 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Search this site  |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
BISHOP STREET METHODIST CHURCH ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31 August 2008
Bishop Street Methodist Church is a charitable body, exempt from registration. As part of the Methodist Church of Great Britain it is granted excepted status under Statutory Instrument Number 2655 of 2007. 10a Bishop Street, Leicester LE1 6AF Our Mission Statement: Bishop Street Methodist Church: In worship we:
In mission we:
In working out our service, we will aim for the following values and for the resulting objectives: Being people centred:
Being sustainable:
Providing a place where good news is celebrated:
These values are underpinned by a theological emphasis that:
Managing Trustees: Those who have served as managing trustees during the year (The Church Council) are:- Rev. Jill Marsh (chair), Steve Beadle, Martin & Sybil Briers, Deirdre Brunning, Gillian Butcher, Mary Gill, Barbara Kolaczek, Tony Moore, Kalpana Pate, Tanvi Pate, Elaine Pole, Miriam Stevenson, Sheila Swire, Gladys Obeng, Tendai Chishanu, Hope Ncube, Immanuel Mudzinge, Margaret Byron, Philip Sutcliffe. Number of Church members at 31st August 2008: 51
Minister’s Report – Revd Jill Marsh. This year has been rich and varied, as you will see from this report. I am constantly challenged in my work here by the people in this church who not only continue to survive, but also to love, in very difficult personal circumstances of life. Perhaps this is partly why our church’s life seems so positive and full of friendly determination. Until our redevelopment becomes possible our premises are far from ideal and yet people continue to adapt, to help each other out, to show God’s love to each other and those who come, as well as living out their faith in their daily lives. The fact that people keep coming, that many visitors arrive, that new people often stay, that a huge variety of people come here for shelter, friendship, and conversation about such a variety of things, as well as to see inside this beautiful building, is an inspiration to us to keep going with the redevelopment plans. We hope you enjoy reading our annual report and, if there is anything you’d like to know more about, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Lastly I want to thank the paid staff and the dozens of volunteers who give their time and skills so generously.
Church Life The Heritage Open Day and ‘bike and stride’ event provided a boost for our oral history project, collecting people’s memories of the Church in former years. We have also transcribed our Baptismal Register, which has records going back to 1877, and these, along with details of the war memorial tablets, are now included on our expanding Church website. Our Harvest festival was the finale of a summer series of events celebrating our multilingual and multicultural congregation. Ghana, Iran, Afghanistan, the Leeward Islands and Zimbabwe had all been featured, and for the Harvest displays, all these countries plus India and Britain each had a window display in their national colours, featuring some representative flowers, fruits and vegetables. The Exhibition and launch of ‘The Chapel’ redevelopment at the end of October provided an opportunity for the Church to review, celebrate and share all sorts of aspects of its church life, as well as see displays by a wide range of others who use our building. Christmas, as always, started early with the switch-on of the Town Hall Square lights and displays in late November. Nearly 200 people took the opportunity to come into the foyer to warm up and have a drink. It was fun to run a seasonal postal service to send Christmas cards within the church, and the money saved from the postage has been donated to JMA. Also, the Christmas treats received at the Gift Service with the view to be given to those who may otherwise get nothing, were sent to be shared between the Women’s Refuge, the Community of Grace and Asylum Seekers. ‘You are not forgotten’, a Service for the World Aids Day was conducted at our Church one evening in December by the New Life Covenant Church. Rev. Fred Ireland, a minister from the southern part of our newly enlarged Northampton District came to preach on 20th January 2008. Actually, he candidated from this circuit when he felt called for the ministry. It was lovely to hear of his faith and experience of the past three decades. We continue to pray at Sunday and mid-week services for all those who offer their prayer requests via ‘Text-a-prayer’ or the Prayer Board in the foyer which is open for anybody to use. Our main challenge for the summer was the beginning of Open Church. Apart from Bank Holidays we have opened Tues – Fri. from 11.30 – 1.30 p.m. with prayers everyday at 1.00p.m. There has been a good variety of people coming in through the doors. In our first week 52 people came through the doors. A few people come every day, many come regularly, and there are lots of other occasional visitors interested in the history of the building or just wanting a place to find a rest or a listening ear. We organised knitting for Save the Children and this enabled and encouraged many other groups to join in with this campaign for premature babies. We have also encouraged letter-writing for Amnesty International and this has provoked lots of informative conversation and links with the Leicester AI group. If you’ve not called in yet please do come and see us and share a drink together. One very special evening was the launch of the young people’s report, “Willing to Chill” about their research into the basement space. The large number of young people questioned across Leicester gave overwhelmingly positive replies about the hopes for developing a youth space in the city centre. This means there are strong grounds for applying for funding to make this vision a reality. Copies of the report are available to anybody interested from the church office. Other special events at Bishop Street have included the Workers’ Memorial Day service, the visit of the All Service Women’s Association, and the service of welcome to Immanuel and Julienne Mudzinge by transfer, and to Tatenda Chitapuko-Sithole by baptism. As we are a very mobile church congregation there are always goodbyes each year and we had to say goodbye to Lydia Lantsch returning to Germany and to James Ihangwe who has returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo. We congratulate Tanvi Pate on securing a place to do a M.A. at Warwick University. On 25th May Florence Rowell and Evelyn Crook transferred their membership to Oadby Trinity after years of faithful involvement at Bishop Street. Both of these wonderful women are treasured by Bishop Street for all that they have given us in the past and we know they will be well looked after at Oadby. All these changes have meant that we have a very “new look” church stewards’ team. We thank Tanvi Pate, Gladys Obeng, and Sybil Briers who have all had to finish this time, especially Sybil who deserves a long service award! We welcome to the stewards’ team Barrie Hockney, Muzi Sibanda and Lameck Sithole, who take on this role and we pray for them as they settle into the work. Tendai Chishanu: One of our main inspirations for beginning Open Church was our church steward, Tendai Chishanu, from Zimbabwe. Tendai, died aged 39, on 24th Feb. It was a huge shock to us all. It is especially shocking to think that at this young age Tendai had already lived beyond the average life expectancy in Zimbabwe. Tendai faced a huge number of tragedies in her life, including the death of her husband 9 years previously, the death of her sister at Christmas, and of her daughter very recently, as well as the illnesses which come from living with AIDS. Tendai had a huge sense of fun and a massively positive and loving spirit. She was the chairperson for the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party to Mugabe) in Leicester. Tendai was always challenging us to do more to share the Gospel, and to care more, as a church. It was due to her challenge to keep our doors open that we began Open Church and it is a tribute to her that we are able to continue with this so far. We owe her a lot, we miss her very much still and we ask your continued prayers for her Mum especially.
