Caring for your church – news, advice and more. Sent to all Clergy, Readers, ALMs, LLMs, Churchwardens, Treasurers and Deanery Lay Chairs.
In this Issue:
Theresa Britt
Events and Resources
- Churchwardens’ Training – The Diocesan Website
- Developing a fundraising strategy for your project
- Opening your church to visitors
Environment
- Energy Audits
- Broken Heating?
- Churchyard management poster
- Repair it, don’t throw it
Information
- Protecting Built Heritage
- Sale of treasures
- Site visits
- Parish Returns – just for information
Maintaining your building
- Recommended monthly tasks
- Ecclesiastical Insurance’s monthly risk calendar
Grants and Funding
- Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (VAT)
- Net Zero Carbon Quick Wins Grant
- Minor Repairs & Improvements Grant
Good news stories
- North Mymms double news
- Great news from St Paul’s Bedford
The DAC team and the Diocese’s Website
With thanks for all you do to maintain our wonderful churches as places where people can encounter God, parishes can reach out in mission and local communities can be transformed.
Emma Critchley, DAC Secretary
Ann Wise, Historic Buildings Support Officer
Jenny Dart, Pastoral and Advisory (DAC) Officer
Tom Abraham, Net Zero Carbon Officer
Mayra Shaw, Team Secretary – Church Buildings
Liz West, Church Buildings Maintenance Officer
Richard Jackson – Local Church income officer
Theresa Britt
We start this Bulletin by sharing the news that Theresa Britt, DAC Chair from September 2024, died unexpectedly at home on Sunday 22 December. Theresa was greatly liked and respected by her friends and colleagues on St Albans DAC and by the DAC staff team and will be deeply missed. We shall seek a new DAC Chair shortly through advertising and suggestions you may put forward. In the meantime, please pray for Theresa’s husband, the Reverend Bill Britt (Stotfold w Radwell), their sons and families, Theresa’s sister, and all who knew and loved her.
Events and Resources
Churchwardens’ Training – The Diocesan Website
Churchwardens training
The session, which will be online and repeated twice, will cover:
• An overview of the Diocesan website and how to navigate it
• The search function
• How to download and link to documents from website
• The Resource Centre area
• An overview of some DAC-related areas of the website.
Dave Pickett, Creative and Digital Communications Partner, and Emma Critchley, DAC Secretary and Deputy Diocesan Secretary, will both be part of the training, along with Archdeacon Charles who will be hosting the meeting.
The dates are:
• Tuesday, 4th February at 7:30 pm
• Thursday, 13th February at 7:30 pm
The dates and Zoom log in details have been sent to all churchwardens. There’s no need to book for these sessions, but if you’d like to attend and do not have the Zoom details, please contact your archdeacon’s office or the DAC team.
Developing a fundraising strategy for your project
Join this online session, led by Ann Wise, Historic Church Buildings Support Officer. It will give you useful tips on developing a fundraising strategy for your project. This is taking place on 28 February 2025, from 10-11am. You can see further details on our website.
Opening your church to visitors
Join this online session, led by Ann Wise, Historic Church Buildings Support Officer. It will give you useful tips on opening your church to visitors. This is taking place on 6 March 2025, from 7-8pm. You can see further details on our website.
Environment
Energy Audits
Due to a change in the funding available to support energy audits from the national church and the expiry of the fixed price audits with Parish Buying’s supplier we are currently exploring what support we can offer for these in the future.
Broken Heating?
Please let us know if your heating system breaks down as we may be able to help with advice and/or temporary heating. Also have a look at our advice, Help! Our boiler has broken down!
Churchyard Management – poster
Parishes often have inquiries and issues about maintenance of graves and it’s worth being proactive in providing some explanation.
Hopefully the full churchyard regulations are available in your churchyard or as a link. The parish of Lemsford has produced a simple poster which caught our eye. The parish is happy for us to share it for other parishes to create something similar.
There is also a template notice about churchyard regulations for PCCs to display in our Churchyard Resources.
Repair it, don’t throw it!
St Paul’s Church in St Albans was recently host to a Repair Shop event, run by St Albans District Fixers. Repair Fairs have been a feature at St Paul’s Church for the last several years. Anyone can apply to bring in an item for repair, to work with a fixer and learn about how it might be able to be fixed.
Many items have been repaired, saving many kilograms of waste and CO2 emissions in the process. You can read more on this story on our website: Repair it, don’t throw it!
Information
In December the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport announced an inquiry into Protecting Built Heritage. This inquiry is to examine how to safeguard historic buildings and attractions. The timeline is tight- evidence has to be in by 3rd of February.
