Annual Report Year Ended 31/12/2025
Registered Charity No 1172631 
| “Connecting with Jesus,
with each other, with the community” |
ANNUAL REPORT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025
FOR NORTH WELLINGBOROUGH ANGLICAN CHURCH,
WELLINGBOROUGH, PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL
REPORTS OF CHURCH MINISTRY AND MISSION
Church attendance
The total of Church members on the Electoral Roll for 2026 is 78 with 13 having left and 15 added. This is a slight increase of 2 from last year’s total of 76.
Marion Darker – Electoral Roll Officer.
Report on the work of the PCC.
Membership
The PCC is made up of the following – ex officio members, who are the clergy (currently including the Incumbent (Vicar), and our two Curates (Ben and Livvy Haughton-Scales)), the churchwardens, and Deanery Synod representatives. The other members of the PCC (lay PCC members) are elected at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM):
- Deanery Synod representatives fulfil a three-year term, but new rules since 2020 enable them to stand for two terms before standing down for at least one term.
- Churchwardens are elected every year. They can be re-elected but can only serve up to six consecutive years and then have a break of at least one year before standing for re-election.
- Elected PCC members may remain on the PCC for up to three years and stand again after a one year wait.
Elizabeth Holbrook stepped down from Churchwarden, and only one person applied for the role, at the APCM in May 2025.
Louise Harrison stepped down from lay PCC at the APCM, and three new people were elected, which made eight lay members in total. The total number of lay PCC members allowed is currently nine, calculated from the number of people on the electoral roll. Therefore, one lay PCC member position remained vacant.
Helen Cracknell stepped down from Deanery Synod at the APCM in 2025 and no-one applied for the role.
With Clergy and Churchwardens (ex-officio members) this made 12 PCC members in total.
Two lay PCC members are due to step down at the 2026 APCM having fulfilled their three year term, and Sam Carew will also be stepping down at this year’s APCM..
There is, therefore, allowance for election of an additional four lay PCC members, two Churchwardens and two Deanery Synod representative at the APCM (2026).
The PCC is empowered to co-opt two additional members after the APCM for a particular purpose, regardless of vacancies, but only until the next APCM and then they would need to be elected.
Legalities
The PCC is required to have a Standing Committee, its membership comprises the Incumbent, Curates, Churchwardens and Treasurer.
As North Wellingborough Anglican Church is a registered charity, members of the PCC are registered with the Charity Commission as trustees. The responsibilities of the trustees are detailed in the Trustees’ Report.
Responsibilities
At every meeting the PCC considers reports from those who cover areas of the three priorities highlighted in the Church Vision, together with reports from Deanery Synod and Safeguarding. The Treasurer also presents regular reports on the church finances. All are responsible to the PCC and report back to it regularly. Their reports are received by the full PCC and discussed, as needed.
Attendance
The PCC would have met seven times but two were cancelled due to illness. They, therefore, met five times during 2025, including a short meeting after the APCM, with an average attendance of 78%.
Fiona Clarke – PCC Secretary.
Vicar’s Report
“Connecting: with Jesus, with each other, with the wider community”
I would like to start in my usual way by thanking our churchwardens Elizabeth (who stepped back due to moving away) and Matt Ellson. Matt has been the only churchwarden for the last year. I also give thanks for the PCC, Connect Group facilitators and to our staff team – Amanda Allen (Parish Administrator), our Curates Ben & Livvi Haughton-Scales and Chiaz, who joined us as our Intern in September. This is a really hard working team and I so appreciate the wisdom and generosity from each individual and am privileged to work alongside them.
The major news of 2025
In previous years the parish boundaries were re-drawn so that Glenvale Park became part of our parish and as a result we changed our name to North Wellingborough Anglican Church. The next and final phase of transition happened in 2025 when we decided to make Glenvale Church of England School our new home and, after 35 years of worshipping at Redwell School, we moved to Glenvale in March! This was a huge change for the church and has taken time to get used to but I believe we are now settled and very much enjoying the new facilities. This move also meant the church could have, for the first time, its own parish office based in the school.
Since we moved to Glenvale School we see new people dipping their toes in with us just about every single Sunday. That is so exciting and now some are beginning to put their all in with us, really becoming part of the church community.
What else has been good in 2025?
- The number of children and young people has increased.
- Easter events and outreach.
- Summer community days.
- Christmas events and outreach.
- Toddler group at the care home.
- Creations Craft Group.
- Starting a second prayer time, now on Sunday mornings, as well as midweek.
- Midweek Care Home Service.
- Connect groups (Livvi has started a new monthly one for those who struggle at other times).
- Summer drink stop at Glenvale.
- Continued schools work in both primary schools.
- Start of the youth band.
Looking ahead
As we move forward there are things that still need resolving with the building, for example, sorting the shed at Redwell School, the Wi-Fi, getting the wooden communion table installed, moving the printer to the office once the Wi-Fi is sorted and working out how best to use the parish office. A new Incumbent will need to re-visit the lease with the school to iron out our wider use of the facility, such as at festival times of year, etc. A new church sign has now also been put up on the school wall, a clear marker of our permanence!
A dynamic we did not anticipate in our move to Glenvale School was that many of the new people who have come on a Sunday morning have a church back in the place they have moved from. This is usually close enough to drive back to and so we are finding that many are only coming occasionally. I hope that in time some will decide that worshipping where they live, and perhaps where their children spend most of their time, will be worth making the move to their local church, to be part of both the ministry and mission of God in this place.
There are a couple of things, that became very evident in 2025, that in my view are really important as the church looks forward:
- Firstly, while we have a very large fringe, our core has grown smaller. This is partly as a result of the dynamic I outlined above, which means that there are less people fully committed and therefore less committed to serving and giving.
- Secondly, the impact of Covid/cost of living crisis continues to have a significant effect, largely that there is less capacity/willingness to use our gifts for the ministry and mission of the church, or to take responsibility for particular ministry areas. This has had a profound impact in 2025. A number of groups and the more pioneering work has had to stop. For the church to go forward, it has to now address this honestly, asking itself, what does Church now look like and what are our priorities. If this is not addressed fairly swiftly, it could have a negative impact.
Moving on:
It has been an immense privilege being called to serve alongside you – thank you for journeying together. I believe I have done what I was asked to do when I came – to re-open the church post pandemic, to create a new vision, to grow the church younger, to resolve where the church’s permanent home should be and to re-shape the parish (in terms of its boundaries).
The church entered a very different phase in 2025, some of which I’ve alluded to above, and needs someone who can support and encourage the church in this next phase. But I hope I leave you with this – whoever we are, whatever stage of life we are, the Lord simply calls us to be faithful to what He has given us, to respond to where He is taking us and more importantly than anything else, to know more deeply than before that we are sons and daughters of the King of Kings…..everything flows from this place.
We are this parish’s glimpse of heaven and I have loved being part of it!
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
Churchwardens’ Fabric Report
With effect from 2 Mar 2025 North Wellingborough Anglican Church have worshipped at Glenvale Church of England School. All equipment is stored within the school (either in the Hub/ Parish office or the PE cupboard) anything not required to operate at Glenvale has remained at Redwell School being stored in the shed. All equipment is in good state of repair with minimal financial outlays throughout 2025. We are grateful to Helen Cracknell and David Wells for the purchase of new mugs for use after services.
The parish still owns land in the Redhill Farm area of the parish, in conjunction with the Diocese. There are no plans regarding this at the present time.
I would like to acknowledge and thank all of those who volunteer and work tirelessly throughout the year covering off the duties and jobs which aid in the smooth running of weekly services.
Matthew Ellson – Churchwarden.
Sung Worship Team
Team: Alex Palmer, Ben Haughton-Scales, Dan Hulland, Ezra Airey, Jasmin Childs, Kendra Okelola, Louise Harrison, Mel Hartung, Noah Hartung, Olivia Okelola, Ore Alo, Ruth Wium, Seb Goss, Steph Gledhill & Steven Follows.
I’d like to start with a huge thank you to all those who have led and facilitated our musical worship over the last year. The process of planning worship, preparing music, learning new songs, and gathering during the week and early on Sundays to practice is not without sacrifice and we are grateful for the way these people’s gifts enrich our gathered worship. In addition to the team, we are also hugely grateful to Sally Wilkins, who diligently compiles the PowerPoint slides, to those who manage the visuals week to week, and to the sound team, who have served the church so faithfully in this area and have also overseen the transition of our PA setup to our new venue at The Glenvale CofE Primary School, including the purchase of new equipment.
We have sadly said goodbye to some of the team over the past year, with Louise Harrison and Steph Gledhill having moved on to pastures new, and at times others have needed to step back temporarily. Mel and Ruth attended the New Wine Worship Leaders Retreat in March 2025 and returned with some really good ideas for us to explore and implement as a team over the year. The new youth band comprising several of the church’s young people also led musical worship for the first time at the August 2025 cafe service. They have done this every month since then and it’s been great to see them grow and develop as lead worshippers! Noah Hartung has unfortunately been unable to continue with the youth band due to his increased school workload – we wish him well with his upcoming GCSE exams.
Looking Ahead
In early 2026 we have welcomed Kayleigh Bellamy, Amy and Matthew George, Victoria Hoy and Joshua Wium to the team, and are excited to see them grow in using their musical gifts in worship over the coming months. If you are reading this, harbouring a musical gift, and are interested in exploring how you might use that to serve God and his church, please do speak to me.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate.
Financial Review for 2025
At the beginning of 2025 the bank account balance was £61,334, divided £63,746 in restricted funds and £(2,412) in general funds. At the end of the year following there was £79,202 in the account divided £81,776 in restricted and £(2,574) in general funds. Our restricted funds have grown during the year largely due to Children in Youth funds and funding for the MES intern.
Our Parish Share was set by the Diocese as £70,207; this was not paid in full this year and unfortunately we paid less than last year; the shortfall was £14,207. We continued to support our many Mission Partners this year.
The net income over the year was £17,868, some of this is linked to grants for the youth worker and the MES Intern. The main source of our funding still comes from the congregation, this comes into the bank account through the weekly plate, online giving, Parish Giving Scheme and the card machine.
The accounts were examined by Denton Tavara Limited and no issues were reported.
My thanks go to Helen Cracknell for starting the year as Treasurer until I took over in the summer.
We thank God for his generous provision during 2025 which enabled us to sustain ministry. We pray that this will continue.
Dale Gilbert – Treasurer – On behalf of the Finance Team.
Key Vision Areas:
Discipleship
Being a disciple of Jesus means being an ‘apprentice’, it’s a life-long, whole-life process of being with Jesus, becoming like Him and doing the things He did. (John Mark Comer).
As a church we try to encourage and enable this through regular personal prayer and devotional time, through our Sunday morning gatherings, our midweek Connect Groups, through our giving and our serving (both the church and the mission of the church).
- Personal Prayer & devotion:
At least once a year we suggest a new daily prayer resource but on the church website there is a dedicated ‘reading resource’ area.
- Worship & Sunday morning gatherings:
Encountering God’s presence in worship and prayer continues to be fundamental and I believe we need to continue pressing into this much more than we have to date. There have been some key changes for us on Sunday mornings, not least the change of venue to Glenvale Church of England School!
- Connect Groups:
Throughout 2025 the groups changed a little and there are now 4 connect groups. It is hoped that these provide a place of love, friendship, care, biblical study, shared use of gifts/skills and ministry to one another. Thank you so much to the Connect Group Facilitators who meet together bi-monthly and have continued to work tirelessly.
Our four groups are:
- Monday afternoon (Carol Maycock).
- Wednesday evening (Ruth Wium).
- Thursday morning (Alan Palmer).
- 1st Sunday in the month (Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales – Curate).
We recognized last year that most of our families have not yet made it into a connect group. This prompted Livvi to start a monthly connect group which takes place after the café style services. It is very early days but we are hopeful it will gain greater traction in the coming months.
- Giving and Serving One Another:
A basic and important part of our discipleship is using the gifts and skills the Lord has put within us to love one another and to serve as part of His mission to the parish, and the wider world. Of course this takes many forms and includes the whole of our lives, not just at church. But during 2025 it has become increasingly more difficult to enable people to serve both in our church and missionally, within our parish. There may be lots of reasons for this, good reasons even, but it has had quite an impact on what we are able to do as a church. For example, groups have had to stop and some of our more pioneering work has also stopped. Interestingly, our financial giving has also gone down year by year and last year saw the biggest yearly drop in the last 6 years.
- Moving forward
The PCC are currently thinking through what the priorities of the church are and will be as we move forward to a time when the curates will move on and there will be just one full time clergy person. In a recent extra ordinary meeting on Monday 19th Jan, one of the things identified was that more thought is needed around our connect groups and their purpose.
More thought is also being given to what it means to be a loving community of God’s people. We know that the early church spent much time and energy on both caring for one another and on the Holy Spirit ministry of signs/wonders/healings. As they sought to be God’s distinctive community, both of these things made them stand out from the world. There seems to be a recognition in PCC that we need to ‘get back’ to this…..
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
- Care home Services
Leaders: Ben, Livvi, Dawn, Sandi, Jackie, Mel, Chiaz.
The care home services have continued to run every Tuesday at 14.30. We have been visiting Glenvale Park Care home for a number of years now and have built good relationships with the residents, residents’ families and the staff. Every week, we do a short half-hour service that follows simple liturgy and includes a few songs. This is often via video, but Ben also sometimes brings his guitar to play, which is well-appreciated. We have tried to bring in more child-friendly, Sunday school elements to the service, including familiar Sunday school songs, as a way of connecting with the long-term memory of the residents. Research has shown this to be beneficial for those experiencing Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia. This has been well-received.
Sandi and Mel have taken the leadership for services when Ben, Livvi and Dawn are not able to take the service and Sandi has taken steps to collect resources for putting the services together, in order to provide a way for the services to continue regardless of the change in leadership of the church.
Overall, this ministry has proven to be consistent and fruitful. We do not always know exactly how the services are being received, but the relationships built with those who attend have been really heartwarming and we trust that the Holy Spirit is working in powerful ways beyond what we can see ourselves.
Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales – Curate.
- Alpha
Following a successful Alpha in 2024, we were able to run another in the summer of 2025, this time welcoming 3 guests. Mel Hartung and myself co-led the sessions, with meal preparation support from Livvi Haughton-Scales. I was initially unsure whether such a small group would work, but it was really fantastic to journey together as we met weekly for an extended period of time. The guests all encountered Jesus in significant ways and took major steps along their journeys of faith in him. One highlight was our Alpha Day, which we were able to hold at Launde Abbey in Leicestershire. The venue provided such lovely surroundings in which to spend time with each other and with God, and we were able to enjoy the prayerful, meditative environment together.
- Looking Ahead
Following on from the 2025 Alpha, 2 of the guests renewed their baptismal vows by full immersion at our recent baptism service in March 2026. This was a fantastic day for our church family, and I know we’re all really excited to continue journeying with them in faith in Jesus. Experience has taught me that Alpha tends to work best when you start with a core group who are committed to taking part in the sessions, then publicise the course more widely to welcome additional guests. With that in mind, if you or anyone you know would be keen to take part in Alpha (or an alternative enquirers’ course), please do speak to me to register your interest and we’ll look to form a new group at the earliest opportunity.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate.
Under 18’s Ministry
We take the research seriously that tells us that churches who invest in under 18s ministry grow, and those that don’t decline. The national church has a vision to see 30,000 children’s and youth workers in an attempt to double the number of children and young people in church on a Sunday morning by 2030!
But ‘growing younger’ was also what I was asked to do when I was interviewed and appointed to be Vicar here, it has therefore been a key priority for me. It is a delight to see how many families we now have as part of the church. In my first year here there were on average 5 under 16s on a Sunday morning with a maximum possible of 7. As of the end of 2025 we now have an average of 17 on a Sunday with a possible maximum of over 32 (every Sunday it seems we are blessed with new people so it’s a little hard to be as accurate now, so it’s at least 32).
We have raised just over £53,000 to employ a part time children’s and youth worker, and £2,317 was raised through the ‘100 for 100’ project in 2025. Unfortunately, we have not been able to appoint anyone as yet but it is so pleasing that the Lord has released this money to us…let’s keep praying for a creative solution for the right person.
All under 18s groups continue to use the Energize resource.
Last summer a number of the parents of our under 18s completed the relevant safeguarding procedures enabling them to support the under 18s ministry on Sunday mornings. I am delighted and it is very welcome.
However, we continue to struggle to support the teen ministry on Sunday mornings. We have more teenagers than children and in September we spilt the group into two groups (yr 6/7 and yr 8+). Both groups meet twice in the month. This continues to work very well:
- Chiaz leads yr 6/7 group and has 2 people who help support where they can. However, sometimes there have been gaps and we have needed to ask someone from the children’s team to move groups at the last minute.
- We also seem to be getting more creche aged children and so moving one of the children’s workers might begin to prove difficult and so we need to find others who can support the yr 6/7 group on a more regular basis.
- At the moment we only have Jackie BC leading the year 8 and above group once a month. She no longer has someone to support her and you would have heard me recently let the church know this and ask for others to volunteer. There have been 2 people who have offered to support where they can, but they are already committed in other ministry areas.
- Rayo who is a young person herself, continues to lead the yr 8 and above group once a month. She is doing a fantastic job!
- Under 11s ministry
Sunday mornings
The under 11s continue to use the Hub room on Sunday mornings for their group. A huge thanks to everyone who leads and supports this age group and for their willingness to guide the children in their individual journeys with the Lord.
Outreach – Glenvale Park toddler group
We began this group Easter 2024. Glenvale Care home provides a beautiful room, toy storage and refreshments for this group. Some of the residents join the group also. We have around 50 families now on the register and anywhere between 7 and 16 households can turn up on any given week! This continues to be the case.
Outreach – primary aged children
PCC is aware that we did not restart Ignite after October 2025 half term due to both the rent increasing and the numbers of children attending decreasing. We were making a loss of around £40 a week during that half term and despite Livvi’s best efforts, we could not increase the numbers.
