Monday, June 5, 2023
Hello everyone
Such beautiful sunny days this past week, I am sure the last thing you want to hear about is church finances. However, the session committed to being more open this year with regular updates of our financial situation.
We will start with the good news. As you can see in the report below we are virtually on par with givings from last year. Deep appreciation to the congregation for sustaining this ministry here at St. Andrew’s. I personally thank you and I also thank you on behalf of the session and finance committee. Your dedication to the church is as solid as it is necessary. Thanks be to God.
We also celebrate that the session decided to enter into a lease agreement and a Memorandum of Understanding to work with Gizaagi’in Healing. You can learn more about them on their web page. Financially, this is helpful for us as a congregation. The initial lease means Gizaagi’in will pay St. Andrew’s $15,000 over this next year for use of the nursery area upstairs. This is the first in hopefully a number of community groups who may enter into lease arrangements with us.
Parking has also rebounded nicely. We will exceed the dollar amount budgeted for parking income this year.
The difficulty is that we are still on track for a sizeable deficit this year, unless congregational givings increase significantly or we are able to attract more organizations wanting to lease space. We are focusing on the latter at this point. We have 42,000 square feet and as a congregation we are not using all of that space. We have room to grow as a centre for community groups. This takes time to develop relationships and work out possible details.
Here is the report from the finance Committee. Again, thank you for all you do and all that you give.
Sincerely as a partner in the work of Christ
Marty
From the Finance Committee:
Following a stronger start to the financial year in Jan-Feb, donations slowed a bit through March and April. We’re currently a bit behind budget at this point and essentially even with last year. Presbyterian Sharing is also a bit lower than both last year and budget.
