Stones Church is working on a mission project and to develop the building
We have two teams, one for Mission and one for the Church Development.
The Mission team have set up the monthly coffee mornings and two keep fit classes. There have been one off services for The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, World Day of Prayer, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and an Eggstravaganza. The Development Group have been working on the plans and costings and looking for grants. We are grateful to those who are supporting us. Beatrice Laing Trust
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Many thanks to Benefact Trust £100,000 Funding Cheque Awarded to Project. L to R David Normanton, Sue Rosborough, Rev Vicky Atkins and Andrew Smith |
THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS
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Development Update. March 2024
A quick update from a very busy team!
Mission
All our current activities are running successfully with good numbers attending the weekly Keep Fit sessions – another Social Evening is planned for early May. The Coffee Mornings are well attended and everyone enjoys the chance to chat over lovely coffee and cakes. The same is true for the more established Friday Get Togethers, where after entertaining and informative talks by local speakers, afternoon tea is served. The quarterly luncheon club continues to thrive as a very enjoyable meeting place particularly for many who find it difficult to get out and continues to be supported by a large group of volunteers.
The Guitar Club meets twice per month and membership has increased to 8 players. The ability of members spans from beginners to accomplished players with everyone able to enjoy the sessions.
The Stones Book Club started this week, with a healthy ten members. The idea was suggested by ladies who attend the Coffee Mornings and like the activities above includes a mixture of participants from our congregation and people from the community.
All our activities will continue during the building works, with those held upstairs moving downstairs for a few months. We may be able to hold Coffee Mornings outside in the sunshine – perhaps these will be weather dependent!
We are planning for the future and what we hope to do once the building project has been completed. We’ve been really successful in welcoming new adults into the Stones community but are aware of all the young families who live very local to us and who come to the dance classes. Reaching out to and working with young people will be our focus for 2025 and we are looking at potential sources of funding to enable someone to lead this aspect of our mission work.
Building
We are busy preparing to sign the contract for the works at the end of March. The timeline is “mission critical” with environmental and weather factors playing a major part in determining the ideal time to start the works, which are forecast to last about 30 weeks.
We have secured the funds to enable the major part of the works to be undertaken. At present secondary glazing and solar panels are not included in the scheme but we are intending to move these to a new “Green Scheme” for which funds will be sought.
We are working with all those who use our building to minimise the disruption and ensure they can see the long term benefit, whilst acknowledging the next few months won’t be “business as usual”.
The same applies to our services each Sunday, which, for a few months, will be held downstairs. We know that these will feel different to our services in the worship area. Many of you will remember we held services in the main hall in the old Stones School building in 2004 which served its purpose well whilst we undertook the hugely successful development on the lower floor.
Thank you to everyone who joined the Update Meeting in February. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, concerns and plaudits, which the Development Team are including in all remaining decisions.
Funding
In June 2022 we had a Development Fund of £75,000. The Development Fund is now £512,000 and has already funded fees to date of £55,200. We have applied to The Foyle Foundation and the National Lottery Heritage Fund for support and our own fundraising efforts here at Stones will continue.
A grant has been received from Staying Well to support our Luncheon Clubs throughout 2024.
THANK YOU to everyone at Stones and here’s to the future.
Stones Methodist Church AGM 14/5/2023. Church Development Project.
Stones Methodist Church Report for AGM May 2023. Church Development Project.
1. In short....
Its almost 11 months since the project started in its current guise, building on solid foundations. We aim to fix the fabric, insulate the building, improve heating sources and create a more flexible and usable space in the main church worship area to enable more faith and community activity.
We have made significant progress in that time, and we are approaching crunch decision times on details of the final outcome (e.g. church layout, heating solutions). To reach this stage, members of the project team have worked incredibly hard on the churches behalf, but now the 'baton' needs to be passed on to other members of the congregation, especially on the mission work and raising church funds.
2. Key progress
A. Money - Fundraising. We can’t do anything without funding, and estimates in 2022 gave us a target of circa £500,000. We targeted roughly £170,000 each from Grant providers, Methodist church sources and from Stones church.
Current situation:-
Grants £ 135,000 (was zero last June)
Methodist sources £ 125,500 (was zero last June)
Stones church £ 80,600 (was £75,000 last June and there has been circa £6,000 expenditure)
Total to date £ 341,100
Overall fundraising is on track, in fact we've made astonishing progress. We must now commit to support our own fundraising events that are planned over the coming months especially the Gift Weekend in June in order to raise the funds to succeed.