It is hoped that in the near future, particularly if we appoint a children’s and youth worker, that something new will be imagined.
School’s work
Being present in our two primary schools is a very significant part of how we serve our housing estates and the mission of the church. It is largely ministry unseen by the church but plays a huge part in what I would describe as ‘oiling’ the rest of ministry.
We continue to have a very good relationship with Redwell School which means between Ben, Livvi and I we are present on a regular basis, either through assemblies, collective worship, new parent intake evenings, Narnia prayers spaces, year 6 transition sessions, well-being groups, parent evenings and the various fayre’s and school productions.
Glenvale Church of England School continues to grow and it is anticipated it will take around 10 years for it to be fully open. I am now part of the governing body which is now called The Schools Forum and has quite a different role.
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
Ignite
Up until October 2025, the leaders for Ignite were: Livvi Haughton-Scales, Ruth Gilbert, Alan Palmer, Chiaz Alozie.
Dawn Airey came at the beginning of most sessions to help with the register or speak with parents.
Ben Haughton-Scales has helped on some weeks when needed.
- Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who has put their time and energy into continuing this group. Since April last year, we have had many good moments. We recorded an Easter film with the children last year, which we showed to their parents on the last session before Easter. This was hugely popular, a lot of parents came and many were very touched by the film that was made. We then had a chance to speak more with parents afterwards, which appeared to be a helpful time to make further connections.
- We also found through conversation with the children that came to Ignite that a few had started to pray and seen God answer their prayers, and remembered well the bible stories that had been told to them.
- Unfortunately, the numbers declined sharply after Easter term. During Easter term (January – April 2025), we regularly had 25-35 children, but the number went down to less than 20 every week after Easter term (May 2025 onwards). After the summer, we had another big push to get more children to come along with school assemblies and increased advertising, but the group continued to decline until we had less than ten children coming each week. In parallel to this, the rent doubled in cost over the academic year 2024/2025. We increased the cost to £3 after the summer to try to supplement this, but this may have resulted in the decrease in numbers.
We do not know fully what resulted in the numbers decreasing, but we know from conversations that many had started to go to sport or other activity groups at that time instead. It seems clear the need for the group in the community was not the same as it once was. As a result of the decrease in numbers, we were losing up to £40 each week, which is unsustainable for us as a church.
- In October 2025, the leadership team in the church made some difficult decisions regarding Ignite. None of these decisions have been made lightly and we were grieved to think of this group ending, as it has been so impactful for so long. Through prayer and reflection, though, we came to the conclusion that God was directing us to end this group after October Half Term 2025. Although there is sadness in this, there is also hope for the future, as the Holy Spirit may be taking us in a different direction to continue to reach the children and families in all areas of our parish, including Redwell Primary School. One thought we considered is how groups we start could have a clear purpose of teaching about Christianity and the bible, as we can see the rise in interest in the Christian faith in the population. This gives us the opportunity to be more overt in our intention to teach children and families about this.
Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales – Curate.
- Youth
Sunday Mornings
When all the young people are there, we now have around 18 young people on a Sunday morning. That’s really fantastic news! I have given more detail at the start of the section ”Under 18s Ministry”.
2025 has been a year of consolidation and embedding in the youth ministry at NWAC:
Sunday Youth – This is the group that meets during Sunday services on 2nd and 4th Sundays in the month. During these times there is in-depth Bible teaching and discussion. We currently do not have enough leaders to run Sunday youth on 3rd and 5th Sundays in the month and have been seeking to use these as ‘Serving Sundays’, encouraging the young people to help with various aspects of the morning service (such as assisting with children’s groups, playing in the worship band, serving tea and coffee, and washing up). The new youth band comprising several of the church’s young people led musical worship for the first time at the August 2025 cafe service. They have done this on 1st Sundays every month since then and it’s been great to see them grow and develop as lead worshippers! We’ll continue to explore other serving opportunities for the young people and are open to ideas church members might have. From September 2025, to accommodate the significant number of church young people in years 6 and 7 at school, Sunday Youth was split into two groups – one for years 6 and 7, and one for years 8 and above. We are really grateful to all those in the church who stepped up to lead and help with these groups to enable this to happen. I especially want to highlight Aderayo Adeliyi, a young person in year 11 at school, who took on the role of leading her peers in year 8 and above once a month (with support from her mother Racheal in preparing the sessions). The number of young people attending on Sunday mornings varies from week to week.
Connect Youth
This is a discipleship group which runs fortnightly on Sunday afternoons. We begin with a game and snacks, then have a time of worship, Bible teaching/discussion and prayer. 21 young people have attended the group this year, with an average attendance of 9. Most of the young people are connected with church, but we have started to see them inviting friends from outside the group to build friendships and explore faith in Jesus. We have been following a series on Christian Lifestyle using the church’s Energize resource and have run sessions on topics including holiness, perseverance, contentment and prayer. We have continued to hold half-termly social evenings to facilitate friendship-building among the group, including games nights and an outdoor summer social.
It is a huge joy and privilege to have such a fantastic group of young people within our church family. Helping them grow as followers of Jesus is a responsibility for the whole church family, so please do take every opportunity you can to encourage them in their journeys of faith. Our prayer is that they all build really solid friendships with one another that can sustain them in their faith in Jesus throughout their teenage years and beyond. The Energize online children’s and youth work resource by Urban Saints continues to be an excellent tool for all our children’s and youth volunteers to assist with planning and preparing sessions.
During the school summer holidays, 6 young people attended the Satellites summer youth festival at the Bath & West Showground from 6th-11th August 2025, with Dawn and Ben as the leaders for the trip, and Tola Okelola and Chris Airey very kindly assisting with transport and caravan setup/pack down. This was a fantastic time away for the young people; the range of activities provided was excellent and the young people all had stories of encountering Jesus in new and significant ways.
Team
The church’s youth ministry is completely a team effort and would not happen without all those who support the discipleship of our young people in so many different ways: Aderayo Adeliyi, Ben Haughton-Scales, Chiaz Alozie, Dawn Airey, Ihuoma Alozie, Jackie Brooks Cheesman, Jasmin Childs and Livvi Haughton-Scales. Thank you all!
Looking Ahead
In early 2026 we ran baptism preparation sessions for 2 young people, who were then baptised by full immersion during the morning service on 15th March. What a joy it was to celebrate with them! We have needed to re-merge the year 6/7 and year 8+ Sunday Youth groups back into one group, largely due to a reduction in leader/helper availability. The main challenge for 2026 is to ensure that the church’s youth ministry can run sustainably into the future. If you feel God may be nudging you to support our young people in any way, please do speak with me and I’d love to explore this with you further.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate and Youth Team Leader.
Wholeness in Jesus/ Wellbeing.
- Bereavement Support Group.
Throughout 2025 we continued to have our bereavement Facebook group which has 87 people in it but we had to close the group that was meeting in person due to lack of attendance.
- Care
In recent years we’ve moved away from the language of pastoral care and more towards Christian friendship which I think has been helpful. The main way of supporting one another continues to be via Connect Groups. There is recognition that many families (in particular) have not made their way into Connect Groups and the PCC are currently thinking about this. There is also a desire from the PCC that as a church we think about what it means to be part of a loving community and how we can do this better.
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
- Creations Craft Group.
The Creations Craft group was formed in December 2024 and meets every Monday in the dining area of the ‘Ock ’N’ Dough from 10:00 to 11:30.
The membership has remained steady, although we have one new member since the last report.
The participants carry out various crafts, including knitting, crocheting, colouring, cross-stitch and many other interesting crafts.
Last October 6th, the group was given an informal lesson in making an embroidered card for Christmas. This proved to be popular, with some trying embroidery for the first time. We hope to try something else new this year.
We are, again, knitting animals for the Christmas Nativity, and painting rocks for the Easter rock hunt this year.
The group share their expertise with each other and have encouraged people to either try new things or update their skills, which is wonderful.
We hope to have a sale of work this year at church.
Sandi Rance.
- Prayer Ministry Report
- Prayer ministry continued to be offered during and after services throughout the year, with varying amounts of people coming forward to seek prayer for their needs, on average 1-2 per service.
- With the departure of Chris and Steph Gledhill we sadly lost 2 of our most committed prayer ministry members. I thank God for their ministry and wish them every blessing in their new setting, and know they will continue to be a blessing to others.
- Towards the end of 2025 it was decided to instruct PCC members in the best practices of prayer ministry and safeguarding so that they can also help with prayer during and after services. It is quite often the case that prayer ministry team members are involved in other duties such as children’s groups, worship, preaching, refreshments etc., so having extra help is very important. This training has now been implemented.
Prayer Chain
- To make the prayer chain more accessible and faster in its response times, it was decided to create a WhatsApp group as this is faster than the usual email route of communication. This has been a successful initiative, with faster responses. More members have joined since the group started.
- We now have 16 members on the prayer chain, 14 of whom are in the WhatsApp group and 2 who prefer to be contacted via email.
Prayer Events
- For Maundy Thursday, it was decided to combine a simple meal with prayer activities, to encourage a higher attendance. Commitment to attend was secured via a small charge for food. This proved successful, with a much higher attendance than previous years, and the prayer activities were well received and utilised.
- The prayer activities for the Glenvale summer activity days focused on simple ways to pray, thinking about God’s creation and our place within it. Again these were well received by church and non-church members.
Weekly prayer pointers
- With the departure of Chris Gledhill in the summer, the weekly prayer email has ended for the time being until we can work out a way to start this again or replace it with another initiative which is effective.
As always, my sincere and heartfelt thanks to everyone who volunteers to pray with and for others. This is such a vital ministry and it can be tiring on a spiritual level, so I am thankful to our prayer warriors for all of their commitment to take time out of their day to pray for others.
Jackie Brooks-Cheesman.
Safeguarding Report
At North Wellingborough Anglican Church, safeguarding is treated with the seriousness it deserves. We have lots of members who give their time supporting children and vulnerable adults; DBSs, Safer Recruiting and Safeguarding Training are all important elements that back-up the work of volunteers.
Safeguarding information is displayed on the church noticeboard, website and weekly email news bulletin.
Within the deanery, there is now a safeguarding hub which enables relevant issues to be discussed.
Although I have not managed to get to either of the meetings so far, I have contributed in advance and picked up useful advice from the minutes.
During 2025:
- 6 new people received DBSs.
- 9 DBSs were renewed.
- 13 people did the Basic Awareness and Foundation training courses,
- 8 did the Raising Awareness of Domestic Abuse course (this is a new addition to the portfolio of 3 courses that volunteers are requested to do).
Thank you to everyone who volunteers at church and has done the forms and training – this certainly makes my role more straightforward.
John Gilyead – Parish Safeguarding Officer.
Deanery Synod Report
The Deanery Synod met 5 times in 2025 and heard contributions on a range of themes including:
- Emerging Mission – New housing developments in the Deanery (Various Contributors)
- Prison Chaplaincy (Revd Canon Helen Dearnley)
- Discovering Your Spirituality (Revd Dr Judy Craig-Peck)
- Good News from the Archdeaconry (Archdeacon Richard Ormston)
- Discussing the Diocesan Year of Prayer (Various Contributors)
Regular updates on Finance and Safeguarding were given at each meeting.
Additional Deanery events and meetings have included regular Treasurers’ Meet-Ups, Safeguarding Hub meetings for Parish Safeguarding Officers (PSOs), and various choral services and concerts.
Looking Ahead
The church can have up to two Deanery Synod Representatives but currently does not have any. It is hoped that these vacancies will be filled at this year’s APCM.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate.
Approved by the PCC 13th April 2026
APCM Meeting Minutes 2024
Gleneagles Anglican Church, Wellingborough
Minutes of the Annual Parochial Church Meeting
held on Sunday 26 May 2024
Present: Rachael Adeliyi; Rev Dawn Airey (Chair) & Chris Airey; Amanda Allen; Mope & Oluwatosin Alo, Ihuoma Alozie, Pauline Ball; Gordon & Jane Bell; Jackie Brooks-Cheesman; Valerie Brown; Jasmin Childs, Fiona Clarke; Greg & Helen Cracknell; Bob Cutler; Marion Darker; Matt & Heidi Ellson; Ruth Gilbert; Stephen Girdwood; Sebastian Goss; Rory & Louise Harrison; Mel Hartung; Ben & Livvi Haughton-Scales; Elizabeth Holbrook; Dan Hulland; Stephen Lomax; Carol Maycock; David & Judy Meleleu; Sheldon Melville; Folarin & Tolani Okelola; Lola Olarinde; Alex Palmer; Judith Samworth; Colin & Sue Suter; David & Lis Wells; Kirsty Woodward; + 13 children.
| The Chair opened the meeting with prayer and welcoming everyone. She thanked God for everyone who had served the church over the last year. | |
| Meeting of Parishioners and Annual Parochial Church Meeting | |
| 1 | Fiona Clarke was appointed as Clerk to the meeting. |
| 2
3 |
Apologies: Sam & Lisa-Marie Carew; Chris & Steph Gledhill; Alan Palmer; Rob & Maria Seaman; Ludolff & Ruth Wium.
Elections Dawn advised the congregation of the current ruling for elections, which is that, if there are the same number of applications for each post as there are available positions, then there is no need for a vote and the applicants are automatically appointed.
Election of Churchwardens The Chair thanked Helen Cracknell and David Wells for all they’ve done over the past year to challenge and support her, and she gave them each a gift.
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| 4
5
6 |
Minutes of last APCM dated 21/05/2023.
The minutes from the last APCM were agreed by the majority at the meeting, however, some had not been at the APCM in 2023. Dawn will sign and file them.
Deanery Synod Deanery Synod reps normally serve a three-year term. The current term is until 30/06/2026. However, new rules since 2020 allow them to stand for two terms before stepping down for at least one term.
Election of PCC Members PCC members can serve up to three years. Several of the existing lay PCC members have served three years and so needed to step down; A few other members have stepped down during the year; Elizabeth is now Churchwarden (ex-officio member) so no longer a lay member; this left seven lay vacancies. Four of these have been filled by:
Each of these had already been proposed and seconded and were automatically appointed. There are three lay PCC vacancies that can be filled next year. The new PCC is more representative of the church’s new population, increased area, and new goals. |
| 7 | Safeguarding
The duties are split as follows:
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| 8 | Finance Report
Lis Wells thanked everyone for their contributions over the year. Questions arising from the Finance Report:
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| 9
10 |
Vicar’s Report –
Dawn reminded everyone that we are the body of Christ, and each have roles to play. She said that she loves being part of Gleneagles church (Now known as North Wellingborough Anglican Church), the congregation and staff, and feels privileged to work among us. She reminded us of the passage given to her when she was preparing to join us 3years ago – Isaiah 37. This was a prophetic vision for Israel when it was written, but equally applies to us aqs a church locally and the church nationally. We were the “remnant” as we came out of recession. 2023 was year three, a growing year.
Song of Songs 2:11-12 was a new prophetic word given to Dawn this past year – See! the winter is past; …..the season of singing has come,…….. The Church of England has been in decline for 70 years and it can feel dismantled. We are experiencing birth pains as God reforms us – we are in a reformation era.
Reflecting on 2023 What a year it was for us: · There has been a growing desire for intimacy with God and new people attending regularly. · There has been a greater engagement with Redwell School. · Easter, summer, and Christmas successes. · Reshaping of Connect groups and their purposes. · Glenvale School is to be designated as a church school. · Alice finished her internship and has moved on. · We welcomed Ben and Livvi as our new curates. · We came to the decision not to continue with the plan to reshape All Saints church building.
Since the end of 2023 the parish boundaries have now changed, with Glenvale Park coming wholly within Gleneagles as Great Harrowden were unable to support their portion of it and, with effect from 1st May 2024, we are now legally “North Wellingborough Anglican Church” to reflect this. We now encompass Gleneagles, Glenvale Park, and Redhill Farm estates. Redhill Grange remains with Great Harrowden as part of their parish.
As our church now has a new name and boundaries, we will be choosing a new church logo over the next few weeks.
Connect Groups How do we best enable each other, support each other, encourage each other? This was a major focus last year when we were reforming our Connect groups. Our Vision, to “Connect with Jesus, Connect with each other and Connect with the community” led to the goal of everyone caring for everyone else, praying, studying, and allowing the Spirit to shape our lives, which became the new basis for Connect groups. What God calls us to do looks different at different stages of our lives; it inspires us to keep seeking Jesus in all that we do; it means different things to different people according to their circumstances. Some people attend every meeting whereas others can only attend socials where we share hospitality with one another.
Questions about the APCM reports
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There being no other business the Vicar thanked everyone for attending and the meeting closed with prayers in groups and a blessing for the church, the clergy, the churchwardens, the PCC and all who serve in Gleneagles.
APCM Meeting Minutes 2025
North Wellingborough Anglican Church
Minutes of the Annual Parochial Church Meeting
held on Sunday 25 May 2025
| Present: | Rev Dawn Airey (Chair) & Chris Airey; Amanda Allen; Mope Alo, Chiaz Alozie; Ihuoma Alozie, Pauline Ball; John & Lynn Brooks; Valerie Brown; Jasmin Childs, Fiona Clarke; Revd. Bob Cutler; Marion Darker; Matt & Heidi Ellson; Ruth Gilbert; Chris Gledhill; Sebastian Goss; Louise Harrison; Ben & Livvi Haughton-Scales; Elizabeth Holbrook; Dan Hulland; David & Judy Meleleu; Michelle Norwood; Tolani Okelola; Lola Olarinde; Gayle O’Sullivan; Alex Palmer; Sandi Rance; Cynthia Rhone; Judith Samworth; Colin & Sue Suter; + Ruth Wium all on electoral roll; + Soji Adeliyi; Alex Amodi; Jennifer Obodoako ; Miche Olarinde; + several children. |
| The Chair opened the meeting with prayer and welcoming everyone. She thanked God for everyone who had served the church over the last year. | |
| Meeting of Parishioners and Annual Parochial Church Meeting | |
| 1 | Fiona Clarke was appointed as Clerk to the meeting. |
| 2
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Apologies: Sam & Lisa-Marie Carew; Steph Gledhill; Alan Palmer; David & Lis Wells; Jeremy Cox; Helen & Greg Cracknell; |
| 3
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Elections
Under the current ruling for elections, if there are the same number of applications for each post as there are available positions, then there is no need for a vote and the applicants are automatically appointed.
