PCC Minutes 19 November 2020

St. Hilda’s Church

 

Minutes of a meeting of the Parochial Church Council, held on 19 November 2020 at 11 pm via Zoom conference call.

Present: Rev. Caroline Greenwood, Rev. Martin Russell, Hillary Jamieson, Barbara Foster, Margaret Robinson

  1. Apologies: Meena Rai Russell, Daniel Russell, Prue Meehan, Aidan Greenwood, Joyce Mawer, Brian Wood.
  1. Welcome

Rev. Caroline welcome everyone and open the meeting with prayer.

  1. Declaration of Interests

None

  1. Minutes

The minutes of the meeting held on 3rd October 2020 were accepted. Proposed by Hilary Jamieson, seconded by Barbara Foster. All in favour.

 

  1. Matter Arising:

Way Forward Discussion

Rev. Caroline mentioned reported that she had had a conversation with Anne Dawtry, Archdeacon, and she is aware of the feelings of the last meeting and will raise this for us at the Mission and Pastoral Committee. Progress is likely to be delayed until we can meet face to face. It is likely to be the new year when she meets with us as a PCC. A conversation was had with the architect at the quinquennial inspection and he indicated that he would be willing to explore options for repurposing with us should we choose to go further down this path.

  1. Allocation of roles

Carole Coleman has agreed to take both the  role of Electoral Roll Officer and  Environment Office.  The PCC extended their thanks  to Brain Chapman  and to Margaret Chapman for all that she has done on the PCC and for the social life of the church. Rev. Caroline already sent him a thank you card and flowers.

We still need a Children and Young people link person. This will be a  matter arising for our next  PCC meeting. Angela Ashton (from St John’s is continuing as Benefice Safeguarding Office.

  1. Vicar’s Report

 

  • Hilda Choir, St John’s Song Group and the musician did a such fantastic job on the Remembrance Day service online. It was very moving to hear the group singing together after so long. The service was viewed by over 130 people on YouTube and there were  32 of us was on Zoom, which was wonderful. The success has inspired us to do another special service of Lessons and Carols for Christmas.
  • In that mind there will be further special services for the week of Christian Unity. That would be collaboration of all local churches each contribute different bit toward it. Rev. Caroline will lead the liturgy and She will talk to Aileen to do couple of songs from St. Hilda towards filming. And Christ Church will do couple of contemporary choruses towards filming so we spreading round, someone is doing talk so it is a wonderful collaboration of our local churches. This service will go live on 7 Jan 11:15am  live in Zoom and also on YouTube and there will be also a DVD.
  • As we are currently in Tier 3 of lockdown, we are managing opening church at the moment we just open for prayer on Sunday 9.30 and afterward return to the Vicarage to lead the Zoom Service. We will keep the same alternating venue for prayer and revert to a service in the same location once worship is permitted again. St Hilda’s 1st & 3rd St John’s 2nd, 4th & 5th Sunday’s.
  • We will see how the lock down goes after second lock down finishes to arrange Christmas services and our regular services or recordings.
  • In response to the National call for prayers by the Archbishop of Canterbury we are setting up two prayer meetings per week for half an hour each. Tuesdays at 6:30pm on Zoom and Thursdays at 6:30pm by Conference Call to give everyone an opportunity to be involved. This will continue until we are able to be back in each church for weekly prayers.
  1. Church Wardens Report

 

  1. Fire Risk Assessment

During the quinquennial inspection, Margaret Robinson and Caroline made good inroads into completing the fire risk assessment downloaded from the Ecclesiastical Website. This had been mentioned at the Archdeacon’s visitation as a task that needs doing. The work on it will be completed when we can meet face to face.

  1. Organ blower

There was further discussion about the organ blower and how it is a sealed unit designed not to be opened for repair or servicing. The expert’s report from Peter Barnes of Organ Blower Installations was passed on to us  by Charles Burke from the asbestos company. The PCC discussed the offer of organ blower by Charles and it was agreed that we accept the offer £ 2975 in the settlement. Caroline will explore the possibility of grants  to cover the rest of balance.

Proposal: Margaret Robinson. Second Hilary Jamieson .  All are in favour.

  1. Building security

Church building graffiti in the church entrance hall, Pre-school staffs tried to rub off the graffiti. Rev. Martin Promise to contact Imam to talk about this issue in a friendly way.

  1. Treasurer’s report:
  • Prue sent a report to the meeting. There is approximately £10000.00 at bank and she thinks thinks that we can pay around £6000.00 for our parish share end this year.
  • She also said there is £60.00 in a/c for flood relief money …Caroline will contact Calderdale community to sort out money.
  • We discussed sharing treasurers’ tasks one Prue steps down at the end of December. Margaret and Hilary are able to do the counting and record keeping. We need someone to do computerised accounts online banking.  Caroline will ask a member of the congregation if he can help and, if not, look further afield. Rev. Caroline will contact John about this matter. Barbara Foster is happy to help out on some jobs in time being, if needed.
  • Caroline mentioned exploring giving money to the church by text. Also we discussed how many envelopes for giving  do we need coming year?

Next PCC meeting date 16 Jan 2021 at 10:30 am.