This year St Paul’s has been successful in receiving several grants. We normally receive an amount from the E J Price Trust and this year we received $4,086, which have been spent on computer upgrades, with the remained probably going towards the repair of the office roof. Doug Lamb has been successful in obtaining a grant of $620 from the Papanui-Central-Innes Discretionary Response Fund for renewing the benches at the rose garden. We have also received $200 towards the Carols in the Churchyard event. We have now received a grant of $3,943.21 from Pub Charities for the urgent maintenance of the hall kitchen, including replacement of the hot water plumbing and painting. This upgrade could not wait for a full hall refurbishment.

These grants allow the Parish to allocate more giving and donations towards core ministry rather than some of the matters that pop up from time to time. We’re grateful for the grants and I want to thank everyone who has worked so hard to in applying for them.  No doubt, we will have to continue to be on the lookout for grant funding when the opportunity presents itself. So far this year the Parish also had higher than budgeted income through hall hire and offertories. We are still on track to have an overall deficit, but not as high as budgeted. The one income stream that is significantly below budget is fundraising. We have not had a significant fundraising event this year. This may be due to the effort involved in pulling something together—many of our members are elderly and have limited energy. Nevertheless, we need to be on the lookout for fundraising possibilities. Not only is fundraising a way to spread the financial load, it can also be a worthwhile project so that people in the Parish can work together. For that to happen, not everything should fall on a very small group of people. Any good ideas would be appreciated.