Election of Churchwardens The Chair thanked Elizabeth Holbrook and Matt Ellson for all they’ve done over the past year to challenge and support her. She reiterated that she relies on them immensely.
Dawn went on to say that Elizabeth has been totally loyal, faithful and reliable and that she owes her a huge debt and we will all miss her hugely. Elizabeth addressed the church to give her thanks. See Appendix for details.
Election of PCC Members PCC members can serve up to three years. The PCC is made up of clergy – Dawn, Ben and Livvi; ex-officio members – Churchwardens and Deanery Synod reps; and lay members. The number of lay members is determined by the number of people on the electoral roll. We are currently allowed up to nine lay members. There are currently three vacancies.
The new PCC is more representative of the church’s new population, increased area, and new goals. |
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Minutes of last APCM dated 26/05/2024.
The minutes from the last APCM were agreed by 22 people present. The remainder of the congregation have joined the church subsequent to last year’s APCM meeting. Dawn will sign and file the minutes. |
| 5 | Deanery Synod
Deanery Synod reps normally serve a three-year term. The current term is until 30/06/2026. However, new rules since 2020 allow them to stand for two terms before stepping down for at least one term.
Dawn tried to encourage people to consider standing and explained that, in the Church of England, areas are split into Deaneries. Every month the clergy meet and every other month they are joined by Deanery synod reps. Their responsibility is to attend the meetings and feed back to PCC what is happening in the church in our Deanery and Nationally. |
| 6 | Safeguarding
The duties are split as follows:
Thanks were given for all that they do. Dawn stressed that, as a church, take safeguarding very seriously and are doing all that we can to keep everyone safe. We know that it can be onerous completing all the necessary checks but there are really good reasons for this, and it is no more than is required for any organization. |
| 7 | Finance Report
Helen Cracknell had given her apologies for not being at the meeting but sent a statement about the state of the finances, paraphrased below:
Money is tight and I’m having to juggle paying bills until money is banked and clears, especially as we started the year in a deficit for the general fund as banked money didn’t clear as quickly over Christmas as I had anticipated. Helen. There were no questions arising from the Finance Report. |
| 9 | Vicar’s Report and sermon –
I start by thanking you, the church, where everyone is using their God given gifts to serve one another and to bring about God’s kingdom purposes where you live, where you work and being part of this church community ushering in God’s kingdom in this place. I love being here and serving the Lord’s purposes together with you, genuinely, you’re a great bunch to do life with. And I really love being part of the overall leadership team as well as the staff team, which is ever changing. Last year we said goodbye to Rob who was an Ordinand here. The leadership and staff are a hard-working team, and I appreciate the wisdom and generosity from each individual and am privileged to work alongside them. I’m going to be brief and say two things: something about last year and something about looking forward. Dawn went on to speak of her journey with this church, starting with when she was preparing to come to Gleneagles church towards the end of 2020 and the prophesies she received. . , Starting with the scripture from Isaiah 37:30-32. She said that:
And at the beginning of 2023 we received another confirmatory prophetic word from Song of Songs 2
And yet again what a year of re-shaping 2024 has been for us!
Looking forward Our core vision is ‘connecting’ – with Jesus, with each other and with the wider community. The last couple of years at APCM I’ve focussed on Discipleship, but we made a significant decision last year about our Under 16’s ministry and looking at the possibility of employing a children’s and youth worker. We already have £53000 in the pot for this project, thanks to your generous donations and grants, and we are aiming for £65,000, which will allow us to employ someone for 30 hours a week, 42 weeks for 3 years. To help achieve this, we launched the 100 for 100 project in January this year, whereby each person in the congregation aims to raise £100, which would collectively raise £10,000, and with gift aid on top which would take us to the £65,000! Full details of Dawn’s review of 2024 and looking forward, can be found in the Vicar’s report which is now included in the Annual Reports. |
| 10 | Questions about the APCM reports
There were no further questions, so the meeting closed and continued with the church service with Chris Gledhill leading prayers. |
Appendix – THANK YOU from Elizabeth Holbrook
I want to say an enormous thank you to our amazing God for bringing our family to this church in 2011. We moved to Mears Ashby and tried various churches but knew as soon as we came here that this was where we should be. We were drawn in by the warmest of welcomes, for us and our teenagers. I pray that the same generous, welcoming spirit always remains here. It is special.
Most of you will know by now that my husband John is retiring as Bishop of Brixworth at the end of September and we will be moving to a lovely home God has blessed us with in Seaton in Devon, to be nearer family and the sea. Next week we celebrate Pentecost and remember that Jesus commissioned us to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. We’re only going to the end of England! While we are really looking forward to all the new opportunities and challenges, these can only come after the very sad task of saying goodbye to all our lovely friends, not least, all of you here.
So thank you for your friendship and fellowship, which I hope will continue – a spare room 15 minutes’ walk from the sea might be very popular!
Serving God in this parish, alongside all of you, has been a real privilege and (mostly!) a pleasure. I just want to leave you with two words – generosity and encouragement.
We have the most amazing clergy and leadership teams, and we are all serving the most amazing God who deserves nothing less than our all. So practice a spirit of generosity. Give your time and resources, not because you feel you ought to, but out of gratitude for all you have received from God in his amazing mercy.
Look around you, see what is needed to fill people’s spiritual needs and also their physical needs. And accept help if you need it! Don’t suffer in silence! People like helping – it makes them feel good! So if you need help ask for it!
My prayer is that you will do all you can to encourage the clergy and each other, to build one another up, so that you can take the message of our amazing God outside this building and into the world.
As Melvyn used to say – God’s got More!
Annual Report Year ended 31/12/2024
Registered Charity No 1172631
| “Connecting with Jesus,
with each other, with the community”
|
ANNUAL REPORT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2024
FOR NORTH WELLINGBOROUGH ANGLICAN CHURCH,
WELLINGBOROUGH, PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL
REPORTS OF CHURCH MINISTRY AND MISSION
Church attendance
The total of Church members on the Electoral Roll for 2025 is 76. This is a reduction from last year’s total of 82. However, this year there has been a total revision of the list.
Marion Darker – Electoral Roll Officer.
Report on the work of the PCC.
Membership
The PCC is made up of the following – ex officio members, who are the clergy, currently including the Incumbent (Vicar), and our two Curates (Ben and Livvy Haughton-Scales), the churchwardens, and Deanery Synod representatives. The other members of the PCC are elected at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM).
- Deanery Synod representatives fulfil a three-year term, but new rules since 2020 enable them to stand for two terms before standing down for at least one term.
- Churchwardens are elected every year. They can be re-elected but can only serve up to six consecutive years and then have a break of at least one year before standing for re-election.
- Elected PCC members may remain on the PCC for up to three years and stand again after a one year wait.
David Wells stepped down from Churchwarden in early March 2024, but was one of the lay PCC members elected at the APCM. Sally Quincey was due to step down at the APCM but moved to pastures new in March 2024
At the APCM in 2024, four people stepped down as they had completed their three-year term, and four new people were elected. Elizabeth Holbrook stepped down from lay PCC member to become Churchwarden (an ex-officio member). This made 12 members in total.
No PCC lay members are due to step down at the 2025 APCM.
There is, therefore, allowance for election of an additional three PCC lay members, two Churchwardens and one Deanery Synod representative at the APCM (2025).
The PCC is empowered to co-opt two additional members after the APCM for a particular purpose, regardless of vacancies, but only until the next APCM and then they would need to be elected.
Legalities
The PCC is required to have a Standing Committee, its membership comprises the Incumbent, Curates, Churchwardens and Treasurer.
As North Wellingborough Anglican Church is a registered charity, members of the PCC are registered with the Charity Commission as trustees. The responsibilities of the trustees are detailed in the Trustees’ Report.
Responsibilities
At every meeting the PCC considers reports from those who cover areas of the three priorities highlighted in the Church Vision, together with reports from Deanery Synod and Safeguarding. The Treasurer also presents regular reports on the church finances. All are responsible to the PCC and report back to it regularly. Their reports are received by the full PCC and discussed, as needed.
Attendance
The full PCC met eight times during this year, including a short meeting after the APCM, with an average attendance of 75%.
Fiona Clarke – PCC Secretary.
Vicar’s Report
When I was preparing to come to Gleneagles church towards the end of 2020, the Lord gave me the scripture from Isaiah 37:30-32. Of course, the scripture was a prophetic vision for Israel at that time, but I believed this to be a prophetic word for us as a church. As we emerged from the pandemic it felt like we were the ‘remnant’ (v31) and it took time to adjust. Year 1 & 2 were about re-orienting ourselves, setting a new vision, simply being faithful to the faith that had been given us and starting to respond to what the Lord was putting in front of us. But in year 3 (2023) we would ‘sow and reap’ (v 30). And at the beginning of 2023 we received another confirmatory prophetic word from Song of Songs 2 ‘the winter is past’ and spring is on its way. Alongside this, I spoke about a prophetic sense that seemed to be starting to grow in this nation, in which the Lord is preparing and equipping His church to be more spirit filled, more equipped/confident in bringing the gospel and with a greater awareness of being a sent people to make new disciples.
The church of England had been in consistent decline for at least 70 years and so in many ways it can feel as though the church is being dismantled, but actually I believe what we have been experiencing are birth pains as God reshapes and recalls His church, it’s a sort of dismantling in order to re-shape us.
And yet again what a year of re-shaping 2024 has been for us!
- One of the reasons I said yes to the call to ordained ministry, was to have the opportunity of walking beside people who are exploring what the Lord has created them to be and do, to then support and release that in whatever way I can.Last year Elizabeth was on that journey in a new way and out of a Godly desire within her to be creative, with missional imagination, she started the Creations Craft Group on a Monday morning at the Ock ’n’ Dough. I love that.We also started a second toddler group at Easter last year, this time at Glenvale Park care home also on Monday mornings. And the summer drink stop over at the park on Wednesday afternoons during the summer weeks.
- All the myriad ways we try to be present in the parish meant that last year we were part of bucking the downward trend in church attendance and for the first time in at least 70 years, some say 100 years, those who attend services on Sunday mornings grew.In fact, there is some research just coming out now, that was posted on our church Facebook page, that is showing that it is among Gen z that the church is growing rapidly.People just turning up at churches and wanting to know about Jesus.
- Last year we ran Alpha for the first time in several years and off the back of that we had two lots of full immersion baptism services with children, young people and adults, as well as a confirmation service in the Autumn.
- Huge in the life of this parish is that our parish boundaries were extended last year so that Glenvale Park is now part of this parish (and we are now 3 housing estates).When Glenvale Park is fully built it will more than double the size of the original parish.
- With the parish boundaries changing, we changed our name from being Gleneagles to becoming North Wellingborough Anglican Church.In fact, it was at last year’s APCM that we put the choice of names out for people to vote on! Another huge change for us.
- The new Glenvale School became a Church of England School and opened in September.So, our engagement with schools has increased, now having 2 schools – this includes monthly assemblies at Redwell, collective worship weekly at Glenvale, being present at all the Christmas and summer fairs, running the year 6 transition sessions in both schools, that’s around 116 year 6s. Running wellbeing groups at Redwell and we’re about to start the same at Glenvale School after half term. Last year, in November, we ran Narnia prayer spaces at Redwell School for year 5, the Glenvale year 5s walked up to join us too.
- And there was once again fantastic community presence during festival times of the year (Easter rock hunt, summer community days, teenagers went to the Satellites camp and Advent/Christmas) in which we saw hundreds of people, increasing year on year.
Looking forward:
Our core vision is ‘connecting’ – with Jesus, with each other and with the wider community. I often say that the Lord chooses us to be this parish’s glimpse of heaven! We gather ourselves around this vision by having 3 key areas to focus on: discipleship, wellbeing/wholeness and under 18/16s ministry.
The last couple of years at APCM I’ve focussed on Discipleship. To use a John Mark Comer phrase, being a disciple of Jesus is “being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus, and doing the things that Jesus did”. Our major way of encouraging one another in this is through our midweek Connect Groups. We re-shaped them a couple of years ago and I still want to encourage everyone to get into a Connect group.
But just briefly I want to focus on our Under 16’s ministry because we made a significant decision last year about this.
We know where churches invest in under 16s ministry the church grows, where it doesn’t the church declines. In my first year here (we’ve been here for 4.5 years now) we had an average of 5 under 16s on Sundays with a possible maximum of 7. Last year we had an average of 16 under 16s here on a Sunday morning with a possible maximum of 33. That’s a significant difference, because of your investment. So, we launched out in faith last year as a leadership team and knew that we needed to look at the possibility of employing a children’s and youth worker. We started off saying, can we raise enough to pay someone for 1 day a week for 1 year (42 weeks a year) at cost of £5,000. Now that’s a great start but it wouldn’t have really moved us forward. And as people started giving and as we started applying for grants, we got to the place of having or a promise of having in the pot for this project now standing at around £53,000. When the leadership first made this decision, I never dreamed we would get anywhere near that!
We’re now trying to head towards £65,000 which will allow us to employ someone for 30 hours a week, 42 weeks for 3 years. That’s really exciting and soon we’ll be putting a job description together to advertise and hopefully there is someone out there who will apply and can start in September. Their role will be to hold the vision and to co-ordinate the teams. Of course, they will be hands on but no one person can do everything! So please, please don’t anyone think oh good someone else can do my role in the under 16s because that won’t be the case. Essentially, that person will take on the roles that Ben, Livvi and I are carrying, which will free us up to do other things but also, Ben and Livvi will complete their training next summer and be moving on. What I’m saying is that what we’re doing at the moment, as clergy, isn’t sustainable and we need a children’s and youth worker.
So, to help us get to the £65,000 we launched the 100 for 100 project in January this year. The idea being that more than 100 people are part of this congregation (including under 16s) and growing all the time, and if we each could raise £100 this year, then collectively we would raise £10,000, with gift aid on top which would take us to the £65,000! My two kind of rules are (because I’m not into fund raising):
- be missional
- have fun
There are lots of ways to do this and during some café services a portion of time will be spent on allowing people to talk with one another around their tables and get ideas from each other.
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar
Churchwardens’ Fabric Report
During 2024, the church worshiped at Redwell School. All equipment was stored in the shed, apart from PA equipment, which was kept in a cupboard off the main hall, and office equipment kept in the study at the Vicarage. The PCC decided to relocate our Sunday services to Glenvale Church of England School, from spring 2025, with weekday activities for children continuing at Redwell School. Whilst some of our equipment is to be moved to storage cupboards at Glenvale School, this relocation will necessitate the purchase of some things which we need at both premises. Storage at Glenvale school is limited, so the shed will act as useful long-term storage for items we do not use every Sunday, and we are grateful that we can keep this facility.
The PCC also decided to use a generous donation to update much of the PA equipment, including a wheeled storage case, to use in the new school.
Items of office equipment are used in the Vicar’s study at the Vicarage.
Everything is in good order, with no evidence of deterioration due to damp. Items are repaired or replaced as necessary, and the costs are borne from church funds under the oversight of the PCC.
The parish still owns land in the Redhill Farm area of the parish, in conjunction with the Diocese. There are no plans regarding this at the present time.
This report comprises the Terrier report, together with the report on the Church Inventory and Logbook.
In conclusion, we would like to acknowledge and give thanks for the hard work and dedication of those who fulfil so many duties across our church life, who make our task so much easier by their selfless service.
Matthew Ellson and Elizabeth Holbrook – Churchwardens.
Sung Worship Team
Team: Alex Palmer, Ben Haughton-Scales, Dan Hulland, Ezra Airey, Jasmin Childs, Louise Harrison, Mel Hartung, Ore Alo, Ruth Wium, Seb Goss, Steph Gledhill & Steven Follows.
I’d like to start with a huge thank you to all those who have led and facilitated our musical worship over the last year. The process of planning worship, preparing music, learning new songs and gathering early on Sundays to practice is not without sacrifice and we are grateful to the way these people’s gifts enrich our gathered worship. In addition to the team, we are also hugely grateful to Sally Wilkins, who diligently compiles the PowerPoint slides, to those who manage the visuals week to week, and to the sound team, who have served the church so faithfully in this area and have also overseen the transition of our PA setup to our new venue at The Glenvale CofE Primary School, including the purchase of new equipment.
It’s been a particular joy to have a number of new musicians join the team over the last year. If you are harbouring a musical gift and are interested in exploring how you might use that to serve God and his church, please do speak to me. A new youth band comprising several of the church’s young people has met for several practices during the year and is aiming to lead musical worship for the first time at the June 2025 Together on Sunday cafe service. In addition, Mel and Ruth attended the New Wine Worship Leaders Retreat in March 2025 and have returned with some really good ideas for us to explore and implement as a team over the coming year.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate
Financial Review for 2024
The church now only has one bank account and mid-year it changed account name to match the church’s new name. Some of the money held in this account is set aside for specific purposes and is deemed restricted money.
At the beginning of 2024 the General account had £1,071 in it and the Building account had £49,032. At the end of the year following the merger of these two accounts there was £ 61,334 in the General account.
Our Parish Share was set by the Diocese as £69781; this was not paid in full this year although we did pay slightly more than last year; the shortfall was £7,281. We continued to support our many Mission Partners this year.
The net income over the year was £11,230, some of this is linked to grants for the U18 worker. The main source of our funding still comes from the congregation, this comes into the bank account through the weekly plate, online giving, Parish Giving Scheme and the card machine.
The accounts were examined by Denton Tavara Limited and no issues were reported.
