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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.