Parish Finance
‘You can’t run the Church just on Our Fathers and Hail Marys’ someone once said. A very important work done in any parish is the administration of its finances. In Church Law the Parish Priest is ultimately responsible for overseeing the day-to-day financial management. Assisting the Parish Priest in this task is often a small group of voluntary parishioners, some with professional expertise in this field, and together, they form the Parish Finance Committee. Every Parish Finance Committee is accountable to the people whose money they receive on a weekly basis and to the Bishop of the Diocese who gives them delegated powers in the name of the Trustees.
Before our amalgamation as the Parish of the Nativity of the Lord, Holy Family, St Teresa’s and St Joseph’s each had their own Parish Finance Committee which acted independently of the others. Now that these three churches have come together as ONE the assets of all three are held in common as belonging to the new Parish of the Nativity of the Lord. Ideally we are working towards forming one Finance Committee to serve all three churches, but at this early stage all three churches still retain their own Finance Committee and all three still have separate bank accounts. Discussions are already taking place between the Chairperson of each Finance Committee to look at new ways of working more collaboratively. Annual accounts are published for both the Diocese and for Parishioners.
Gift Aid
Would you like to give your Parish extra money without it costing YOU a penny more? If so please consider our GIFT AID scheme. Each year GIFT AID makes a sizeable difference to our Parish income. If you are a tax payer (and most people are) and regularly contribute to the parish through your weekly offering and other donations to the Church, please consider the benefits of GIFT AID and join the scheme.
Each of our church communities has a GIFT AID organiser who would be only too willing to supply you with the relevant Green Form and guide you on completing and returning it to them. Once you have done this the scheme works very simply. For every £1 you have said you will give in your offertory donations the parish can claim back from the Inland Revenue 28 pence under current Revenue guidelines. This amounts to a lot of money and the cheque we receive from the Revenue greatly increases and augments our annual income.