The Parochial Church Council or PCC is a group of people who direct strategy for and take decisions on behalf of Christ Church with St Mary’s. It meets regularly and it is important that everyone understands how it works and what it decides as this can affect our church life together.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
![](\"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/churchcommunity-scaled.jpg\" "\\"church&community\\"")
<\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>- \n
- PCC Update: February 2021<\/span>
Elected members of PCC: David Ratnam, Daniel Pitt, Ruth Awinyo, Charles Vince, Steve Cox, Sean Bolger, Rose Earle, Mike Frost Foster.\nElected members of PCC for Deanery Synod: Anne Grainger and Kevin Penfold
PCC (appointed offices):
Vicar: Simon Stevenette
Staff team: Norma McKemey representing Christ Church Anne Macmillan representing St. Mary\u2019s<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nTreasurer:Andrew Yeoward<\/p>\n
Church Wardens: Jim D\u2019Avila and Pam Bridgeman
The PCC meets 6 times a year.
What did the PCC discuss, what news was shared and what decisions came forward?<\/span><\/b>
The Community Centre has been awarded a \u00a330k grant. This was a great achievement by Chris and
the team and very encouraging. Congratulations and thanks to Chris and the team.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Reflection on Advent and Christmas.<\/span> We did a great variety of things, in spite of lockdown:
o An excellent Partnership Magazine
o Our Eco Stable
o King William Street Nativity
o An increased social media presence
o Sue Mansfield\u2019s Icons
o Comfort and Joy
o Launch of \u201cBeacon on the Hill\u201d
o Over \u00a33k raised for hampers
o Live streaming
o Blue Christmas
o Open air Carols on Christmas Eve
o Carol Service with 6 key workers from the community doing the readings
o Daphne Hardwick preaching remotely on Christmas morning as she was shielding
o The planning to stay open and safe
o Phone calls and hampers to the lonely at Christmas
o No-one turned away via booked services<\/p>\nThe Rose Garden may get a grant and we have received an offer to do the groundwork from
someone free of charge and with a donation from Friends Of Christ Church.<\/p>\nLockdown: Reluctantly it was agreed that Christ Church would only remain open for personal prayer,
but we\u2019re hoping to be able to re-open on 7th March.<\/p>\nThere will be an Ash Wednesday Service in some format.<\/p>\n
Simon was encouraging the new members of the PCC to consider its purpose and their individual
strengths and weaknesses. Simon suggested an informal purpose is: \u201cA group of people who, with
the Vicar, oversee the life of Christ Church with St Mary\u2019s with God\u2019s strength, to ensure we are
focused on what Jesus wants us to do. We aim to seek God\u2019s will, work well together, reflect our
values and take action for the future.\u201d Good discussion followed.<\/p>\nRuth reported she had attended a Diocesan evening on BAME vocations, also with Steven Shinde,
Nitin Shinde and Steve Dumba. We are encouraged to pray about cultural diversity.<\/p>\nAndrew gave a brief financial update – more detail can be got from him – but we were broadly in line
with budget. The use of the furlough scheme will continue for as long as possible. The \u00a330k grant will
enable Chris and Jenny to do a little more work and plan for the future. Andrew feels quite relaxed
about the finances.<\/p>\nThe Parish Office is now virtual. Training in the use of Office and other technologies is being planned
to help everyone deal with the techie challenges of not meeting in person.<\/p>\nThis PCC Update, in a more conversational format, was agreed so that the activities of the PCC
were more visible.
Old Town Partnership news<\/b>
o Robert Jordan is recovering from Covid.
o The Birthday service will be on Sunday 18th April at Immanuel.
o The Confirmation service will be on Sunday 30th May at Bath Road.
o The Desai project is ongoing.
o The Partnership will be represented at the on-line Holocaust Memorial service on Wednesday
27th January.
News from Swindon Deanery and Bristol Diocese<\/span><\/b>
o Trudie Wigley (Curate at Christ Church 2010-13) has been appointed Area Dean with Sally
Robertson as Assistant Area Dean.
o Dean Mandy Ford will be preaching at Christ Church on 9th May.
Progress with Eco-Church<\/span><\/b>: Some of us met with Clare Fussell, our Bristol Diocese Environment
Officer, to discuss Christ Church\u2019s eco-footprint. Whilst Christ Church has quite a sizeable footprint
because of the size of the building, the Community Centre has both a heat pump and solar panels.
We aim to cut our footprint to zero by 2030. Clare will follow up with us in about 6 months, as we
continue to tap into the reservoir of skills and knowledge across the Partnership.<\/p>\nThe Annual Report is being prepared for the APCM on 25th April 2021.
Simon shared information about his Ministerial Development Review and asked the Trustees to
consider:
o what should be our goals for 2021?
o Will we able to put on, and is it right to put on, such things as an Autumn Fayre, Beer Festival
and Jazz Festival?
o How can we renew our Sunday Club, Youth work and Messy Church?
o Two key thoughts are being kind to one another and team working.
o What is our vision for renewed joy? The living hope from our Bible verse is key and working to
realise people\u2019s potential.
We are encouraged to pray for: spiritual nerve, new vocations and financial sustainability.
The PCC will meet again on Monday 29th March 7.30pm – venue tbc.
Simon and the PCC<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PCC Update: February 2021Elected members of PCC: David Ratnam, Daniel Pitt, Ruth Awinyo, Charles Vince, Steve Cox, Sean Bolger, Rose Earle, Mike Frost Foster. Elected members of PCC for Deanery Synod: Anne Grainger and Kevin PenfoldPCC (appointed offices):Vicar: Simon StevenetteStaff team: Norma McKemey representing Christ Church Anne Macmillan representing St. Mary\u2019s Treasurer:Andrew Yeoward Church Wardens: Jim D\u2019Avila and Pam BridgemanThe PCC meets 6 times a year.What did the PCC discuss, what news was shared and what decisions came forward?The Community Centre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cc-home-page","category-events","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5969"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5975,"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5969\/revisions\/5975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christchurchswindon.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}