My thanks go to Lis Wells for starting the year as Treasurer until I took over in the summer.
We thank God for his generous provision during 2024 which enabled us to sustain ministry. We pray that this will continue.
Helen Cracknell – Treasurer. On behalf of the Finance Team.
Accounts and Independent Examiners Report to 31 Dec 24
Key Vision Areas:
Discipleship
- Connect Groups
From the APCM in 2023 we ‘re-launched’ Connect Groups and reshaped them around the vision of the church. It isn’t possible to get to know everyone and so our midweek Connect Groups are the main way of caring for, encouraging, and supporting one another both in our faith journey but also life in general! The other change in Connect Groups is that we stopped calling those who coordinated them ‘leaders’ and instead call them ‘facilitators’. In many ways it may not feel like a significant change, but we recognised that a culture had developed in which those who were willing to be ‘leaders’ felt at times overwhelmed and found themselves organizing every aspect of the Connect Group. The purpose of the facilitator is to enable every person in the group to use their God given gifts and skills to serve and build one another up, rather than do everything themselves.
We have continued to have 5 Connect Groups, all meeting fortnightly (listed below). Rob Seaman, who had been leading one of our Connect Groups, left to start his curacy in June 2024. This resulted in a need for another Connect Group Facilitator.
With some discussion and deliberation, it has eventually been decided that Ruth Wium would become the Connect Group facilitator for this group. We are so thankful for her in taking up this role and using her gifts in this way. We have tried to encourage everyone to be part of a group and while for some going to the fortnightly meetings might be hard, the majority can get to the group socials and be part of the wider group to pray for and support one another. We have discovered that Connect Groups have been especially hard for those with families to attend in person. The possibility was considered as to whether an online Connect Group might be of benefit to those in this situation, as requested by one of the families. There hasn’t been too much traction at the moment with this, but we continue to bear it in mind and attempt to come up with opportunities for families to engage in different ways.
The facilitators continue to meet every couple of months to support one another. These meetings tend to be led by Dawn at this time, and are an opportunity to pray, share how things have been within our Connect Groups and to seek the wisdom in the room for anything we have been struggling with or thinking through in regard to the Connect Groups.
Our five groups are:
- Monday afternoon (Carol Maycock)
- Monday evening (Elizabeth Holbrook)
- Monday evening (Ben & Livvi Haughton-Scales)
- Wednesday evening (Ruth Wium)
- Thursday morning (Alan Palmer)
- Tuesday Teaching evenings:
In 2022 we decided to keep Tuesday evenings free from other church business to allow for occasional extra teaching sessions. In 2023 we used Tuesday evenings for a Lent course and a training course in prophetic ministry. In 2024, we have not used Tuesday evenings in this way, but the time that would have been spent on Tuesday evenings has been transferred to evenings of Alpha during the week.
In 2024, we completed an Alpha course with 6 adults within the congregation. This then led to four adult baptisms in May 2024, and the baptisms of two of their children in September 2024.
We have just begun another Alpha course.
- Community Events
We seemed to have developed a pattern of hosting community missional events at festival times of year and almost all of us are involved in these in some way or other, so thank you everyone!!! As a parish within the Church of England, we are called to be this parish’s glimpse of heaven and so I believe our community events have been a really significant part of being present in and being that good news to our local community.
Easter:
The Holy Week rock hunt happened again and was just as popular as in previous years. 260 decorated rocks went out and we finished the week by inviting families to an activity morning on Good Friday. 200 children, young people and their families came and enjoyed the activities, being introduced and invited into the mission of the church.
Summer:
During the summer we hosted the pop-up Community Days at Glenvale Park for the third time at the beginning of the July school holidays. We were able to have a community day on all of three days we had planned. The days were full of crafts, games, football, coffee and chat. On the Friday, we had the addition of a puppet show brought to us by Livvi’s mum, Wendy Scales, which was very popular, and on the Saturday, we had the addition of a bouncy assault course, bouncy dash n’ grab, donated to use by the developers. This was very well received by the community and a 100 or more people attended each day from the community and further afield. Some people from the care home also visited the Community Days. On the final day, while it was still sunny, we held an outdoor church service outside by the play park, between Glenvale Church of England School and the nursery. A few extra people from Glenvale came to this event, as well as many regular members of our church family. We also had the pleasure of a group from Glenvale Care Home coming as well, which was lovely! So many people from the church were involved in running the community days and it felt like a really good time for the church too. We look ahead to Community Days in 2025. Although feedback from those who helped was overwhelmingly positive, there was also acknowledgement that the time and energy spent putting up the event each day was more than the time we spent doing the event. In order to preserve time and energy, whilst still having the same impact of previous Community Days, we are looking to adjust the Community Days to be two slightly longer days, possibly including food and drink vans if we go over lunchtime. We will think about this in the coming months.
Advent/Christmas:
In December we had a full programme of carol events every weekend.
- Week 1: Outdoor Carols & Lights (knitted nativity characters) on Gleneagles.
- Week 2: Outdoor Carol service (drinks and food vans) on Glenvale Park; Wreath Event.
- Week 3: No additional Christmas Events.
- Week 4: Traditional Carol Service at Redwell School; Indoor Christingle & Nativity Service at Redwell School
Each event/service was developed further from the previous year. It was great to see so many people across the whole month, many who we did not know, as well as a good number who we see at our various midweek groups.
Glenvale Park Care Home
Our team for delivering church services and fellowship to Glenvale Park Care Home has increased. Rob Seaman had been an incredibly significant figure for these services, having a clear gift with communicating the gospel through his words and love for the residents and staff there. In leaving us to go to his first curacy, the loss was certainly felt especially in this area. However, we have been so blessed to gain additional members of our team. Our team now stands as Mel, Sandi, Jackie B-C, Dawn, Livvi and Ben. The team has continued to visit and facilitate a weekly church service which normally lasts about 30 minutes including some liturgy, songs, prayers and a short reflection. Dawn joins the team periodically so that we can administer communion. Sandi and Mel have taken on the responsibility of sometimes leading the church service without clergy. We hope this may be something that continues.
The services themselves are well attended. We have now moved our services permanently to the lounge area, which has additional seating. Average attendances are probably around 17 each week.
We also have had family members who have joined the services who we have got to know and often staff members have joined as well. We have tried different things through the services to engage the residents, whilst including elements of liturgy which provide a framework and some familiarity that those with dementia can engage with.
We would value your prayers as we seek to shape this work to best meet the residents’ needs and for the formation of relationships with visitors coming along.
Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales (Curate).
Under 18’s Ministry
- Under 11s ministry
For all of our under 18s ministry we have both a discipleship stream and an outreach stream. For under 11s our discipleship stream is primarily Sunday mornings at Sunday Club. Our outreach stream is on a Thursday – under 5s have Wellitots and those in year 1-5 have Ignite.
The resource called Energize has continued to be used across all of our under 18s groups. This appears to have been appreciated by all the leaders.
Sunday Club (Discipleship)
Sunday club continues to be appreciated by children and parents. There is a great group of people who lead and help with the groups. Huge thanks to each of them for their willingness to guide the children in their individual journeys with the Lord.
Revd. Dawn Airey (Vicar) and Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales (Curate)
Wellitots
Wellitots has continued to be held weekly on a Thursday afternoon in the Hub at Redwell Primary School. In the last year, we have had consistent volunteers who we are hugely grateful for, who transport toys, and provide snacks and crafts for toddlers and carers who come. A good community of parents, carers and toddlers have developed, although we have seen a drop in numbers in the new school year, to an average of 4-6 families coming each week.
To our surprise, we were contacted by the school a month ago to inform us that the Hub, where we have been meeting, is being repurposed by the school’s trust and so we are no longer able to use it.
The headteacher at Redwell School, Claire, has tried to find us another space and time for meeting, but the only available time was on a Friday, the church staff’s day off. Because of this, the decision has been made to not continue Wellitots in the way it currently stands after Easter. Our regular parents and carers have been informed.
Glenvale Toddlers
In response to a growing need on the Glenvale Park Estate for a toddler group that was close enough for parents and carers on the estate to walk to, our church decided to partner with the Glenvale Care Home and hold a weekly toddler group in their library. Research shows that there are huge benefits for bringing together the youngest and oldest in life and toddler groups in care homes have become more popular in general.
This seemed an amazing opportunity for the church to bless both the community in Glenvale Park and the Care Home. The Care Home had kindly offered to host and provide refreshments during the toddler group. The residents in the care home have enjoyed sitting in the library whilst the toddler group is happening. The Care Home also provides plenty of room for storing toys.
The toddler group ‘Glenvale Toddlers’ began in May 2024 and has been very popular. We now have 45 families on the register and anywhere between 7 and 15 families there each week. This toddler group proves to be very popular, and we pray it will continue to draw in more families, and deeper connections and opportunities to share God’s love will emerge.
Ignite
Leaders: Livvi Haughton-Scales, Ruth Gilbert, Alan Palmer, Louise Harrison, Elizabeth Holbrook, Judy Meleleu, Mope Alo, Michelle Norwood. Dawn Airey also comes at the beginning of most sessions to help with the register. Ben Haughton-Scales has helped on some weeks when needed.
Following Rob Seaman starting his curacy, Livvi took up the role of leading/ coordinating Ignite from September 2024.
Ignite has had an average of 25-30 kids each week since September and 80 regulars on our register. We are getting kids from both Redwell and Glenvale and assemblies have definitely been a key factor in ensuring our numbers stay steady. As well as this, current kids are also inviting their friends too. New children join every week.
In an effort to ensure prayer, worship and the bible is a key part of the group, we have continued to teach a Bible story every other week. As well as this, we have introduced an action worship song at the beginning of every session. We play worship music when they arrive and during activities. Livvi now asks the kids how they feel at the beginning of the session by getting them to use their thumbs. Livvi then prays they will feel God’s joy. Louise Harrison has also come up with great activities such as Bible bingo and activities to help them pray. This has been a creative way to weave prayer and our Christian faith throughout everything we do.
We have also been looking at how we can build relationships with the parents. Last term, we did a Christmas puppet show for the whole family. It was not as well attended as we hoped, but some families did come and there were good chats with the parents over coffee and cake afterwards.
This term, we filmed an Easter film telling the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection with the help of Livvi’s Mum, Wendy. We invited parents to watch this film as part of the final session before Easter and 29 children turned up, with around 20 parents/carers/family members.
They loved the film, and it was a great way of deepening our relationships with the parents and providing more of a link between the church and the group, as many of these parents are keen to come to our other events as well.
In building on this, another question for our team is how we might bridge the gap between Ignite and church even more. By building relationships and sharing openly our faith with both kids and parents, we pray that God might do something in their hearts that leads them to seeking Him. We will consider how we might provide more invitation for parents to come to church, such as inviting the Ignite kids to be part of all age café services in some way or maybe playing a film we have produced with the kids.
We feel thankful for what God is already doing with this group. Please pray we will have a sense of where the Holy Spirit is leading us in our next school term and beyond.
School’s work
We have continued to have regular school’s work at Redwell in 2024, whilst we have also started to engage with Glenvale Church of England School. At Redwell, Livvi delivers school assemblies on a monthly basis. She has often asked what assemblies the school would most benefit from and has, as a result, done a lot of festival-based assemblies, such as Advent and Lent.
Livvi has also done two assemblies promoting Ignite. This Easter, Livvi did three assemblies in a week telling the story of Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday, similarly to what Livvi and Dawn did the previous year. This was a good opportunity to advertise our Rock Hunt and Easter events.
All three clergy have attended school performances and Dawn has attended parents evenings. We have continued to run several wellbeing groups throughout the year with different year groups and Ben has mainly headed this up. We delivered, for a second time, the year 6 ‘Transition to Secondary School’ sessions using material from Scripture Union. Christmas 2024, we offered Narnia prayer spaces in the Hub, with the help of a couple of ladies from the diocese, who provided a lot of resources in order to make this a wonderful space for the year 5 children who attended. It was very well received and some children from Glenvale also came over to enjoy it.
At Glenvale Church of England School, Dawn delivers collective worship every Thursday morning. This has been a great way to increase presence in the school and to provide a place of worship for the children and staff who attend. It has been very well received, especially by the children.
Please pray for all of us, that God will continue to give us the passion and the opportunities to present the gospel to all the children attending the groups and that He will continue to guide us in His will for all the groups and all of us. Also please pray for all the children attending, that God will work incredibly in their hearts.
Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales (Curate)
School Choir
I ran the school choir at Glenvale Primary on a voluntary basis, in the lead up to Christmas 2024. I work with a group of 25 enthusiastic children from Years 3 to 6. As part of our sessions, I introduced worship songs as warm-up exercises, which helped create a positive and uplifting atmosphere focused on God. The children developed basic vocal skills and began exploring harmony, showing great enthusiasm and commitment throughout. Their hard work culminated in a performance at the Glenvale Carols concert, where they sang with confidence and joy, celebrating all they had achieved together.
Louise Harrison
Youth
Youth Ministry Report
2024 has been a year of both challenges and great joys in the youth ministry at NWAC:
- Ignite Youth– This was the outreach group that met each Thursday evening (term-time only) until the end of the 2023/24 school year. It involved games, crafts, a tuck shop, and a short ‘thought for the day’ on issues relevant to the young people and based on Christian teaching.
After much prayer and thought, the decision was made over the 2024 summer holiday not to restart Ignite Youth in the 2024/25 school year. This decision was not made lightly, but in looking at the big picture it was felt the group was not fulfilling its original purpose anymore and that it might be more fruitful to redirect our time and energies in a slightly different way.
Of those who previously led or helped with Ignite Youth, Carol Maycock, Judy Meleleu, Dawn and Livvi became involved with the team for the younger Ignite group for primary school aged children that still meets from 6-7pm on Thursday evenings, while Bruna and Daniela Duarte are now helping with Connect Youth instead. The age range for Ignite was also extended for those in school years 1-6, to catch some of the year 6s who would’ve previously attended.
- Sunday Youth – This is the group that meets during Sunday services on 2ndand 4th Sundays in the month (1st Sundays are Together on Sunday cafe services and there currently aren’t enough leaders to run on 3rd Sundays, so the young people stay in the service). During this time there is in-depth bible teaching and discussion. The new Youth Band has now met for several practices, and we are working towards them leading worship in church for the first time at the June 2025 café service.
We’ll continue to explore other serving opportunities for the young people and are open to ideas church members might have. The number of young people attending on Sunday mornings varies from week to week.
- Connect Youth – This is a discipleship group which runs fortnightly on Sunday afternoons. We begin with a game and snacks, then have a time of worship, Bible teaching/discussion and prayer. 18 young people have attended the group this year, with an average attendance of 9.
Most of the young people are connected with church, but we have started to see them inviting friends from outside the group to build friendships and explore faith in Jesus. This year we ran baptism and confirmation preparation sessions during the 2024 summer term, with 4 members of the group being baptised and 3 confirmed in the autumn. We have been following a series on Christian Lifestyle using the church’s Energize resource and have run sessions on topics including priorities, integrity, humility and influence. We have continued to hold half-termly social evenings to facilitate friendship-building among the group, including games nights, a film night and an outdoor summer social.
We are really excited about the spiritual growth and deepening of friendships that are taking place in these groups and are praying that God continues to work powerfully among our young people to help them grow as followers of Jesus. The Energize online children’s and youth work resource by Urban Saints continues to be an excellent tool for all our children’s and youth volunteers to assist with planning and preparing sessions.
During the school summer holidays, 6 young people attended the Satellites summer youth festival at the Bath & West Showground from 2nd-7th August 2024, with Dawn, Livvi and Ben as the leaders for the trip and Chris Airey very kindly making two return journeys to set up and pack down the Aireys’ caravan. This was a fantastic time away for the young people; the range of activities provided was excellent and the young people all had stories of encountering Jesus in new and significant ways. A group will be going to Satellites again next year at the same location from 6th-11th August 2025 – 6 young people have signed up to go, including 2 for whom this will be their first time, which is really exciting!
Team
The church’s youth ministry is completely a team effort and would not happen without all those who support the discipleship of our young people in so many different ways. I will resist trying to list everyone for fear of missing someone out, but you know who you all are, and we are immensely grateful for all your hard work and dedication.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate and Youth Team Leader.
Wholeness in Jesus/ Wellbeing
- Prayer Ministry Report
- Members of the Prayer Ministry team currently are Dawn, Ben, Livvi, Alan, Alex, Chris, Steph, Mel, Ruth and Jackie.
- Prayer ministry continues to be offered during and after services, with whoever from the prayer ministry team is present on the day and who isn’t doing other duties. Usually, 1-2 people on average ask for prayer.
- Prayer is always available for those who may need it. Please ask Dawn or Jackie if you ever need prayer and they will arrange it for you.
- The Prayer Chain continues to be extremely responsive and effective. It currently has 16 members who pray for any needs at short notice. Alerts are sent out via email.
- The list of names being prayed for by the chain are also included in the weekly prayers circulated to the wider church. Reviews of the list are carried out at regular intervals in the year with some names being removed as prayer is no longer needed. A summary of names and prayer needs is circulated to the prayer chain to recap on details and progress, and as a reminder of what we are praying for.
- Jackie has been looking at the book “Our Hands His Healing” by Jeannie Morgan with a view to potentially doing some training in the future regarding healing ministry.
- Ben and Jackie prepared prayer stations for Maundy Thursday. This was held from 4.30-6.30 pm. The theme was ‘Washed by the blood of Christ’. Everyone was welcome to come and spend some quality time with Jesus, with prayer activities for all ages.
- Towards the end of the year Prayer ministry was a bit quiet with not many people coming forward for prayer during services
- There are not many of the Prayer Ministry Team always available for prayer as all the members are participating in other duties during services – leading/preaching, worship band, children’s activities, refreshments etc. We may need to seek more members for the team.