B. Money - Costs. Costs have risen. We have just received updated costs (which are being scrutinised and challenged) to plot the best route forward and put a range of options to Church Council.
It's crucial to prudently reign in costs, because there are three critical factors we as a church need to balance:-
1. Final permission to proceed from District can only be requested once we've reached 80% of the estimate e.g. £400k for a £500k project; £480K for a £600K project. (Building tenders cannot be requested until this stage.)
2. Scope. We must maintain the main scope as that's what funders have 'bought into'.
3. Time. We can't afford to 'chase costs'. Costs almost always rise and projects which don't land in a sensible timeframe tend to fail. So we are aiming to complete the project in 2024.
C. Mission and Community
A key aim is to increase use of Stones for faith and community activities, with the hope that some initially engaged in community will also want to participate fully in the church. Again, building on a strong foundation the project team have introduced guitar group, community coffee mornings, canvassed community and church views on the way forward, hosted the Easter Eggstravaganza, and this month we saw the re-introduction of Keep Fit and the start of the Community Choir (Sing Along). In September we will support the Yorkshire Churches Trust Heritage Day.
All of this is encouraging, and whilst the project team has added impetus, it’s what we as a church should be doing anyway. So far, the project team hasn't only raised money, it’s organised most of the activities. We now need more people outside the project team to come forward and help run faith and community activities.
D. Building and Property
We've had bat and heating specialists contribute to the plan, and there has been a lot of activity with the architects to obtain updated costs and options. These will be presented to church council as soon as they are available.
3. Summary
1. In short....
Its almost 11 months since the project started in its current guise, building on solid foundations. We aim to fix the fabric, insulate the building, improve heating sources and create a more flexible and usable space in the main church worship area to enable more faith and community activity.
We have made significant progress in that time, and we are approaching crunch decision times on details of the final outcome (e.g. church layout, heating solutions). To reach this stage, members of the project team have worked incredibly hard on the churches behalf, but now the 'baton' needs to be passed on to other members of the congregation, especially on the mission work and raising church funds.
2. Key progress
A. Money - Fundraising. We can’t do anything without funding, and estimates in 2022 gave us a target of circa £500,000. We targeted roughly £170,000 each from Grant providers, Methodist church sources and from Stones church.
Current situation:-
Grants £ 135,000 (was zero last June)
Methodist sources £ 125,500 (was zero last June)
Stones church £ 80,600 (was £75,000 last June and there has been circa £6,000 expenditure)
Total to date £ 341,100
Overall fundraising is on track, in fact we've made astonishing progress. We must now commit to support our own fundraising events that are planned over the coming months especially the Gift Weekend in June in order to raise the funds to succeed.
B. Money - Costs. Costs have risen. We have just received updated costs (which are being scrutinised and challenged) to plot the best route forward and put a range of options to Church Council.
It's crucial to prudently reign in costs, because there are three critical factors we as a church need to balance:-
1. Final permission to proceed from District can only be requested once we've reached 80% of the estimate e.g. £400k for a £500k project; £480K for a £600K project. (Building tenders cannot be requested until this stage.)
2. Scope. We must maintain the main scope as that's what funders have 'bought into'.
3. Time. We can't afford to 'chase costs'. Costs almost always rise and projects which don't land in a sensible timeframe tend to fail. So we are aiming to complete the project in 2024.
C. Mission and Community
A key aim is to increase use of Stones for faith and community activities, with the hope that some initially engaged in community will also want to participate fully in the church. Again, building on a strong foundation the project team have introduced guitar group, community coffee mornings, canvassed community and church views on the way forward, hosted the Easter Eggstravaganza, and this month we saw the re-introduction of Keep Fit and the start of the Community Choir (Sing Along). In September we will support the Yorkshire Churches Trust Heritage Day.
All of this is encouraging, and whilst the project team has added impetus, it’s what we as a church should be doing anyway. So far, the project team hasn't only raised money, it’s organised most of the activities. We now need more people outside the project team to come forward and help run faith and community activities.
D. Building and Property
We've had bat and heating specialists contribute to the plan, and there has been a lot of activity with the architects to obtain updated costs and options. These will be presented to church council as soon as they are available.
3. Summary
- We've made excellent progress so far
- We need to finalise key decisions soon
- We need the wider church to actively run things once the project team sets activities up, and continue to help to raise the funds needed to proceed.