Hello everyone. I am here to
make a short but important appeal to you on behalf of the finance committee.
Firstly I want to thank you all
for the help that people do give to the parish in both financial and many other
ways. But unfortunately over the last few years the simple fact is that the income
of the parish has been less than our expenditure
Now coming up in the future we
have some heavy commitments including:
Repayment of parish loans
Support of the St Peter Chanel School redevelopment
Provision for re-roofing part of the Church roof that
was not replaced a few years ago.
The basic message is that we
need to increase income to the Parish now if we are to meet these commitments.
We would like to see a 10% increase in the income of the parish, and that
equates to an increase of £1 per adult and child per month - which is just 25p
per person per week.
For those of you who make
regular payments with standing orders, can you review your monthly donations
accordingly? For those who add to the collection each week can you see if you
can dig into your pockets just a little deeper at least once a month?
For everyone who is a tax
payer can we remind you again about the government’s gift-aid scheme? As a
charity we are able to claim 28% extra on your donations, and it won’t cost you
a penny! In fact if you are a higher rate tax payer you can even claim additional
relief on your contributions! All you need to do is sign a simple declaration
form and make a regular payment, or make use of the little envelopes we will
give you – these envelopes will give you the flexibility to pay as little or as
much as you wish. The scheme is entirely confidential. If you want to know more
then please speak to myself, Arthur Maxted or anyone on the Finance Committee.
As a matter of interest
approximately 40% of donations are not Gift Aided. If they were Gift Aided we
would get an extra £7,500 from the tax man.
So can I finish by thanking
you for reading this. It is important that as a community we all well aware of our
financial commitment of our parish and that each of us try to help as best we
can. Thank you.