- It has been very difficult for Jackie to meet the deadline for the weekly prayer pointers that are issued on Fridays due to her work and personal commitments. Therefore, Chris Gledhill volunteered to take over this element of prayer ministry and prayers have been issued for the last few weeks. I am extremely grateful to Chris for taking this on, and I’m happy to see that the prayer points are fresh and revitalised and the addition of a point to ponder for each week is a brilliant idea. Weekly prayers have resumed on the website and an extra item “a point to ponder” has been added, as well as the usual “Praise God for, Please Pray For, Pray especially for and wisdom from scripture.”
- Jackie continues to oversee the prayer chain and list of names for intercession and will liaise with Chris for this.
Our sincere thanks go to the members of both the Prayer Chain and Prayer Ministry Team for their faithful service and devotion to this vital ministry.
Fiona Clarke pp. Jackie Brooks-Cheesman.
- Wellingborough Bereavement and Loss Group.
The year began with numerous referrals from the local medical practices as reported to last year’s APCM. Unfortunately, referrals were not matched by attendances. We found ourselves with insufficient numbers to enable a viable group, to share experiences etc.
Regrettably the group organisers decided to cease meeting at the end of the school year in July 2024.
However, the online help line is still running, and numbers of members are static at the moment.
Valerie Brown facilitator.
Safeguarding Report
At North Wellingborough Anglican Church, safeguarding is treated with the seriousness it deserves.
- We have lots of members who give their time supporting children and vulnerable adults.
- DBSs, Safer Recruiting and Safeguarding Training are all important elements that back-up the work of volunteers.
- Safeguarding information is displayed on the church noticeboard, website and weekly email news bulletin.
- On Safeguarding Sunday in November, we spent some time discussing why safeguarding is important and who’s responsibility it is (everyone’s).
- Since May 2024, 10 people have got new DBS certificates. 3 people have done the safeguarding training.
Thank you to everyone who volunteers at church and has done the forms and training – this certainly makes my role more straightforward.
John Gilyead (Parish Safeguarding Officer).
Deanery Synod Report
Below is a summary of the Wellingborough Deanery Synod Meetings, Events and Training Opportunities which took place during 2024:
| 09 January | Synod Meeting | All Hallows, Wellingborough |
| 20 January | Intercessions Training | St Nicholas, Great Doddington |
| 17 February | Deanery Treasurers’ Meet-Up | Earls Barton Church Hall |
| 13 March | Synod Meeting | All Saints, Earls Barton |
| 24 March | JH Maunder’s “Olivet to Calvary” | Castle Ashby |
| 12 May | Thy Kingdom Come Service | with +Debbie at St Catherine’s, Irchester |
| 14 May | Synod Meeting | St Mary’s, Orlingbury |
| 14 July | Deanery Evensong | All Saints, Pytchley |
| 11 September | Synod Meeting | All Saints, Earls Barton |
| October | Faith Sharing Event | The Lilacs, Isham |
| 12 November | Synod Meeting | St Mark’s, Wellingborough |
| 24 November | The Advent Story | St Andrew’s, Wellingborough |
| 05 December | The Advent Story | St Peter’s, Isham |
WELLINGBOROUGH DEANERY FINANCIAL POSITION
Revd Katrina Hutchins (Mears Ashby/Hardwick/ Sywell/ Overstone) thanked all parishes in the Deanery for their Parish Share payments over the 2024 financial year. Every parish has been able to pay at least something.
The total paid in 2024 was very similar to 2023 figures, which was almost £30000 down on 2022.
Thanks were expressed to treasurers for returning the ASA and Parish Share splits; and to churchwardens for inputting the Statistics for Mission data, which the Deanery completed on time.
Katrina reminded parishes that their Finance Returns should be done online as soon as possible after their APCMs, and a copy of their Annual Report and Accounts sent to David Mason at the Diocesan Office in Peterborough.
PRESENTATIONS
The following presentations took place during 2024:
| Jan | Jez Gowers-Cromie gave a full and detailed account on the work of Christian Aid. |
| Mar | Peterborough Diocese Mission Team talked about their work around the Deanery/Diocese and a group discussion was held on generating ideas to take forward. |
| May | Eco-Church Presentation: members were inspired by the Orlingbury team, and Chad Chadwick and Katrina Hutchins encouraged us to look at our churchyards and church areas as an outside space to plant, enjoy and use. |
| Sept | Victoria Kellett, Diocesan Safeguarding Officer was welcomed to the Deanery. She gave a brief outline of her career and how her faith has played such an important part in her journey over the years. She looked forward to nurturing the safeguarding culture of the Diocese into something really positive. |
| Nov | Bishop Debbie spent the day in Wellingborough Deanery, visiting Deanery clergy incl. Greater Chapter, a toddler group at St Mark’s, the Kingsway Estate in Wboro, having a town centre walk in Wboro, incl. Swansgate, and a visit to All Hallows before lunch at the Daylight Centre, a baby/ toddler group in Earls Barton, and collective worship in Mears Ashby. She rested in Lt Harrowden and ended the day with a shared supper and Deanery Synod meeting at St Mark’s, W’boro. |
Report prepared by
Lesley Marriott, Wellingborough Deanery Synod Secretary
Approved by the PCC in May 2025
Signed: Dawn Airey (Vicar) Date
Annual Report Year ended 31/12/2023
ANNUAL REPORT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2023
FOR GLENEAGLES ANGLICAN CHURCH,
WELLINGBOROUGH, PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL
REPORTS OF CHURCH MINISTRY AND MISSION
Church attendance
The total on the Electoral Roll for 2024 is 82. Last year it was 74, with 7 names being removed where people have left the church and 15 new names added.
Marion Darker – Electoral Roll Officer.
Report on the work of the PCC.
Membership
The PCC is made up of the following – ex officio members, who are the clergy, currently including the Incumbent (Vicar), and our two Curates (Ben and Livvy Haughton-Scales), the churchwardens, and Deanery Synod representatives. The other members of the PCC are elected at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM).
- Deanery Synod representatives fulfil a three-year term, but new rules since 2020 enable them to stand for two terms before standing down for at least one term.
- Churchwardens are elected every year. They can be re-elected but can only serve up to six consecutive years and then have a break of at least one year before standing for re-election.
- Elected PCC members may remain on the PCC for up to three years and stand again after a one year wait.
Jackie Bello resigned in April, but two new PCC member were elected at the APCM. Additionally, two Curates joined in June, bringing the total to 15 members. Pauline Ball stepped down in October.
Since 2023
- Sally Quincey has now moved to a new parish, resigning from lay PCC membership.
- Three more of the existing lay PCC members were elected three years ago at the APCM in May 2021 and are due to step down at the APCM (2024).
- David Wells and Helen Cracknell will not be continuing as Churchwardens after the APCM.
- Heidi Ellson will be stepping down from Deanery Synod after the APCM.
- Rob Seaman will be taking up a post as curate in early June so will be stepping down from PCC at the APCM.
There is, therefore, allowance for election of an additional six PCC members, two Churchwardens and two Deanery Synod representatives at the APCM (2024).
The PCC is empowered to co-opt two additional members after the APCM for a particular purpose, regardless of vacancies, but only until the next APCM and then they would need to be elected.
Legalities
The PCC is required to have a Standing Committee, its membership comprises the Incumbent, Curates, Churchwardens and Treasurer.
As Gleneagles Anglican Church is a registered charity, members of the PCC are registered with the Charity Commission as trustees. The responsibilities of the trustees are detailed in the Trustees’ Report.
Responsibilities
Given its wide responsibilities, the Ministry Leadership Team (MLT) look after hands-on mission and ministry covering the Under 18’s Ministry and pastoral care. The MLT is accountable to the PCC. At every meeting the PCC considers reports from the MLT, and from others who cover areas of the three priorities highlighted in the Church Vision, together with reports from Deanery Synod and Safeguarding. The Treasurer also presents regular reports on the church finances. All are responsible to the PCC and report back to it regularly. Their reports are received by the full PCC and discussed, as needed.
Attendance
The full PCC met seven times during this year, including a short meeting after the APCM, with an average attendance of 84%.
Members of the PCC also met together with church leaders in November 2023, after a short PCC meeting included above. This was for their annual half day of discussion, prayer and worship that helps formulate Gleneagles’ Vision for the coming year.
Fiona Clarke – PCC Secretary.
Vicar’s Report
“Connecting: with Jesus, with each other, with the wider community”.
I would like to start in my usual way by thanking our churchwardens, David, Helen, and Elizabeth (assistant churchwarden), the PCC, the Ministry Leadership Team, Connect Group facilitators and to our staff team – Amanda Allen (Parish Administrator), Rob Seaman (Ordinand) and we welcomed our two Curates Ben & Livvi Haughton-Scales. Alice worked with us as our Intern until July 2023. This is a really hard-working team and I so appreciate the wisdom and generosity from each individual and am privileged to work alongside them.
When I was preparing to come to Gleneagles church towards the end of 2020, the Lord gave me the following scripture – Isaiah 37:30-32:
30 “This year you will eat what grows by itself,
and the second year what springs from that.
But in the third year sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
31 Once more a remnant of the kingdom of Judah
will take root below and bear fruit above.
32 For out of Jerusalem will come a remnant,
and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.
Of course, the scripture was a prophetic vision for Israel at that time, but I believed this to be a prophetic word for me and for us as a church. Last year I reflected on how, as we emerged from the pandemic, there were many who looked around and wondered what had happened to the church, the church nationally as well as locally here at Gleneagles. We were the ‘remnant’ and it took time to adjust. Year 1 & 2 were about re-orienting ourselves, setting a new vision, simply being faithful to the faith that had been given us and starting to respond to what the Lord was putting in front of us. But in year 3 (2023) we would ‘sow and reap’. And at the beginning of 2023 we received another prophetic word from Song of Songs 2 ‘the winter is past’ and spring is on its way.
Well, what a year 2023 has been!
-Greater connection between Sunday worship and our Monday – Saturday lives.
-A growing desire among us for greater intimacy with the Father.
-The Lord is adding to our number, and we continue to see new people all the time.
-The Lord has grown each of the ministry areas.
-We have begun to see some become Christians or return to faith in Jesus.
-Planning for new ministries begun.
-Greater engagement with the school.
-Fantastic community presence during festival times of the year (Easter rock hunt, summer community days and Advent/Christmas).
-Reshaping of Connect groups in line with our vision.
-Decision for Glenvale Park School to become a Church of England School.
-Initial discussions around starting a second congregation/fresh expression of church at Glenvale Park.
Update on Extending the Parish:
Last year we concluded our discussions with our neighbouring parish of Great Harrowden around redrawing parish boundaries. It was agreed that the parish boundaries would change so that Glenvale Park would come under our parish instead of Gt Harrowden. As part of that discussion, in 2021 we were offered, and hoped to reorder, All Saints Church building in Great Harrowden, and thereby take the whole of the parish of Gt Harrowden, which would have also included Redhill Grange. However, it became clear toward the end of last year that this was not going to be possible, and a decision was made by the PCC to stop pursuing it. Gt Harrowden parish wish to keep Redhill Grange but have agreed that Glenvale Park should be part of our parish. The parish boundaries are currently being redrawn and the legal process should be completed before the summer of 2024. Recognising that we are not just the church for Gleneagles estate but also the church for Glenvale Park and Redhill Farm (artists estate), the church was given an opportunity to choose a new name and it was agreed, once the legalities have been approved, we will become North Wellingborough Anglican Church.
In the end, the Lord simply calls us to be faithful to what He has given us, to respond to where He is taking us but more importantly than anything else, to know more deeply than before that we are sons and daughters of the King of Kings…..everything flows from this place.
We are this parish’s glimpse of heaven and I love being part of it!
Rev. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
Churchwardens’ Fabric Report
Following great discussion at PCC and consideration the decision to not relocate to All Saint’s Church, Harrowden was made in the summer.
A buyer has still not yet been found to sell the land in the Artist’s area of the parish, but negotiations are still being pursued with Carter Jonas Property Advisors in conjunction with the Diocese.
Whilst we remain based at Redwell Primary School, articles belonging to the church, and used for worship and other activities, are stored in a shed on the school grounds. Everything is in good order, with no evidence of deterioration due to damp. Other items are used in the church office at the Vicarage. Electrical equipment and the lectern are stored within the school. Items are repaired or replaced as necessary, and the costs are borne from church funds under the oversight of the PCC. We are now using the school’s in-built screen instead of the projector screen. This has removed the need for setting up both the aging screen and projector.
This report comprises the Terrier report, together with the report on the Church Inventory and Logbook.
In conclusion, we would like to acknowledge and give thanks for the hard work and dedication of those who fulfil so many duties across our church life, who make our task so much easier by their selfless service.
David Wells and Helen Cracknell – Churchwardens.
Sung Worship Team
Team: Alex Palmer, Ben Haughton-Scales, Dan Hulland, Ezra Airey, Jane Bell (to end February 2024), Jasmine Childs, Louise Harrison, Maria Seaman, Mel Hartung, Rob Seaman, Ruth Wium & Steph Gledhill
As I list the names of the people above, I am mindful of how blessed we are with musicians and vocalists who are willing to be part of the team. The process of planning worship, preparing music, learning new songs and gathering early on Sundays to practice is not without sacrifice and we are grateful to the way these people’s gifts enrich our gathered worship. In addition to the team, we are also hugely grateful to Sally Wilkins who diligently compiles the PowerPoint slides, to those who manage the visuals week to week and the sound team who have to navigate considerable challenges most weeks, whilst trying to satisfy our demands over microphone volumes through foldback speakers!
We are grateful to Jane Bell for her contribution and dedication over recent years, having decided to step down at the end of February 2024, and for Louise Harrison being willing to step forward in the last quarter of 2023.
Ben is doing some work in the background in trying to encourage the gifts of others in the church to get involved, including our young people, and this looks to be a really exciting development. If you are harbouring a musical gift but are worried that you might not be good enough or that the commitment is too great, please speak to Ben.
Rob Seaman – Ordinand.
Financial Review for 2023
The church has two bank accounts: – a General Account, and a Building Account. Any spending from the Building Account is restricted to works associated with the building. The General Account is for general use but does have within it restricted monies that have been given for specific purposes, such as social events. Staffing costs have been put in here as well. All transactions from both the building and general account go into the same accounting system.
GENERAL ACCOUNT We started the year with £9,524 in the bank account and ended the year with £1,071.07.
Restricted Money
There are three main restricted spending areas within the General account, these are money held for social events, money given for wages and expenses plus the Discretionary Fund (Acts2Fund or Family in Need).
Expenditure from the Discretionary fund this year was £326.00 leaving a balance of £1,134. 00
BUILDING ACCOUNT (Restricted Fund) We started the year with £56,864 in the bank account and ended the year with £49,031.94. During the year the main expenditure was for Priory Heritage advice for the Harrowden Church costing £7,359.00
Income and Expenditure for General and Building accounts.
Over the year Our total expenditure across both the general and Building accounts was £95,413.00 and our total income £79,127.00. The difference of £16,286.00 was made up of £8,453.00 funds carried over from the 2022 general account and expenditure in the building fund of £7,832.06.
The Parish Share for 2023 was set at £69,781, of this amount £58,630, was actually paid for 2023. This is the largest expenditure for the church. We continued to support our many Mission Partners this year. The main source of our funding still comes from the congregation.
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GENERAL ACCOUNT (Unrestricted money) BUDGET 2023 |
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| Receipts | Budget 2023 | Actual 2023 | |
| Planned Giving – Parish Giving Scheme | 49,000.00 | 48,391.00 | |
| Collections – Other giving eg plate and online | 15,000.00 | 10,664.00 | |
| Gift Aid recovered | 14,000.00 | 14,164.00 | |
| Other receipts | 3,000.00 | 1,427.00 | |
| Fundraising | |||
| Church activities | 3,000.00 | 4,478.00 | |
| TOTAL | 84.000.00 | 79,124.00 | |
| Payments | Budget 2023 | Actual 2023 | |
| Parish Share | 69,780.00 | 58,630.00 | |
| Missionary Giving | 3,000.00 | 2,760.00 | |
| Clergy and staff costs | 3,500.00 | 8,748.00 | |
| Church running costs | 11,000.00 | 12,643.00 | |
| Transferred to Building Fund | |||
| TOTAL | 87,280.00 | 82,781.00 | |
We thank God for his generous provision during 2023 which enabled us to sustain ministry. We pray that this will continue.
Lis Wells – Treasurer. On behalf of the Finance Team.
Key Vision Areas:
Discipleship
- Connect Groups
From the APCM in 2023 we ‘re-launched’ Connect Groups and reshaped them around the vision of the church. It isn’t possible to get to know everyone and so our midweek Connect Groups are the main way of caring for, encouraging, and supporting one another both in our faith journey but also life in general! The other change in Connect Groups is that we stopped calling those who coordinated them ‘leaders’ and instead call them ‘facilitators’. In many ways it may not feel like a significant change, but we recognised that a culture had developed in which those who were willing to be ‘leaders’ felt at times overwhelmed and found themselves organizing every aspect of the Connect Group. The purpose of the facilitator is to enable every person in the group to use their God given gifts and skills to serve and build one another up, rather than do everything themselves.
Since May last year we now have 5 Connect Groups, all meet fortnightly (listed below). We have tried to encourage everyone to be part of a group and while for some going to the fortnightly meetings might be hard, the majority can get to the group socials and be part of the wider group to pray for and support one another.
Greg was the Connect Group coordinator until just before Christmas 2023 and stepped down due to ill health. We are so thankful to Greg for his commitment to Connect Groups and supporting others who facilitate these groups – thank you Greg. The facilitators continue to meet every couple of months to support one another.
Our five groups are:
Monday afternoon (Carol Maycock)
Monday evening (Elizabeth Holbrook)
Thursday morning (Alan Palmer)
Wednesday evening (Rob Seaman)
Wednesday evening (Ben & Livvi Haughton-Scales)
- Tuesday Teaching evenings:
In 2022 we decided to keep Tuesday evenings free from other church business to allow for occasional extra teaching sessions. In 2023 we used Tuesday evenings for a Lent course and a training course in prophetic ministry.
