Sensible Giving

A message from Fr Rob...

Now that St Joseph’s is open, we can start on the financial messages that I would like you to reflect on.

I am going to provide regular updates to you on our finances, just as soon as I have finished negotiations with the Diocese to resolve some of the outstanding debt incurred over the last 6 years. On this, I ask for your prayers.

But in the meantime, here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘our’ finances quite deliberately. They are our finances as a parish: we each have a responsibility for the stewardship of our parish’s finances.

The Church speaks of the stewardship of our gifts from God:

time, talents and treasure.

With our gift of time, we pray.
With our gift from God of our talents, we serve God, the Church and our parish.
With God’s gift to us of treasure, we support the work of the Church through planned, generous and cheerful giving.

To help me plan for our future, it is important that we think carefully about our giving… our stewardship of the treasure God has given us.

There are three ways to help and today I would like to mention the first one. There will be more to come over the next few weeks.

Gift Aid it...

The first way to help costs you nothing.

Gift Aid enables us to reclaim tax on your offerings … assuming you pay tax. Other than completing a simple form with your name and address and confirming that you are a taxpayer, there is nothing else you need to do. And we need to know nothing else. The parish claims the tax back every quarter and Jeremy Hunt sends us a cheque. This is worth 25% of our collection income.

More people have committed to regular giving than have gift aid forms, so we are losing out on free money from the Treasury.

Please check on the list at the back of Church to see if you have a new Gift Aid declaration in place. If you don’t, we can help you complete one.

And if you have one in place, you need to complete a new form so that we can continue to claim gift aid on your much appreciated donations.

Income is only one side of the parish finances...

Now that I have caught up on the back log of all the essential and regulatory building checks and outstanding repairs, some of which have proved to be even more expensive after the long delay, I am tightly controlling expenses going out of the parish bank account.

I only spend the minimum necessary on the liturgy, the Church and the fabric of its buildings.

Until our income improves, we will need to minimise our spending on building maintenance and cannot invest in the faith and fabric of our parish.

I will talk more about our parish income as we come up to Easter.

I promise that in my tenure-ship of our parish I will always be clear and transparent in my communication with you about our finances. You might not always agree with my priorities, but you will know about them and when I am moved by the Bishop to another parish, I promise you that you will know where every penny of our parish’s money has gone.

Ways to Give...

You can set up a Standing Order by completing this form.

You can make a one-off payment or set up a regular payment through online banking, using your name as a reference. Our bank details are:

Account name: CDP Aldershot St Joseph

Account No. 00873072

Sort Code: 30-93-04

You can donate by debit or credit card online by clicking here.