Team Rector's Report to the Annual Parochial Church Meeting
April 2010
Parish of Poplar (All Saints' and St Nicholas')
As always, I express our indebtedness to all my colleagues, the Churchwardens and other elected officials, and to all who lead or support our many activities as a parish. Nothing could have been achieved without the hard work, generosity, commitment, support and faith of so many people. We really are fortunate to have a large number of people who work very hard – many often unseen and unknown to the congregation – to ensure the continuance of our life, worship and activities. My grateful thanks to them all.
Sadly, I record the deaths of four people from our Electoral Roll: Dolly Hutton, Millie Dawkins, Cissie Hooper and Betty Truman. We thank God for their membership of our Churches and for all they contributed to our life and worship. +May they rest in peace and rise in glory.
St. Nicholas
In June after a nine month interregnum Fr. Peter McBride, well supported by friends and by parishioners from his former church in Guildford, was welcomed to the Parish and licensed by the Bishop of Stepney as our new Team Vicar – with the usual lavish hospitality for which the congregation is well known. We wish him well as he develops and grows the ministry and mission there and in the whole Parish. Especial thanks to the Churchwardens and congregation at St. Nick’s for keeping things going for so many months.
Members of our two congregations continue to worship together on occasions and join in activities in both our churches, and we have repeated the practice of previous years with special service times for the Confirmation Service, All Saints Day and St. Nicholas Day to make this possible.
Ministry
In June we also welcomed Jane Hodges as our new Curate, and she, Bob and the family are already involved and active in our parish life. Jane will be ordained Priest on May 29th and preside at the Eucharist for the first time on Sunday, May 30th, at 10.30a.m., at a joint service with St. Nick’s at All Saints. Modupe Kenku has finished her 3 year Reader training course and awaits formal Licensing in September. A large number of people continue to be involved in reading, intercessions and administration of Holy Communion in our services, but more are needed for all our rotas, so please speak up if you would like to be involved in any of the activities.
Mission Action Plan
A reminder that, according to our Plan, our aim is for our Christian community to be -
a sign of God’s presence;
a source of spiritual nourishment and healing;
a fellowship which welcomes and brings together the community;
a refuge.
The MAP will continue to be reviewed by our Church Councils during the year, so if you have ideas about effective ways of implementing any of these aims, please make them known.
Money
We managed to pay all our bills last year and make generous donations to charities in addition to the fund–raising that was necessary to meet our own expenses. I thank people for their time and generosity, but also remind us all of the need for continued realistic, regular giving in the coming years as we try to meet our day to day expenses and contribute more to the costs of ordained ministry in the parish and the work of the Diocese and national Church. Our contribution to the Diocesan/Ministry costs for 2009 was £50,127, and in January this year it rose to £52,633. Despite our giving and fund-raising we are still heavily subsidised by other Parishes in the Diocese and we thank them for their generosity. At our Stewardship Sunday the Treasurer reminded everyone who pays tax on of the need to Gift Aid their giving so that we can re-claim the tax already paid on every £1 given. I am pleased to report that giving in both Churches has increased and that more of our members are using the weekly envelope scheme, too. Our Treasurer would love to speak to anyone who would like more information on any of these matters!
Below I list some of the statistics and events that readily come to mind:-
Occasional offices we have performed in the past 12 months:
(April ’09-March ‘10) with previous year’s totals in brackets for comparison are:
24 (42) funerals – of which 3 (7) were in church;
5 (6) burial of ashes in the Garden of Remembrance;
60 (70) baptisms;
17 ( 37)confirmations
11 (10) weddings;
Statutory Ministers’ fees paid, where appropriate, for services taken amounted to £3,300 (£4626) and were assigned to the Diocese towards the Diocesan Common Fund.
Anointing and Prayer for Healing is offered every 3 months in both churches.
The Youth Club has now moved to Wednesdays before the 7p.m. Mass and is gradually extending its age range. Our thanks to the helpers!
Also our volunteer helpers in both Churches continue to keep some of our youngsters gainfully employed in Junior Church/Sunday School and in Holy Week. Our thanks to them all for keeping this work alive. One of the tasks for the coming year has to be trying to expand on this work and attract more volunteers.
We continued to support many charities as a Parish, including our commitment to the Delhi Brotherhood Society, and it was good that Brother Raju was able to stay with us in the summer and tell us more of the splendid work being done in India with the poor and marginalized.
Our own Parish website – www.parishofpoplar.com continues to get visited by a large number of people every day (many from abroad) and has brought new people into contact with us – and to worship. Do visit it!
Volunteers continue to make it possible for All Saints to be open and available at lunch times from Mondays to Saturdays and members of the congregation at St. Nick’s have experimented with doing the same there. More volunteers needed!
The annual service of remembrance in November for the friends and families of those whose funerals we have conducted is appreciated and continues to be well attended.
The Crypt has been used on a regular weekly basis by the Parent & Toddlers Group, the Tuesday Lunch Club and our new group for young people It is also used regularly by all the other groups and activities associated with the church and the parish, but there is scope for greater use of our facilities at both our churches. Sadly, the Lunch Club has ceased and we record our thanks to Tressa and her helpers for all they did. It would be good to re-start a weekly lunch club again, so if anyone is interested and able………………
The staff continues it’s weekly involvement taking assemblies at St. Saviour’s School and more primary schools are bringing children to the churches for educational visits. Staff occasionally take assemblies at other schools by invitation.
The conduct of regular worship continues to benefit from a large number of people who give their time to ensure that it happens well. My thanks to them all.
The Wednesday evening informal Mass continues to attract a large number of people and children from the Youth Club lead the intercessions. As part of our Mission Action Plan we will be exploring new ways of developing the varied and informal style of that service. Discussion has also begun in our Church Council about the Admission of Children to Communion before Confirmation. A wider debate about this will take place this year before a decision is made.
The ministers of the local churches continue to meet monthly over breakfast and we have maintained the pattern of regular acts of joint worship throughout the year, though attendance is not great.. We hope that more lay people from our Churches will become involved in planning joint activity and worship.
The Docklands Singers continue to use the church for at least one concert each year. We also benefited this year in Holy Week from a performance of Stainer’s “Crucifixion” organised by Brian Hagger and his volunteers.
It was good to welcome back members of the SPY Club (South Poplar Youth) for their annual re-union in the Crypt. Their fund of stories about the parish as it was is always informative!
The Women’s Group and a Men’s Group (open to all!) continue to meet.
The Electoral Roll now stands at 286 of whom 106 live outside the Parish boundary.
John Woodcock, our new Inspecting Architect, produced his Quinquennial Report on both our Churches and necessary inspections, works and repairs are underway. At All Saints we have also begun considering redecoration and possible re-ordering of the building and hope to have firm proposals soon.
In addition to the weekly service at Duncan Court Residential Home we have now started a monthly service at Aspen Court Residential Home. All welcome!
There are, of course, many other activities and events and many people who have been and are working hard in many ways which have not been mentioned, and, on behalf of the congregation, I thank them all.
Finally, many thanks again for all your support. May God guide and bless all we attempt to do together in His name.