Revd. Dawn Airey.
- Community Events
We seemed to have developed a pattern of hosting community missional events at festival times of year and almost all of us are involved in these in some way or other, so thank you everyone!!! As the parish Church of England, we are called to be this parish’s glimpse of heaven and so I believe our community events have been a really significant part of being present in and being that good news to our local community.
Easter:
The popularity of the Holy Week rock hunt meant we ran it again last year (200 decorated rocks went out) and we finished the week by inviting families to an activity morning on Good Friday. 200 children, young people and their families came and enjoyed the activities, being introduced and invited into the mission of the church.
Summer:
During the summer we hosted the pop-up Community Days at Glenvale Park for the second time at the beginning of the July school holidays. Three days were planned but due to rain the first day had to be cancelled. However, the other two days were full of crafts, games, bouncy assault course, bouncy dash n’ grab, drinks and cakes. This was very well received by the community and a great number of people attended from the community and further afield. Some people from the care home also visited the Community Days. So many people from the church were involved in running the community days and it felt like a really good time for the church too. The developers were very pleased with them and have asked us to do it again in 2024. In 2023 we bought a new church Gazebo to be used for mission, so we look forward to having that as part of the 9/10 gazebos in 2024!
Advent/Christmas:
In December we had a full programme of carol events every weekend.
- Week 1: Outdoor Carols & Lights (knitted nativity characters) on Gleneagles; Wreath event
- Week 2: Outdoor Carol service (drinks and food vans) on Glenvale Park
- Week 3: Return of an indoor Traditional Carol Service at Redwell School
- Week 4: Indoor Christingle & Nativity Service at Redwell School
Each event/service was developed further from the previous year and held a traditional carol service for the first time since the pandemic. It was great to see so many people across the whole month, many who we did not know as well as a good number who we see at our various midweek groups.
Revd. Dawn Airey.
Glenvale Park Care Home
At the beginning of 2023 we had continued to facilitate ‘Coffee, Cake and Chat’ which had intended to be both a blessing to the care home but also as a means of engaging with the Glenvale community. Unfortunately, the wider community never really came along to this and given both the small team from GAC facilitating the event, and the reality that it wasn’t meeting our original intentions, we decided it should be stopped and this happened on 4 April 2023.
For as long as Valerie and the team facilitated this outreach it was much appreciated by the care home and our efforts were very much valued.
It is hoped that something similar might be facilitated once the community centre is up and running on Glenvale estate but that looks to be some way off.
Whilst Coffee, Cake and Chat finished, the team (Rob, Mel, Alice, Dawn, Livvi, Ben and Ruth W), have continued to visit and facilitate a weekly church service which normally lasts about 30 minutes including some liturgy, songs, prayers and a short reflection. Dawn joins the team periodically so that we can administer communion.
The services themselves are well attended and most weeks we have needed to collect additional chairs to meet demand. Average attendances are probably around 17 each week. We have tried different things through the services to engage the residents, whilst including elements of liturgy which provide a framework and some familiarity that those with dementia can engage with.
One exciting development in recent months is that relatives of some of the residents seem to try and come and visit when the service is happening and join us – it is a privilege to minister to them as well.
We would value your prayers as we seek to shape this work to best meet the residents’ needs and for the formation of relationships with visitors coming along.
Rob Seaman – Ordinand.
Under 18’s Ministry
- Under 11s ministry
For all of our under 18s ministry we have both a discipleship stream and an outreach stream. For under 11s our discipleship stream is primarily Sunday mornings at Sunday Club. Our outreach stream is on a Thursday – under 5s have Wellitots and those in year 1-5 have Ignite.
Last year we signed up to a resource called Energize which we use across all of our under 18s groups. This appears to have been appreciated by all the leaders.
Revd. Dawn Airey.
Sunday Club (Discipleship)
Sunday club continues to be appreciated by children and parents. There is a great group of people who lead and help with the groups. Huge thanks to each of them for their willingness to guide the children in their individual journeys with the Lord.
Revd. Dawn Airey.
Wellitots
In November 2022 the group moved to the Hub at Redwell School which meant the session time could be extended and has proved to be a much better venue. The numbers attending prior to moving venue had become very low and we even wondered if we might need to stop the group. However, throughout 2023 we have had many new households coming along and now have 10/11 households each week. A number of these join in with our events at festival times of year and some are touching their toes with Sunday mornings by coming to the café style service.
Revd. Dawn Airey.
Ignite
Leaders: Alice Pettifer (to July 2023), Maria Seaman (to September 2023), Sally Quincey (to September 2023), Rob Seaman, Ruth Gilbert, Michelle Norwood, Alan Palmer, Chris Green, Erin and Georgia. Dawn opens and helps set up weekly and she, Ben and Livvi have filled gaps in the team as and when they arise.
It has been a great year with the children at Ignite with numbers dipping quite low in the months leading up to Christmas (averaging 10 per week), causing the leaders to seriously consider whether it was sustainable. However, the opportunity of taking an Assembly in early 2024 at Redwell Primary School, led by Michelle and Livvi, has boosted numbers enormously and these have been sustained over subsequent weeks (averaging 25 per week since Christmas!).
The large majority of children at Ignite are aged between 5 – 7 and so our activities are shaped towards this group – we have some who are older and happy to be part of things.
We continue to have games one week and bible stories the next where children have the opportunity to let off some steam but also hear a bible story, do a craft to affirm their learning with some tuck in between. Over the last year we have undertaken a series on the friends of Jesus and had some brilliant times of engagement with the children. The leaders take turns in preparing games, story or craft and it is wonderful how our different gifts and ways of communicating all work together to help the children grow in their knowledge of Jesus.
Alan and Chris joined the team in September 2023 and have been great additions. I will be stepping down from the role of leader of Ignite at the end of May 2024, when I leave GAC to head off to curacy – none of the existing team members feel able to step into this role and so we would appreciate your prayers as we look beyond this academic year both regarding a new leader but also one or two more team members to help in this important work.
Please pray for the children coming along and for potential relationships with their families, we long to see them making lifelong commitments to Jesus.
Rob Seaman – Ordinand.
School’s work
Invitations to engage with Redwell School in 2023 increased. This has meant we were invited to be present at school assemblies/plays and special days at school. We were given the opportunity of doing monthly in person assemblies last year too. We continued to run several wellbeing groups throughout the year with different year groups….and were able to invite a number to Ignite and Ignite Youth as a result. For the first time last year we were able to offer year 6 ‘Transition to Secondary School’ sessions using material from Scripture Union. We once again made a pre-recorded assembly for Easter but were able to do an in-person Christmas assembly to the whole school. On both occasions we were able to advertise the seasonal family events – namely the rock hunt and Good Friday event at Easter, and then the various carol & Christingle services at Christmas.
Glenvale Park school was built but sadly had to remain empty until it could be agreed who would run it. In November 2023 it was finally announced that Wilby Church of England school will relocate to Glenvale Park School and become one of Peterborough Diocese Education Trust (PDET) schools. We have been praying for this for a long time and so delighted when this was announced. We look forward to the school opening in September 2024 and working very closely with them.
I would like to thank everybody involved in the children’s ministry for all the incredible work they do with all the children and families we are in contact with. They are a fantastic bunch doing a great job. But a really huge thanks belongs to Maria Seaman who for a number of years has taken responsibility for the children’s work and needed to step back last year. Maria you were and are missed and we cannot thank you enough for who you are and what you have given.
Please pray for all of us, that God will continue to give us the passion and the opportunities to present the gospel to all the children attending the groups and that He will continue to guide us in His will for all the groups and all of us. Also please pray for all the children attending, that God will work incredibly in their hearts.
Revd. Dawn Airey.
Youth Ministry Report
2023 has been a really positive year for youth ministry at Gleneagles. The church continues to run three groups:
- Sunday Youth – This is the group that meets during Sunday services on 2nd and 4th Sundays in the month (1st Sundays are Together on Sunday services and 3rd Sundays have, since September, been designated as opportunities for the young people to serve in some way during services). The group is focused on Bible teaching and prayer, and there are 9 young people who attend regularly (up from 3 at the start of last year).
- Ignite Youth – This is an outreach group which meets each Thursday evening (term-time only). The group has around 15-20 young people who attend regularly (down from 25 at the start of last year). It involves games, crafts, a tuck shop, and a short ‘thought for the day’ on issues relevant to the young people and based on Christian teaching. Topics covered have included the leaders giving their testimonies, looking at different influences in our lives, Halloween and Bonfire Night, and Christmas.
- Connect Youth – This is a discipleship group which runs fortnightly on Sunday afternoons. The sessions are made up of a game, followed by worship and Bible teaching, and then ending with a meal. There are 15 young people who are currently committed to the group (up from 7 at the start of last year). The group followed the Youth Alpha course during the Spring term, then spent most of the Autumn term hearing testimonies from the group leaders and looking at the topic of prayer.
The vision is that these groups will feed into one another, and that those attending Ignite Youth may choose to get involved with our discipleship groups. This has not been happening as much as we would hope yet, but we continue to pray and look for opportunities from God to encourage this.
The growth in Sunday Youth and Connect Youth is largely due to a number of new families joining the church, and it has been great to have their young people join these groups. We are really excited about the spiritual growth and deepening of friendships that are taking place in these groups and are praying that God continues to work powerfully among our young people to help them grow as followers of Jesus.
In 2023 the church took out a subscription with the Energize online children’s and youth work resource by Urban Saints. This has proven to be an excellent tool for all our children’s and youth volunteers to assist with planning and preparing sessions.
Team
Until the Summer of 2023 the church’s youth ministry was led by Alice Pettifer as the church’s Youth Intern before she moved on to new opportunities. Alice did an excellent job and served the church and young people really faithfully during her time in post.
I took on responsibility for the church’s youth ministry from September 2023, though it is completely a team effort and would not happen without all those who support the discipleship of our young people in so many different ways. I will resist trying to list everyone for fear of missing someone out, but you know who you all are and I am immensely grateful for all your hard work and dedication.
Looking Ahead
- We are continuing to pray and monitor opportunities for connecting with young people on the new Glenvale Park housing development.
- We are taking those who want to attend from Connect Youth to the Satellites summer youth festival (one of the events that replaced Soul Survivor) at the Bath & West Showground from 2nd-6th August 2024. This is now booked but more young people can continue to book on. We currently have 5 young people booked to come and the adults involved will be Dawn & Chris, Ben & Livvi.
Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate and Youth Team Leader.
Wholeness in Jesus/ Wellbeing
- Care Team
Throughout 2023 pastoral Care at Gleneagles Anglican Church continued to operate through Connect Groups and by direct contact with the Care Team providing fellowship, friendship and practical help where needed. The Care Team members were Valerie Brown, David & Helen Downey, and Elizabeth Holbrook. Helen Downey took responsibility for this team, and I am so grateful to her. I want to thank them all for all they have done in responding to the needs of church members.
However, it became clear in the early part of 2023 that the Care Team was itself very small and therefore limited in how it could respond. As the church was growing, we realised a new way was needed. At the same time, we were developing ideas around Connect Groups and as described in the discipleship section we slightly reshaped the purpose of Connect Groups in line with the vision of the church (Connecting – with Jesus, with each other, with the wider community). Part of that reshaping included a different understanding about pastoral care. The language of pastoral care had perhaps become unhelpful in that in can encourage a culture in which some are giving help, and some are receiving help. The reality is that most of us will find ourselves in both ‘camps’ at the same time! The Christian life is such that we are all members of Jesus’s body with different skills and gifts to offer one another, and we are all broken human vessels that need love, support, friendship, practical help, and encouragement. The other reality is that it is only possible to have close relationships with a few people at one time, close enough to know and be honest about our needs. With all of that in mind it made sense to close the Pastoral Care Team and for Connect Groups to become the main way in which we are all enabled to build close friendships, offer one another support when needed and use the gifts the Lord has given us to build one another up.
Revd. Dawn Airey.
- Prayer Ministry Report April 2024
- Last Summer, all members of the Prayer Ministry Team attended a training session to refresh good practice and safeguarding. It also included instructions for praying with and for minors.
- Members of the Prayer Ministry team currently are Dawn, Ben, Livvi, Alan, Alex, Chris, Steph, Mel, Ruth and myself.
- During the year, one of our prayer warriors, Helen Downey, left Gleneagles to worship at another church. I would like to extend my grateful thanks for her faithful ministry and wish her well for whatever God calls her to do next.
- Prayer ministry is now offered during almost every service but is always available for those who may need it. Please ask Dawn or myself if you ever need prayer and we will arrange this for you.
- The Prayer Chain continues to be extremely responsive and effective. It currently has 15 members who pray for any needs at short notice. Alerts are sent out via email.
- The list of names being prayed for by the chain are also included in the weekly prayers circulated to the wider church. This list has been revised and updated earlier this year to keep it up to date and, in some cases, remind us of what we are praying for. Reviews will now be carried out at regular intervals in the year.
- I am currently researching healing ministry and hope to be able to launch some instruction into this, to strengthen and extend what we can offer.
- As always, my sincere thanks go to the members of both the Prayer Chain and Prayer Ministry Team for their faithful service and devotion to this vital ministry.
Jackie Brooks-Cheesman.
- Reading Group – 2023/24
We have read five books during the last year, meeting every couple of months with extended gaps over Christmas and Easter. The books read range from the inspiring biographical, ‘Eye Can Write’ by Jonathan Bryan to the more practical ‘two views on homosexuality’ and, most recently, ‘Faith after Doubt’ by Brian McLaren.
The group remains small, normally only four of us are in attendance, which is good on one hand because we get on well but disappointing on the other because we had hoped that more might feel able to get into reading Christian books in a very relaxed and informal environment. If you are imagining stuffy academic discussions bemoaning the technical qualities of the author’s work, you couldn’t be further from reality – we just chew over what we’ve liked or not and whether or not the book has been helpful; and that takes about an hour!
With my departure at the end of May 2024, and the reality that there needs to be a minimum of about five people to sustain a small group, the Reading Group is taking a break until September 2024 and the existing members will meet at that point to consider whether it could continue. If you had hoped to get involved but never got round to it, please speak to Dawn.
Rob Seaman – Ordinand.
- Social Events
This year we organised a bowling evening, this was attended by many people of all ages. A trail was prepared by Gordon and Jane Bell around Higham Ferrers for us. Sally Quincey served tea and cake in her garden where everyone chatted afterwards in the sun. Again, our Christmas meal at the Merry Miller was well attended and all enjoyed the food and conversation.
The three of us have always tried to include social activities that appeal to all ages through the year thus allowing the church congregation to connect with each other. We have all decided that now is the right time to step down and let others with new ideas to step forward.
Thanks to everyone who has supported these events in the past.
Sally, Helen, and Heidi.
- Wellingborough Bereavement and Loss Group.
The group has struggled to continue over the last twelve months and was eventually put on hold over the summer holiday.In July we were asked to allow two employees of the Health Service to visit, and they have now begun to refer patients, from a variety of Doctors Surgeries, who are journeying through bereavement.
As the number of members has grown so we have found a new venue which gives privacy and confidentiality and the team organising the group now look forward to welcoming new members and expanding our work in the community and our parish.
Valerie Brown – Facilitator.
Safeguarding Report
At Gleneagles Church, Safeguarding is treated with the seriousness it deserves. We have lots of members who give their time supporting children and vulnerable adults; DBSs, Safer Recruiting and Safeguarding Training are all important elements that back-up the work of volunteers. Since May 2023, 7 people have got new DBS certificates and 3 have been renewed (DBSs need renewing every 3 years). Of these 10 people, all but 2 are up to date with the Safeguarding training. 3 people have done training on Domestic Abuse. The Parish Safeguarding Officer (John Gilyead) has done training on Safeguarding Leadership. Thank you to everyone who volunteers at church and has done the forms and training – this certainly makes my role more straightforward.
John Gilyead Safeguarding Officer
Deanery Synod Report
Deanery Synod has met throughout the year at different churches in the Deanery. The meetings have been very useful allowing attendees to share their responses to a range of issues affecting them. At each meeting there is usually a speaker who presents on a specific area of ministry, e.g., the work of the Mission team supporting Parishes with “Leading your church into growth” and a vision of the Deanery moving forward. Discussions have included stewardship, card readers, Parish Share, Five Wells Prison, Gen2, Prayer Walk, Youth Work, increasing heating costs, planning children’s activities for Christmas, and how parishes could work together to pool expertise and resources.
The meetings are always a good way to connect with people from other churches across the Deanery.
Unfortunately, due to increased work demands, Heidi has not been able to attend some of the meetings, although, when possible, these have been attended by a member of the clergy. Heidi has now decided to step down from this role at the forthcoming APCM.
Fiona Clarke pp Heidi Ellson.
Approved by the PCC in April 2024
Signed: Dawn Airey (Vicar) Date: 29/04/2024
APCM Meeting Minutes 2023
| Registered Charity No 1172631
“Connecting with Jesus, with each other, with the community” |
Gleneagles Anglican Church, Wellingborough
Minutes of the Annual Parochial Church Meeting
held on Sunday 21 May 2023
Present: Rev Dawn Airey (Chair) & Chris Airey +1; Amanda Allen; Pauline Ball; Gordon & Jane Bell; Jackie Brooks-Cheesman +1; Valerie Brown; Fiona Clarke; Greg & Helen Cracknell; Bob Cutler; Marion Darker; David & Helen Downey; Bruno & Suzanna Duarte +3; Matt & Heidi Ellson; Suzy Follows +2; Ruth Gilbert; Chris & Steph Gledhill; Elizabeth Holbrook; Dan Hulland; Stephen Lomax; Carol Maycock; Alan Palmer; Alice Pettifer; Chris Pettifer; Sandi Rance; Anya Rezanova; Rob & Maria Seaman; Colin & Sue Suter; David & Lis Wells; Ludolff & Ruth Wium +2; Jean Woods.
| The Chair opened the meeting with prayer and welcoming everyone. She thanked God for everyone who had served the church over the last year. | |
| Meeting of Parishioners and Annual Parochial Church Meeting | |
| 1 | Fiona Clarke was appointed as Clerk to the meeting. |
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3
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Apologies: John Gilyead; Mel Hartung.