Aspects of our Churches life are looked after by the following teams: Church Stewards (8)
Fundraising group: The autumn fundraising focussed on the launch of ‘The Friends of the Chapel’, as a way of promoting The Chapel particularly among members of other churches, and provide a context for annual or more regular giving towards the project. We also held our own annual gift day for Church members and adherents, which was also devoted to the development fund. Our totals for fundraising to the end of August 2008 (including grants for specific works) are:-
We thank all who have generously contributed to our fundraising. Included in the above figures are the following grants received during 2007-8. We record our grateful thanks to the bodies that have granted us these funds:-
Community Rooms The rooms and facilities at the Church are made available to a wide range of community groups and users. Volunteers have for many years opened the foyer for hot and cold drinks each Wednesday. In May 2008 this was expanded, as ‘Open Church’, to cover Tuesday to Friday each week, and to develop a range of activities. A Friday drop-in is also run, in conjunction with Age Concern. The foyer hosts the Maitri Project on Monday mornings, run by a multi-faith group, this provides a listening ear and a cup of tea. Two other Christian congregations met in our premises during the year – The New Life Covenant Church – an African-led church, whose pastor was ordained in our building in August 2008 – and UCKG, a denomination originating in Brazil, who moved to the YMCA in April. In addition to the main Church and Foyer, we have three community rooms, which are used by a variety of groups, many providing support for a range of people marginalised by society, others providing a variety of social and commercial activities. Many of these are weekly, others fortnightly, monthly or occasionally. We also provided facilities for several groups who normally meet at Wellington Street Further Education College, and at the Town Hall, while these were having refurbishment work. It is estimated that the 29 regular external groups currently average around 60hrs of use per week. During 2007-2008 our users included:-
Leasing out Premises Adjacent to both sides of the church are two buildings which are leased to third parties. One side is a building leased to the Leicester City Council for the occupancy of the “Children’s Information Service” which is a 9 year lease until July 2009. On the other side is a building called Pilgrim House, which is leased to four tenants namely: The Just Fairtrade Shop, SPCK Christian Bookshop and Church supplies, Leicester Council of Faiths New English Design Company. These particular leases are at various stages of lease renewal negotiations. All our tenants provide socially valuable services which are in line with the Church’s broader aims. These leases provide a valuable income stream, contributing to the Church’s financial sustainability and towards the future development plans.
Redevelopment Report: Michelle Arthur – Project Establishment Manager The plans have continued this year to see the building become an effective and flexible community space in the heart of Leicester City centre and we move ever closer to seeing that vision become a reality. On October 29th 2007 we held our official launch of our redevelopment plans alongside an exhibition highlighting the history and heritage of the church, including current church life and a number of exhibits from groups who use our facilities or with whom we have a link, such as Mosaic who began life as The Cripples Guild here at Bishop Street. It was a great day and the official launch was attended by many people. The Friends of the Chapel was also launched at this event. We held another launch in April 2008, this time of the results of the youth led feasibility study that we ran and that was funded by Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund. The young people presented their findings and were greatly encouraged by the attendance and support of Sir Peter Soulsby (Leicester South MP) and Cllr Vi Dempster (Cabinet lead on young people). The event was a huge success and we are currently working in partnership with the YMCA and the Diocese of Leicester to see how this space in the basement can be developed. The plans to refurbish and redecorate the community rooms have moved forward though there has been some frustration with getting a workable design and also in finding funding. £3000 has been obtained from Midlands Co-operative Society Community Dividend Scheme towards redecorating and renewing the flooring in the Barrett Room and we are now waiting to hear about the application we have put in to Awards4All. We hope to get a positive outcome from the funding application and to complete the work by December 2008. We have also begun to work on an Audience Development Plan and as part of that process we have had an access audit carried out on the premises and a number of church members have been out on the Town Hall Square carrying out research with passers by and this will continue over coming months. The last update is in regards to the Heritage Lottery Fund first stage application which has been a large part of the work during August. The hope is that the finalised application will be sent in by the end of September 2008 with a decision being received by the end of December 2008. Annual accounts to be appended shortly.
|