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Finance report October 2024

1. Advice re Future Fund- Communication to Congregation Members.

Please find attached for information purposes and approval to use and proceed with the covering Advice Letter to be used with several brochures.

This is a work which has been progressed through both Finance and Communication Committees and has the support via John Snare and me. Through his involvement in Communication Committee Rev Ian Ferguson has assisted, recommended changes, and added to simplify our letter.

WE propose that Allison and our Ministers sign the letter .

It will be attached to 2 brochures which are still being finalised :

The first brochure has been reviewed and there remain several amendments. These will be completed by Joanne following the Fete.

The process will then revert to the development of the Communication tools being :

We will also send a final copy to John Yates, our Auditor, purely for information as he has been engaged in the development process.

I have agreed to send a copy of the pack to Karen Bell of Synod Secretariat. She has been involved in our work.

We will supply Church Council with the final Brochure from GWUC and attach a copy of the existing UCA Brochure (hopefully in early November 2024.

It is important to recognise that we now have a product, after all this work, to be available to Congregation members top make Gifts and Bequests for use by GWUC in our usual activities.

Any Bequests which include ties or obligations as to actions will be managed by Synod and then delegated to us.

This has been a long process, with many people involved. We are confident that we now have a strong suite of products including the Future Fund.

We will develop a follow up approach for late 2025.

Ken M Coutts
GWUC Treasurer
Draft 4 3 October 2024

2. GWUC Financial Performance September 2024 ( P & L and Balance Sheet).

Please find attached a Draft / Provisional Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet as at 30th September, 2024.

There may be a couple of small adjustments that may reduce the deficit or reflect a small surplus for the month.

There is an ongoing debate as to a transaction of $5,707 approximately which was a refund of GST paid on Salaries following Synod Payroll converting to a new system.

The writer was aware that this was to be received and this Direct Credit was banked to our Westpac account, but there are current discussions as to how this was then treated.

It has been processed directly to the GST Account in the Balance Sheet. However, Finance committee wants to discuss , next week , whether it should have been processed as an Income/ Revenue transaction before being transferred to the GST Account.

This would then reflect a change in the P & L and technically the monthly result. We will have this discussion and hopefully will be finalised prior to finalising the Executive Summary and Monthly suite of Reports.

We are sure this item will be subject Audit and Review, so we want to spend time and get it right.

Monthly Performance -

The draft attached reflects a monthly deficit of $4,958 . Yealy Deficit covering January – September is a deficit of $10,316.25.

Direct giving of $12,682 is a good result. Envelopes and open plate are well behind our plan. Rental income in September is lower.

Costs are under control.

The Balance Sheet reflects our strong Financial structure. We haven’t marked our Investments in both the Endowment fund and Growth fund to Market and both will, when such occurs in December, reflect the strong stock market performance and higher Market Price for each of these funds.

We have Total Equity of $303,601 and the breakdown is reflected in the Equity group within the Balance Sheet.

I reiterate my prior view that we will likely display a Deficit of approximately $15,000-20,000 for 2024, assuming we have one large month of Rental Income.

We are able to run these deficits for a period of time (a couple of Years) but we are living beyond our means and the revenue streams appear to be under pressure and our expenses are increasing at above inflation rates. We will reflect upon this in the separate memo regarding the draft Budget / Plan for 2025.

The Management Reports will be circulated to Church Council following next week’s discussions at Finance committee meeting and resolution of the GST issue.

3. GWUC - Draft Plan / Budget for 2025.

Finance committee committed to present a Budget/ Plan document to Church Council in October 2024 with the following month used to then refine and adjust the plan / budget after we send the Expenditure items to each relevant group over the period 2nd week of October to end of October 2024.

We are close to having a finished first draft, 2025BudgetDraft4.pdf and 2025BudgetDraft4ForGroups.pdf, although Joanne and I need to finalise some identified adjustments and that will occur after the Fete, before we send the document (after it is split into parts) to the individual groups to review and then confirm back to myself / and or Joanne and then we will present a final document.

We expect after adjustments that the result will likely reflect another annual deficit of $20,000. This draft envisages a deficit of $5,000, but we believe it is optimistic and have already identified several areas requiring amendment.

Quite simply the revenue( being offering and giving and rental) doesn't cover the expenses incurred, particularly our staffing costs.

This document is for information purposes and to enable any resultant queries to be raised prior to sending it out in breakdown formats to each group.

4. Communication of Emissions Review and Report – Update.

For information we are pleased to provide detail as to our planned communication actions and processes re the Emissions Report previously approved for implementation by Church Council.

The matter has been reviewed by Communications committee and we are pleased to advise that we have several draft documents from Finance and Communications Committees that will form the basis of communicating and informing the details to our congregation.

WarrenGreenwood and the writer developed and then made changes and corrections to a summary document which we are confident will allow our congregation to understand the range of issues, the financing particulars and the various timelines and timetables to progress. To date these documents haven’t gone beyond Finance, Properties and now Communications committees.

These are controversial issues and our decisions that our actions will largely be progressed based upon the need to upgrade and / or replace after the development of a rigorous business case with detailed financials becomes imperative. We don’t see the need to query or analyse the Assembly and Synod decisions, but have been intent on using these situations and scenarios in a manner that will allow us to manage and plan these projects.

MichaelBoldiston has supported this approach and is comfortable with both the direction and the style and language of the communication documents.

JohnSnare as Convenor of Communications Committee also has the task of developing a method which will remove the tendency of the writer to be over detailed and also to communicate what and how we are progressing in an open friendly manner.

Warren has added some technical issues and detail but I sense John and Communications Committee will develop an approach which will present the case and the scheme and then welcome people to raise issues and queries. We don’t want to get into the politics of emissions reduction and costs and the resulting cost / benefit savings / issues.

As an aside there has been some excellent discussions between several parties as to GWUC being involved in and making application for a grant (SERF) from Synod regarding Emissions. DavidMorgan has led much of this discussion and Michael has led from Properties. This is an issue engaging real considerations and timelines as to implementing outcomes particularly should we be successful in obtaining a Grant.

4.1. Timelines re Communication to Congregation.

We need to finalise the document over the next 2-3 weeks.
JohnSnare will have an updated version of the covering summary (mid-October).
Warren and Ken to make several small amendments to the document (end of October 2024).
Michael will sign off end of October, as will Finance committee.

Submit Communication covering advice and summary document to Church Council via David Morgan in early November 2024)
Prepare a short presentation for congregation meeting ( Mid November).
Develop article for Kingsway Magazine . (Mid November.)

Include the summary and document on WIKI (discuss with DavidMorgan and JohnHurst)

Prepare hand out for Joanne to have in the Office (November / December).

There has been some short discussion as to holding an open forum / meeting in late January / early February 2025 to answer questions We are unsure if such will be needed.

We remain conscious as to the controversy that issues like Emissions and climate change and the political framework surrounding these subjects can create.

We don’t won’t to be involved in those but need to define and communicate our response and ability to undertake changes over the period from 2025-2040 in a coordinated and rational manner on the back of detailed analysis and planning.

It is our intention to submit the documents to Church Council before they are presented in a public forum or communicated across our Congregation.

Ken M Coutts
GWUC Treasurer