Arrochar Parish Church Congregational Board Report
		The Congregational Board met in the Church Hall on Wednesday 25th. June at 7.30 p.m. There was a good turn-out - Neil, Dane, Karen, Mary, Hettie, Bill, May, Nancy, Marion, Anna, Gill, Beth, Stella, Margaret, Jimmy and Jamie were all present (although Jamie had to run off to answer a fire-brigade call shortly after the meeting started). Apologies had been received from Retta, Irene, Eric and Mary Stone. A special word of welcome was given to Beth and Margaret who were attending their first meeting of the Board. After reading and prayer, the minutes of the last meeting were approved and we were into the Finance Report which had been prepared by Karen. When we had drawn up our budget for the year we had identified a target for our income at the end of May. This was £6, 796. In reality we had raised £6,812 so we were £17 over target! However, it wasn't quite as good as it sounds. Our Gift Aid donations were down by £300 on our budget and our Fund Raising was up. It's important for the future that our Gift Aid, the money covenanted through the envelope scheme, remains up to budget. In reality, when compared with last year, our Gift Aid giving is down by around £5 a week. It doesn't sound very much, but it makes quite a difference over the course of a year! So what we need is for as many people as possible to increase their giving by 25 pence a week. Now that doesn't sound very much - but if as many of us as possible do just that then we will have corrected our little blip. On the other hand, all of our expenditure is being held well within budget although we have the ongoing concern about our electricity account. Scottish Gas are absolutely useless - it doesn't matter how often we phone and ask them for help, one week they send us a bill, the next week they send us a credit statement, they are unable to say how much we ought to be paying and unwilling to meet with us to discuss the way forward. We continue to try to resolve the matter. The money in our accounts at this time amounts to £18,490 (£7,807 in the Fabric Fund - most of which will be required for this summer's work and £10,297 in the General Fund - with the stipend and ancillary payments made up to the end of June; there is also £386 in the flower and tea fund). We agreed to spend some additional money: first of all Beth and Margaret (West) were asked to buy suitable gifts for the children of the congregation. There aren't many with us on a Sunday morning but we really appreciate those we have and we want to give them something to make sure that they realise that they are appreciated. Then Tom and Jimmy were asked to buy something appropriate to mark the completion of the Grave Yard restoration project so that, once the work is done in a month or so, we can have a little celebration with the boys who have done the work. Finally, although it didn't come up until later in the meeting (under Retta's report given by Margaret [Kelly]) we discussed buying Pew Cushions for the Church. This is one of the last things to be done in the completion of the Church Restoration project. There was a lot of discussion. Could we afford it? Jimmy will already require money for the installation of new windows in the Church Hall and there may be costs incurred in other ways and we have only limited reserves. On the other hand there was a feeling that if we didn't do it now we wouldn't do it at all, and there is some money which is due to come into the Church, not least the grant of a proportion of the VAT paid by the Church on the restoration of the building. Karen thought that we could support the payment of the cushions (£4,108) from the General Fund so long as we agreed to fund raise additionally to existing plans and repay £2,000 of that money. Gill volunteered that Cruise Loch Lomond had agreed to allow us the use of one of their boats for a summer cruise and that the proceeds from this could be put towards the cushions. Marion offered to have a sale, Dane, Tom and Neil agreed to think about a sponsored event and May said that she would speak to some friends who had helped before with a fund-raising evening. Thus it was agreed that we would proceed with the pew cushions and it was given to Retta to make all of the arrangements and to settle on the final colour! Jimmy's Property Report identified the work on the hall windows as the task for this year and that work had already been carried out in replacing the lamp holders within the lamp fittings in the Church. He also indicated that the outside flood-lighting was now complete and working well. Come September the new stained-glass window should be installed and there will be little left to do! Margaret reported for Retta on the housekeeping of the Church. Both the dancing class and the computer group are stopping for the summer months and will restart towards the end of August. In the next wee while the Church will be spring-cleaned and the carpet shampooed. Under Fund Raising Gill reported that to date her committee had raised £1,933 .41p. Three new events: a Fiddlers' Rally on 24th. October, the Christmas Fayre on 13th. December and the annual Memory Stars will enable her committee to reach their target for the year. Under other business the need to get out a magazine for the Friends of the Church was highlighted. This is being attended to by Dane and Neil. We also noted that other meetings of the Board had been arranged for Wednesday 3rd. September and Wednesday 17th. December. The meeting of the Board was closed with prayer two minutes past the allotted hour of 9 p.m. (but no one rushed off home and most were still chatting away at quarter past!)