Elections Dawn advised the congregation of the current ruling for elections, which is that, if there are the same number of applications for each post as there are available positions, then there is no need for a vote and the applicants are automatically appointed. Both Helen and David had been proposed and seconded previously and were automatically appointed. Election of Churchwardens The Chair thanked Elizabeth and David for all they’ve done over the past year, particularly regarding the new church building of All Saints Church, Great Harrowden. Dawn gave Elizabeth a present for all her help and support over the last six years. · Elizabeth has served the maximum number of terms (6) so had to step down this year. However, she has agreed to be Assistant Churchwarden. · David Wells was elected to continue as Churchwarden. · Helen Cracknell was elected as the second Churchwarden. She is stepping down from being PCC Treasurer. |
| 4 | Minutes of last APCM dated 22/05/2022.The minutes from the last APCM were agreed by the majority at the meeting, however, some had not been at the APCM in 2022. Dawn will sign and file them. |
| 5 | Deanery Synod
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| 6 | Election of PCC Members
PCC members can serve up to three years. None of the existing PCC members have served three years and they have agreed to continue for another year. However, Jackie Bello has moved away from the Parish and has, therefore, stepped down from the PCC leaving three lay vacancies, filled by: –
Each of these had already been proposed and seconded and were automatically appointed. |
| 7 | Safeguarding
The duties are split as follows:
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| 8 | Finance Report
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| 9 | Vicar’s Report –
Dawn reminded everyone that we are the body of the church, and each have roles to play. She said that people have lost sight of God’s supernatural presence and that in 2022 we needed courage to go forward. 2022 was a year of two halves with the second half being more hopeful as we learn to live with a new normal, and to rebuild the church community by:
Regarding the reordering of All Saints, there will be further news at the end of summer. Dawn reminded the congregation of the encouragement from the prophesy given to her, which indicated that the Lord is preparing and equipping his church to be more spiritual and to make new disciples. The Church of England has seen a 70-year decline, experiencing birth pains as God reshapes His church. Throughout history, there have been significant changes/ reformation to the church roughly every 500 years. The church nationally is now in that phase. 2023 is a growing year. As we emerged from the pandemic, we are the remnant, and it is taking time for us to adapt and reorder ourselves. From the prophesy, we are in the third year with the winter past and spring on its way. This year we will start to grapple with what the church will look like going forward. We will be focusing on shaping Connect Groups to fulfil our vision of, ‘Connecting: with Jesus, with each other, with the community.’ We will do this by:
Acts 2 describes actions of early biblical community meetings in small groups, in each other’s homes, and caring for each other. Connect Group leaders will now become facilitators, and we will be looking at how Connect Groups work. At present there is a very small Care Team attempting to watch out for everyone. Due to the very limited numbers this team may cease to exist. We need everyone caring for everyone. We all have things to offer each other. There are currently only four Connect Groups, and this number will need to increase. Belonging to a connect group will look different for every one of us:
Everyone will receive an invitation to join a group and can try another group if the allocated group does not suit their needs. Through Connect Groups we can learn to love and care for each other and gain a feeling of belonging. |
| 10 | Questions about the APCM reports
There being no other business the Vicar thanked everyone for attending and the meeting closed with prayers and a reading from Hebrews 12:1-4. |
PCC Meeting Minutes 13/4/26
Minutes of the PCC Meeting
Held on Monday 13th April 2026
| Action | ||
| 1 | The meeting opened at 19.07 with a message of encouragement based on Jeremiah 1:6-8. | |
| 2 | Attendance | |
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| 3 | Previous Minutes | |
| The Minutes of the Meetings held on 2nd February 2026 were approved by all who had been at that meeting, and were signed off by DA. | ||
| 4 | Matters Arising | |
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ME/BH-S/ LH-S
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| 5 | Update on Key Priorities – See Annual Reports (Appendix) | |
1. Discipleship (DA)
2. Under 18s (DA-Under 11s/ BH-S- Youth)
3. Wholeness in Jesus/ Wellbeing (DA); Prayer (JBC).
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| 6 | Annual Reports – See Appendix | |
Proposal – To agree the Annual Reports for APCM subject to minor grammatical changes identified. Proposer: DA. Seconder: ME. All were in favour. |
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| 7 | Electoral Roll Officer | |
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ALL
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| 8 | Moving the Church Printer | |
Proposal: To move the printer to the curates’ house using funds from the Building account. Proposer: DA. Seconder: FC. All were in favour except one who abstained.. |
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| 9 | Parish Update | |
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| 10 | Approving New Groups/ Activities | |
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| 11 | Safeguarding Report – See Annual Reports (Appendix) | |
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| 12 | Dates of next meetings: | |
PCC meetings:
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| 13 | The meeting closed with prayers from AP at 19.45 |
Appendix
Registered Charity No 1172631
| “Connecting with Jesus,
with each other, with the community”
|
ANNUAL REPORT
FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2025
FOR NORTH WELLINGBOROUGH ANGLICAN CHURCH,
WELLINGBOROUGH, PAROCHIAL CHURCH COUNCIL
REPORTS OF CHURCH MINISTRY AND MISSION
Church attendance
The total of Church members on the Electoral Roll for 2026 is 78 with 13 having left and 15 added. This is a slight increase of 2 from last year’s total of 76.
Marion Darker – Electoral Roll Officer.
Report on the work of the PCC.
Membership
The PCC is made up of the following – ex officio members, who are the clergy (currently including the Incumbent (Vicar), and our two Curates (Ben and Livvy Haughton-Scales)), the churchwardens, and Deanery Synod representatives. The other members of the PCC (lay PCC members) are elected at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM):
- Deanery Synod representatives fulfil a three-year term, but new rules since 2020 enable them to stand for two terms before standing down for at least one term.
- Churchwardens are elected every year. They can be re-elected but can only serve up to six consecutive years and then have a break of at least one year before standing for re-election.
- Elected PCC members may remain on the PCC for up to three years and stand again after a one year wait.
Elizabeth Holbrook stepped down from Churchwarden, and only one person applied for the role, at the APCM in May 2025.
Louise Harrison stepped down from lay PCC at the APCM, and three new people were elected, which made eight lay members in total. The total number of lay PCC members allowed is currently nine, calculated from the number of people on the electoral roll. Therefore, one lay PCC member position remained vacant.
Helen Cracknell stepped down from Deanery Synod at the APCM in 2025 and no-one applied for the role.
With Clergy and Churchwardens (ex-officio members) this made 12 PCC members in total.
Two lay PCC members are due to step down at the 2026 APCM having fulfilled their three year term, and Sam Carew will also be stepping down at this year’s APCM..
There is, therefore, allowance for election of an additional four lay PCC members, two Churchwardens and two Deanery Synod representative at the APCM (2026).
The PCC is empowered to co-opt two additional members after the APCM for a particular purpose, regardless of vacancies, but only until the next APCM and then they would need to be elected.
Legalities
The PCC is required to have a Standing Committee, its membership comprises the Incumbent, Curates, Churchwardens and Treasurer.
As North Wellingborough Anglican Church is a registered charity, members of the PCC are registered with the Charity Commission as trustees. The responsibilities of the trustees are detailed in the Trustees’ Report.
Responsibilities
At every meeting the PCC considers reports from those who cover areas of the three priorities highlighted in the Church Vision, together with reports from Deanery Synod and Safeguarding. The Treasurer also presents regular reports on the church finances. All are responsible to the PCC and report back to it regularly. Their reports are received by the full PCC and discussed, as needed.
Attendance
The PCC would have met seven times but two were cancelled due to illness. They, therefore, met five times during 2025, including a short meeting after the APCM, with an average attendance of 78%.
Fiona Clarke – PCC Secretary.
Vicar’s Report
“Connecting: with Jesus, with each other, with the wider community”
I would like to start in my usual way by thanking our churchwardens Elizabeth (who stepped back due to moving away) and Matt Ellson. Matt has been the only churchwarden for the last year. I also give thanks for the PCC, Connect Group facilitators and to our staff team – Amanda Allen (Parish Administrator), our Curates Ben & Livvi Haughton-Scales and Chiaz, who joined us as our Intern in September. This is a really hard working team and I so appreciate the wisdom and generosity from each individual and am privileged to work alongside them.
The major news of 2025
In previous years the parish boundaries were re-drawn so that Glenvale Park became part of our parish and as a result we changed our name to North Wellingborough Anglican Church. The next and final phase of transition happened in 2025 when we decided to make Glenvale Church of England School our new home and, after 35 years of worshipping at Redwell School, we moved to Glenvale in March! This was a huge change for the church and has taken time to get used to but I believe we are now settled and very much enjoying the new facilities. This move also meant the church could have, for the first time, its own parish office based in the school.
Since we moved to Glenvale School we see new people dipping their toes in with us just about every single Sunday. That is so exciting and now some are beginning to put their all in with us, really becoming part of the church community.
What else has been good in 2025?
- The number of children and young people has increased.
- Easter events and outreach.
- Summer community days.
- Christmas events and outreach.
- Toddler group at the care home.
- Creations Craft Group.
- Starting a second prayer time, now on Sunday mornings, as well as midweek.
- Midweek Care Home Service.
- Connect groups (Livvi has started a new monthly one for those who struggle at other times).
- Summer drink stop at Glenvale.
- Continued schools work in both primary schools.
- Start of the youth band.
Looking ahead
As we move forward there are things that still need resolving with the building, for example, sorting the shed at Redwell School, the Wi-Fi, getting the wooden communion table installed, moving the printer to the office once the Wi-Fi is sorted and working out how best to use the parish office. A new Incumbent will need to re-visit the lease with the school to iron out our wider use of the facility, such as at festival times of year, etc. A new church sign has now also been put up on the school wall, a clear marker of our permanence!
A dynamic we did not anticipate in our move to Glenvale School was that many of the new people who have come on a Sunday morning have a church back in the place they have moved from. This is usually close enough to drive back to and so we are finding that many are only coming occasionally. I hope that in time some will decide that worshipping where they live, and perhaps where their children spend most of their time, will be worth making the move to their local church, to be part of both the ministry and mission of God in this place.
There are a couple of things, that became very evident in 2025, that in my view are really important as the church looks forward:
- Firstly, while we have a very large fringe, our core has grown smaller. This is partly as a result of the dynamic I outlined above, which means that there are less people fully committed and therefore less committed to serving and giving.
- Secondly, the impact of Covid/cost of living crisis continues to have a significant effect, largely that there is less capacity/willingness to use our gifts for the ministry and mission of the church, or to take responsibility for particular ministry areas. This has had a profound impact in 2025. A number of groups and the more pioneering work has had to stop. For the church to go forward, it has to now address this honestly, asking itself, what does Church now look like and what are our priorities. If this is not addressed fairly swiftly, it could have a negative impact.
Moving on:
It has been an immense privilege being called to serve alongside you – thank you for journeying together. I believe I have done what I was asked to do when I came – to re-open the church post pandemic, to create a new vision, to grow the church younger, to resolve where the church’s permanent home should be and to re-shape the parish (in terms of its boundaries).
The church entered a very different phase in 2025, some of which I’ve alluded to above, and needs someone who can support and encourage the church in this next phase. But I hope I leave you with this – whoever we are, whatever stage of life we are, the Lord simply calls us to be faithful to what He has given us, to respond to where He is taking us and more importantly than anything else, to know more deeply than before that we are sons and daughters of the King of Kings…..everything flows from this place.
We are this parish’s glimpse of heaven and I have loved being part of it!
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
Churchwardens’ Fabric Report
With effect from 2 Mar 2025 North Wellingborough Anglican Church have worshipped at Glenvale Church of England School. All equipment is stored within the school (either in the Hub/ Parish office or the PE cupboard) anything not required to operate at Glenvale has remained at Redwell School being stored in the shed. All equipment is in good state of repair with minimal financial outlays throughout 2025. We are grateful to Helen Cracknell and David Wells for the purchase of new mugs for use after services.
The parish still owns land in the Redhill Farm area of the parish, in conjunction with the Diocese. There are no plans regarding this at the present time.
I would like to acknowledge and thank all of those who volunteer and work tirelessly throughout the year covering off the duties and jobs which aid in the smooth running of weekly services.
Matthew Ellson – Churchwarden.
Sung Worship Team
Team: Alex Palmer, Ben Haughton-Scales, Dan Hulland, Ezra Airey, Jasmin Childs, Kendra Okelola, Louise Harrison, Mel Hartung, Noah Hartung, Olivia Okelola, Ore Alo, Ruth Wium, Seb Goss, Steph Gledhill & Steven Follows.
I’d like to start with a huge thank you to all those who have led and facilitated our musical worship over the last year. The process of planning worship, preparing music, learning new songs, and gathering during the week and early on Sundays to practice is not without sacrifice and we are grateful for the way these people’s gifts enrich our gathered worship. In addition to the team, we are also hugely grateful to Sally Wilkins, who diligently compiles the PowerPoint slides, to those who manage the visuals week to week, and to the sound team, who have served the church so faithfully in this area and have also overseen the transition of our PA setup to our new venue at The Glenvale CofE Primary School, including the purchase of new equipment.
We have sadly said goodbye to some of the team over the past year, with Louise Harrison and Steph Gledhill having moved on to pastures new, and at times others have needed to step back temporarily. Mel and Ruth attended the New Wine Worship Leaders Retreat in March 2025 and returned with some really good ideas for us to explore and implement as a team over the year. The new youth band comprising several of the church’s young people also led musical worship for the first time at the August 2025 cafe service. They have done this every month since then and it’s been great to see them grow and develop as lead worshippers! Noah Hartung has unfortunately been unable to continue with the youth band due to his increased school workload – we wish him well with his upcoming GCSE exams.
Looking Ahead
In early 2026 we have welcomed Kayleigh Bellamy, Amy and Matthew George, Victoria Hoy and Joshua Wium to the team, and are excited to see them grow in using their musical gifts in worship over the coming months. If you are reading this, harbouring a musical gift, and are interested in exploring how you might use that to serve God and his church, please do speak to me.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate.
Financial Review for 2025
At the beginning of 2025 the bank account balance was £61,334, divided £63,746 in restricted funds and £(2,412) in general funds. At the end of the year following there was £79,202 in the account divided £81,776 in restricted and £(2,574) in general funds. Our restricted funds have grown during the year largely due to Children in Youth funds and funding for the MES intern.
Our Parish Share was set by the Diocese as £70,207; this was not paid in full this year and unfortunately we paid less than last year; the shortfall was £14,207. We continued to support our many Mission Partners this year.
The net income over the year was £17,868, some of this is linked to grants for the youth worker and the MES Intern. The main source of our funding still comes from the congregation, this comes into the bank account through the weekly plate, online giving, Parish Giving Scheme and the card machine.
The accounts were examined by Denton Tavara Limited and no issues were reported.
My thanks go to Helen Cracknell for starting the year as Treasurer until I took over in the summer.
We thank God for his generous provision during 2025 which enabled us to sustain ministry. We pray that this will continue.
Dale Gilbert – Treasurer – On behalf of the Finance Team.
Key Vision Areas:
Discipleship
Being a disciple of Jesus means being an ‘apprentice’, it’s a life-long, whole-life process of being with Jesus, becoming like Him and doing the things He did. (John Mark Comer).
As a church we try to encourage and enable this through regular personal prayer and devotional time, through our Sunday morning gatherings, our midweek Connect Groups, through our giving and our serving (both the church and the mission of the church).
- Personal Prayer & devotion:
At least once a year we suggest a new daily prayer resource but on the church website there is a dedicated ‘reading resource’ area.
- Worship & Sunday morning gatherings:
Encountering God’s presence in worship and prayer continues to be fundamental and I believe we need to continue pressing into this much more than we have to date. There have been some key changes for us on Sunday mornings, not least the change of venue to Glenvale Church of England School!
- Connect Groups:
Throughout 2025 the groups changed a little and there are now 4 connect groups. It is hoped that these provide a place of love, friendship, care, biblical study, shared use of gifts/skills and ministry to one another. Thank you so much to the Connect Group Facilitators who meet together bi-monthly and have continued to work tirelessly.
Our four groups are:
- Monday afternoon (Carol Maycock).
- Wednesday evening (Ruth Wium).
- Thursday morning (Alan Palmer).
- 1st Sunday in the month (Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales – Curate).
We recognized last year that most of our families have not yet made it into a connect group. This prompted Livvi to start a monthly connect group which takes place after the café style services. It is very early days but we are hopeful it will gain greater traction in the coming months.
- Giving and Serving One Another:
A basic and important part of our discipleship is using the gifts and skills the Lord has put within us to love one another and to serve as part of His mission to the parish, and the wider world. Of course this takes many forms and includes the whole of our lives, not just at church. But during 2025 it has become increasingly more difficult to enable people to serve both in our church and missionally, within our parish. There may be lots of reasons for this, good reasons even, but it has had quite an impact on what we are able to do as a church. For example, groups have had to stop and some of our more pioneering work has also stopped. Interestingly, our financial giving has also gone down year by year and last year saw the biggest yearly drop in the last 6 years.
- Moving forward
The PCC are currently thinking through what the priorities of the church are and will be as we move forward to a time when the curates will move on and there will be just one full time clergy person. In a recent extra ordinary meeting on Monday 19th Jan, one of the things identified was that more thought is needed around our connect groups and their purpose.
More thought is also being given to what it means to be a loving community of God’s people. We know that the early church spent much time and energy on both caring for one another and on the Holy Spirit ministry of signs/wonders/healings. As they sought to be God’s distinctive community, both of these things made them stand out from the world. There seems to be a recognition in PCC that we need to ‘get back’ to this…..