Sale of Treasures
Following some enquiries parishes have made via their Archdeacons about the possibility of selling items of church silver, we have added some information about the process on the diocesan website at
Site visits
We recently added up how many site visits the DAC staff, DAC members and consultants undertook last year and reached the grand total of 190; 75 more than in 2023!
The DAC members and consultants are available to offer expert advice from the start of a project via a site visit or Zoom call. These visits are arranged by the DAC office and can provide a parish with free advice and guidance on projects at their initial stage before any money has been spent on architects’ drawings, planning permissions etc. Members of the DAC staff team, if invited, will also visit churches to discuss a wide variety of subjects including project ideas, maintenance, heating and grant applications. The DAC staff will also help with making contact with national consultee bodies, put parishes in contact with each other who have undertaken similar projects. Our aim is to ensure a parish’s needs are met in the most appropriate and supportive way.
Parish Returns – Just for information
In early 2025 we are changing to the national church’s Parish Returns portal to upload the Return of Parish Finance and the Energy Footprint Tool data for 2024. All parish clergy (or churchwarden in a vacancy or extended study leave etc) will have had an email from Emma Critchley about this, dated 21 January, asking each parish to identify a key person who will set up an account for Parish Returns and manage parish users. Please check within your parish if you are not the key person. You can also email us with any queries: parishreturns@stalbansdiocese.org.
National review of churchyard regulations of dioceses in the Church of England – query
Enormous thanks to the many churchwardens and clergy who have already replied to Emma’s email enquiry about examples of smaller headstones in our churchyards. It is very much appreciated. The closing date for responses is 31 January.
Maintaining your building
Recommended monthly tasks – Winter
The tasks taken from SPAB’s maintenance calendar are on our website.
Ecclesiastical Insurance’s monthly risk calendar
Ecclesiastical Insurance have produced monthly risk reminders in a calendar to put up in your church.
The calendar highlights seasonal risk guidance that’s specific to churches, with links to more details on their website.
Grants and Funding
Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme (VAT)
Following a House of Commons Westminster Hall debate on 22 January regarding the future of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme, it was announced that the scheme will continue for one year from March 2025 with a cap of £25k per place of worship. In addition, the total amount available within the scheme will be capped at £23m (last year £29m was spent).
This is disappointing news for churches with larger projects and there will be much discussion over the coming weeks on the impact of this decision.
A positive from this debate has been the huge response from those caring for listed places of worship and the public. More than three hundred letters were received in relation to the debate at Westminster Hall, whilst some three thousand letters were sent to MPs. This has raised the profile of the future of our historic religious buildings. Thank you to those who sent letters to their MPs.
Net Zero Carbon Quick Wins Grants
This grant stream is open for expressions of interest and is expected to be fully operational shortly. Please see the net zero carbon grants page on the website for more information: Diocesan Net Zero Carbon Grants – The Diocese of St Albans.
Minor Repairs & Improvements Grants
We have received a flurry of applications during December and January for the Minor Repairs & Improvements Grant Scheme. These are being reviewed as they are received so that we can award monies to churches quickly so that the works can be carried out promptly. The money allocated to the Diocese must be spent by March 2026. We encourage all churches to consider if they have any minor repairs identified in their most recent QI, or improvements that they would like to make for missional purposes, that might be eligible for a grant. Urgent works are also eligible. The Application Guidelines can be found here Minor Repairs and Improvements Grant Application Information – The Diocese of St Albans. Please contact Liz West to discuss eligibility and your application.
Leavesden, All Saints: repairs to shingles on spire – the first completed project with funding from the Minor Repairs & Improvements Grant.
Good news stories
North Mymms – Double good news
North Mymms
In October 2022 we were delighted to hear that St Mary’s North Mymms had been awarded £5,000 by the Church Buildings Council’s Stained Glass Committee to towards the conservation of the two stained glass windows that were made of 15th and 17th century glass. Just over 2 years later we are delighted to learn that work on the windows is now complete and is featured in this piece on the Diocese’s website: Double good news for St Mary’s North Mymms – The Diocese of St Albans
Great news from St Paul’s Bedford
Annual Christmas Tree Festival raises a fantastic £23,000 for St Paul’s church and Bedford Hospital Charity & Friends
The Magic of Christmas, Bedford’s annual Tree Festival at St Paul’s, raised a further £23,000 for Bedford Hospital Charity & Friends and St Paul’s Church in December. The latest fund-raising efforts bring the total raised to an amazing £250,000 since the festival began 25 years ago.
Do keep having a look at the DAC blog posts on a variety of topics.