whitkirk. At this point, whilst last year's zoom version of our annual meeting fulfilled the need to comply with our statutory obligations, it’s an absolute pleasure to see you all in person today-although if we get too many tricky questions we may wish we had recourse to the mute facility!
We were grateful to Giles, our Director of Music, and to members of the choir for continuing to provide music for the musical enhancement to our services wherever regulations allowed. Giles was awarded Licentiate membership of the Guild of Musicians and Singers at a ceremony in London last year and it was good to see him recognised nationally.
Obviously, use of our Community Centre has been much reduced and we look forward to seeing it grow into the thriving community hub that we envisaged when the renovation was completed. We need to optimise the potential of this wonderful facility that we have and it’s good to see the green shoots of its revival emerging.
We were still able to carry out all essential maintenance and ensure all the main utilities had their annual checks and certification completed.
On work/repairs on the church several problems were found on the roof and gutters which were promptly repaired by Robert Thompson.
The church floodlighting was repaired to a satisfactory standard and we are now lighting up our lovely church and the Community Centre had their outside light fittings replaced.
In the Community Centre several emergency light fittings were replaced.
Future work planned for 2022 include the installation of new lighting to the church tower as we now have visits from bell ringers from Seacroft who ring the bells the first Sunday of the month and hopefully we could have our own bell ringers in the future!
2022 will also require the Quinquennial Report to be carried out and several projects are under consideration like a new smart heating system control that hopefully will have the potential to reduce our fuel consumption which we need to achieve with the future increase imminent.
We now have a new Health & Safety officer in Trevor Sirrell who has taken on the roll havingset up our H & S policy and will be carrying out risk assessments for St.Mary’s in the comingyear.
The Church of England has set a target of being carbon neutral by 2030.This is a massive challenge but we are taking steps to achieve this. For example, we use eco-friendly cleaning products and leave areas of the churchyard uncut, with due respect to existing memorials to encourage wildlife, we have three areas of wild flowers and compost bins are now in full use.
We are currently in the process of completing the Energy Footprint Tool for 2021 which is part of our annual parish return to the diocese. This is an online return where details of our energy consumption and costs for the church and community centre are input in order to calculate our carbon footprint. Details of the results will be issued in due course.
We have reduced the number as waste disposal bins by ensuring waste is correctly disposed of at a considerable saving.
We had an environmental day organised by Catherine Sirrell and hopefully it will lead to more interest in the care of our planet.
Many thanks to Mark for continuing to keep everything looking good in the churchyard.
Looking forward - as we entered 2022 and many things were returning to some kind of normality we at St. Mary’s welcomed Elaine as Churchwarden and brought her cheerful nature and enthusiasm to our church to work with Janet Blenkinsop and myself to make ‘Team Churchwarden’ to serve our congregation.
Our thanks go to all members of our church who have worked so hard to maintain a sense of belonging and connection during a very challenging year.
May we send our prayers and blessings to you all.
Melvin Herring
Elaine Roberts
Janet Blenkinsop