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
- Care home Services
Leaders: Ben, Livvi, Dawn, Sandi, Jackie, Mel, Chiaz.
The care home services have continued to run every Tuesday at 14.30. We have been visiting Glenvale Park Care home for a number of years now and have built good relationships with the residents, residents’ families and the staff. Every week, we do a short half-hour service that follows simple liturgy and includes a few songs. This is often via video, but Ben also sometimes brings his guitar to play, which is well-appreciated. We have tried to bring in more child-friendly, Sunday school elements to the service, including familiar Sunday school songs, as a way of connecting with the long-term memory of the residents. Research has shown this to be beneficial for those experiencing Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia. This has been well-received.
Sandi and Mel have taken the leadership for services when Ben, Livvi and Dawn are not able to take the service and Sandi has taken steps to collect resources for putting the services together, in order to provide a way for the services to continue regardless of the change in leadership of the church.
Overall, this ministry has proven to be consistent and fruitful. We do not always know exactly how the services are being received, but the relationships built with those who attend have been really heartwarming and we trust that the Holy Spirit is working in powerful ways beyond what we can see ourselves.
Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales – Curate.
- Alpha
Following a successful Alpha in 2024, we were able to run another in the summer of 2025, this time welcoming 3 guests. Mel Hartung and myself co-led the sessions, with meal preparation support from Livvi Haughton-Scales. I was initially unsure whether such a small group would work, but it was really fantastic to journey together as we met weekly for an extended period of time. The guests all encountered Jesus in significant ways and took major steps along their journeys of faith in him. One highlight was our Alpha Day, which we were able to hold at Launde Abbey in Leicestershire. The venue provided such lovely surroundings in which to spend time with each other and with God, and we were able to enjoy the prayerful, meditative environment together.
- Looking Ahead
Following on from the 2025 Alpha, 2 of the guests renewed their baptismal vows by full immersion at our recent baptism service in March 2026. This was a fantastic day for our church family, and I know we’re all really excited to continue journeying with them in faith in Jesus. Experience has taught me that Alpha tends to work best when you start with a core group who are committed to taking part in the sessions, then publicise the course more widely to welcome additional guests. With that in mind, if you or anyone you know would be keen to take part in Alpha (or an alternative enquirers’ course), please do speak to me to register your interest and we’ll look to form a new group at the earliest opportunity.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate.
Under 18’s Ministry
We take the research seriously that tells us that churches who invest in under 18s ministry grow, and those that don’t decline. The national church has a vision to see 30,000 children’s and youth workers in an attempt to double the number of children and young people in church on a Sunday morning by 2030!
But ‘growing younger’ was also what I was asked to do when I was interviewed and appointed to be Vicar here, it has therefore been a key priority for me. It is a delight to see how many families we now have as part of the church. In my first year here there were on average 5 under 16s on a Sunday morning with a maximum possible of 7. As of the end of 2025 we now have an average of 17 on a Sunday with a possible maximum of over 32 (every Sunday it seems we are blessed with new people so it’s a little hard to be as accurate now, so it’s at least 32).
We have raised just over £53,000 to employ a part time children’s and youth worker, and £2,317 was raised through the ‘100 for 100’ project in 2025. Unfortunately, we have not been able to appoint anyone as yet but it is so pleasing that the Lord has released this money to us…let’s keep praying for a creative solution for the right person.
All under 18s groups continue to use the Energize resource.
Last summer a number of the parents of our under 18s completed the relevant safeguarding procedures enabling them to support the under 18s ministry on Sunday mornings. I am delighted and it is very welcome.
However, we continue to struggle to support the teen ministry on Sunday mornings. We have more teenagers than children and in September we spilt the group into two groups (yr 6/7 and yr 8+). Both groups meet twice in the month. This continues to work very well:
- Chiaz leads yr 6/7 group and has 2 people who help support where they can. However, sometimes there have been gaps and we have needed to ask someone from the children’s team to move groups at the last minute.
- We also seem to be getting more creche aged children and so moving one of the children’s workers might begin to prove difficult and so we need to find others who can support the yr 6/7 group on a more regular basis.
- At the moment we only have Jackie BC leading the year 8 and above group once a month. She no longer has someone to support her and you would have heard me recently let the church know this and ask for others to volunteer. There have been 2 people who have offered to support where they can, but they are already committed in other ministry areas.
- Rayo who is a young person herself, continues to lead the yr 8 and above group once a month. She is doing a fantastic job!
- Under 11s ministry
Sunday mornings
The under 11s continue to use the Hub room on Sunday mornings for their group. A huge thanks to everyone who leads and supports this age group and for their willingness to guide the children in their individual journeys with the Lord.
Outreach – Glenvale Park toddler group
We began this group Easter 2024. Glenvale Care home provides a beautiful room, toy storage and refreshments for this group. Some of the residents join the group also. We have around 50 families now on the register and anywhere between 7 and 16 households can turn up on any given week! This continues to be the case.
Outreach – primary aged children
PCC is aware that we did not restart Ignite after October 2025 half term due to both the rent increasing and the numbers of children attending decreasing. We were making a loss of around £40 a week during that half term and despite Livvi’s best efforts, we could not increase the numbers.
It is hoped that in the near future, particularly if we appoint a children’s and youth worker, that something new will be imagined.
School’s work
Being present in our two primary schools is a very significant part of how we serve our housing estates and the mission of the church. It is largely ministry unseen by the church but plays a huge part in what I would describe as ‘oiling’ the rest of ministry.
We continue to have a very good relationship with Redwell School which means between Ben, Livvi and I we are present on a regular basis, either through assemblies, collective worship, new parent intake evenings, Narnia prayers spaces, year 6 transition sessions, well-being groups, parent evenings and the various fayre’s and school productions.
Glenvale Church of England School continues to grow and it is anticipated it will take around 10 years for it to be fully open. I am now part of the governing body which is now called The Schools Forum and has quite a different role.
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
Ignite
Up until October 2025, the leaders for Ignite were: Livvi Haughton-Scales, Ruth Gilbert, Alan Palmer, Chiaz Alozie.
Dawn Airey came at the beginning of most sessions to help with the register or speak with parents.
Ben Haughton-Scales has helped on some weeks when needed.
- Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who has put their time and energy into continuing this group. Since April last year, we have had many good moments. We recorded an Easter film with the children last year, which we showed to their parents on the last session before Easter. This was hugely popular, a lot of parents came and many were very touched by the film that was made. We then had a chance to speak more with parents afterwards, which appeared to be a helpful time to make further connections.
- We also found through conversation with the children that came to Ignite that a few had started to pray and seen God answer their prayers, and remembered well the bible stories that had been told to them.
- Unfortunately, the numbers declined sharply after Easter term. During Easter term (January – April 2025), we regularly had 25-35 children, but the number went down to less than 20 every week after Easter term (May 2025 onwards). After the summer, we had another big push to get more children to come along with school assemblies and increased advertising, but the group continued to decline until we had less than ten children coming each week. In parallel to this, the rent doubled in cost over the academic year 2024/2025. We increased the cost to £3 after the summer to try to supplement this, but this may have resulted in the decrease in numbers.
We do not know fully what resulted in the numbers decreasing, but we know from conversations that many had started to go to sport or other activity groups at that time instead. It seems clear the need for the group in the community was not the same as it once was. As a result of the decrease in numbers, we were losing up to £40 each week, which is unsustainable for us as a church.
- In October 2025, the leadership team in the church made some difficult decisions regarding Ignite. None of these decisions have been made lightly and we were grieved to think of this group ending, as it has been so impactful for so long. Through prayer and reflection, though, we came to the conclusion that God was directing us to end this group after October Half Term 2025. Although there is sadness in this, there is also hope for the future, as the Holy Spirit may be taking us in a different direction to continue to reach the children and families in all areas of our parish, including Redwell Primary School. One thought we considered is how groups we start could have a clear purpose of teaching about Christianity and the bible, as we can see the rise in interest in the Christian faith in the population. This gives us the opportunity to be more overt in our intention to teach children and families about this.
Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales – Curate.
- Youth
Sunday Mornings
When all the young people are there, we now have around 18 young people on a Sunday morning. That’s really fantastic news! I have given more detail at the start of the section ”Under 18s Ministry”.
2025 has been a year of consolidation and embedding in the youth ministry at NWAC:
Sunday Youth – This is the group that meets during Sunday services on 2nd and 4th Sundays in the month. During these times there is in-depth Bible teaching and discussion. We currently do not have enough leaders to run Sunday youth on 3rd and 5th Sundays in the month and have been seeking to use these as ‘Serving Sundays’, encouraging the young people to help with various aspects of the morning service (such as assisting with children’s groups, playing in the worship band, serving tea and coffee, and washing up). The new youth band comprising several of the church’s young people led musical worship for the first time at the August 2025 cafe service. They have done this on 1st Sundays every month since then and it’s been great to see them grow and develop as lead worshippers! We’ll continue to explore other serving opportunities for the young people and are open to ideas church members might have. From September 2025, to accommodate the significant number of church young people in years 6 and 7 at school, Sunday Youth was split into two groups – one for years 6 and 7, and one for years 8 and above. We are really grateful to all those in the church who stepped up to lead and help with these groups to enable this to happen. I especially want to highlight Aderayo Adeliyi, a young person in year 11 at school, who took on the role of leading her peers in year 8 and above once a month (with support from her mother Racheal in preparing the sessions). The number of young people attending on Sunday mornings varies from week to week.
Connect Youth
This is a discipleship group which runs fortnightly on Sunday afternoons. We begin with a game and snacks, then have a time of worship, Bible teaching/discussion and prayer. 21 young people have attended the group this year, with an average attendance of 9. Most of the young people are connected with church, but we have started to see them inviting friends from outside the group to build friendships and explore faith in Jesus.
We have been following a series on Christian Lifestyle using the church’s Energize resource and have run sessions on topics including holiness, perseverance, contentment and prayer. We have continued to hold half-termly social evenings to facilitate friendship-building among the group, including games nights and an outdoor summer social.
It is a huge joy and privilege to have such a fantastic group of young people within our church family. Helping them grow as followers of Jesus is a responsibility for the whole church family, so please do take every opportunity you can to encourage them in their journeys of faith. Our prayer is that they all build really solid friendships with one another that can sustain them in their faith in Jesus throughout their teenage years and beyond. The Energize online children’s and youth work resource by Urban Saints continues to be an excellent tool for all our children’s and youth volunteers to assist with planning and preparing sessions.
During the school summer holidays, 6 young people attended the Satellites summer youth festival at the Bath & West Showground from 6th-11th August 2025, with Dawn and Ben as the leaders for the trip, and Tola Okelola and Chris Airey very kindly assisting with transport and caravan setup/pack down. This was a fantastic time away for the young people; the range of activities provided was excellent and the young people all had stories of encountering Jesus in new and significant ways.
Team
The church’s youth ministry is completely a team effort and would not happen without all those who support the discipleship of our young people in so many different ways: Aderayo Adeliyi, Ben Haughton-Scales, Chiaz Alozie, Dawn Airey, Ihuoma Alozie, Jackie Brooks Cheesman, Jasmin Childs and Livvi Haughton-Scales. Thank you all!
Looking Ahead
In early 2026 we ran baptism preparation sessions for 2 young people, who were then baptised by full immersion during the morning service on 15th March. What a joy it was to celebrate with them! We have needed to re-merge the year 6/7 and year 8+ Sunday Youth groups back into one group, largely due to a reduction in leader/helper availability. The main challenge for 2026 is to ensure that the church’s youth ministry can run sustainably into the future. If you feel God may be nudging you to support our young people in any way, please do speak with me and I’d love to explore this with you further.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate and Youth Team Leader.
Wholeness in Jesus/ Wellbeing.
- Bereavement Support Group.
Throughout 2025 we continued to have our bereavement Facebook group which has 87 people in it but we had to close the group that was meeting in person due to lack of attendance.
- Care
In recent years we’ve moved away from the language of pastoral care and more towards Christian friendship which I think has been helpful. The main way of supporting one another continues to be via Connect Groups. There is recognition that many families (in particular) have not made their way into Connect Groups and the PCC are currently thinking about this. There is also a desire from the PCC that as a church we think about what it means to be part of a loving community and how we can do this better.
Revd. Dawn Airey – Vicar.
- Creations Craft Group.
The Creations Craft group was formed in December 2024 and meets every Monday in the dining area of the ‘Ock ’N’ Dough from 10:00 to 11:30.
The membership has remained steady, although we have one new member since the last report.
The participants carry out various crafts, including knitting, crocheting, colouring, cross-stitch and many other interesting crafts.
Last October 6th, the group was given an informal lesson in making an embroidered card for Christmas. This proved to be popular, with some trying embroidery for the first time. We hope to try something else new this year.
We are, again, knitting animals for the Christmas Nativity, and painting rocks for the Easter rock hunt this year.
The group share their expertise with each other and have encouraged people to either try new things or update their skills, which is wonderful.
We hope to have a sale of work this year at church.
Sandi Rance.
- Prayer Ministry Report
- Prayer ministry continued to be offered during and after services throughout the year, with varying amounts of people coming forward to seek prayer for their needs, on average 1-2 per service.
- With the departure of Chris and Steph Gledhill we sadly lost 2 of our most committed prayer ministry members. I thank God for their ministry and wish them every blessing in their new setting, and know they will continue to be a blessing to others.
- Towards the end of 2025 it was decided to instruct PCC members in the best practices of prayer ministry and safeguarding so that they can also help with prayer during and after services. It is quite often the case that prayer ministry team members are involved in other duties such as children’s groups, worship, preaching, refreshments etc., so having extra help is very important. This training has now been implemented.
Prayer Chain
- To make the prayer chain more accessible and faster in its response times, it was decided to create a WhatsApp group as this is faster than the usual email route of communication. This has been a successful initiative, with faster responses. More members have joined since the group started.
- We now have 16 members on the prayer chain, 14 of whom are in the WhatsApp group and 2 who prefer to be contacted via email.
Prayer Events
- For Maundy Thursday, it was decided to combine a simple meal with prayer activities, to encourage a higher attendance. Commitment to attend was secured via a small charge for food. This proved successful, with a much higher attendance than previous years, and the prayer activities were well received and utilised.
- The prayer activities for the Glenvale summer activity days focused on simple ways to pray, thinking about God’s creation and our place within it. Again these were well received by church and non-church members.
Weekly prayer pointers
- With the departure of Chris Gledhill in the summer, the weekly prayer email has ended for the time being until we can work out a way to start this again or replace it with another initiative which is effective.
As always, my sincere and heartfelt thanks to everyone who volunteers to pray with and for others. This is such a vital ministry and it can be tiring on a spiritual level, so I am thankful to our prayer warriors for all of their commitment to take time out of their day to pray for others.
Jackie Brooks-Cheesman.
Safeguarding Report
At North Wellingborough Anglican Church, safeguarding is treated with the seriousness it deserves. We have lots of members who give their time supporting children and vulnerable adults; DBSs, Safer Recruiting and Safeguarding Training are all important elements that back-up the work of volunteers.
Safeguarding information is displayed on the church noticeboard, website and weekly email news bulletin.
Within the deanery, there is now a safeguarding hub which enables relevant issues to be discussed.
Although I have not managed to get to either of the meetings so far, I have contributed in advance and picked up useful advice from the minutes.
During 2025:
- 6 new people received DBSs.
- 9 DBSs were renewed.
- 13 people did the Basic Awareness and Foundation training courses,
- 8 did the Raising Awareness of Domestic Abuse course (this is a new addition to the portfolio of 3 courses that volunteers are requested to do).
Thank you to everyone who volunteers at church and has done the forms and training – this certainly makes my role more straightforward.
John Gilyead – Parish Safeguarding Officer.
Deanery Synod Report
The Deanery Synod met 5 times in 2025 and heard contributions on a range of themes including:
- Emerging Mission – New housing developments in the Deanery (Various Contributors)
- Prison Chaplaincy (Revd Canon Helen Dearnley)
- Discovering Your Spirituality (Revd Dr Judy Craig-Peck)
- Good News from the Archdeaconry (Archdeacon Richard Ormston)
- Discussing the Diocesan Year of Prayer (Various Contributors)
Regular updates on Finance and Safeguarding were given at each meeting.
Additional Deanery events and meetings have included regular Treasurers’ Meet-Ups, Safeguarding Hub meetings for Parish Safeguarding Officers (PSOs), and various choral services and concerts.
Looking Ahead
The church can have up to two Deanery Synod Representatives but currently does not have any. It is hoped that these vacancies will be filled at this year’s APCM.
Revd. Ben Haughton-Scales – Curate.
Approved by the PCC 13th April 2026
Signed: Dawn Airey (Vicar) Date
PCC Meeting Minutes 2/2/26
Minutes of the PCC Meeting
Held on Monday 2nd February 2026
| Action | ||
| 1 | The meeting opened at 19.02 welcoming Jackie from the Prayer Ministry team. Jackie went through Prayer Ministry training with the PCC then prayed for the PCC. She then departed at 19.26. The main PCC meeting commenced once she had gone. | |
| 2 | Attendance | |
| · Dawn Airey (Chair), Chiaz Alozie, Sam Carew, Fiona Clarke (PCC Secretary), Matt Ellson (Vice Chair), Ben Haughton-Scales, Livvi Haughton-Scales, David Meleleu, Alan Palmer David Wells, Ruth Wium.
· Apologies: Melanie Hartung. |
||
| 3 | Previous Minutes | |
| The Minutes of the Meetings held on 17th November 2025 and 19st January 2026 were approved by all who had been at those meetings and were signed off by DA. | ||
| 4 | Matters Arising | |
| · Land opposite the Ock and Dough public house. Alan, Mel and Ruth are to form a group to look into this, and what can be done with the land, and advise the PCC when done.
· Church Laptop – Nearly set up. Thank you to CA. |
AP/MH/RW
|
|
| 5 | Update on Key Priorities – See Appendices 1 – 3. | |
| 1. Discipleship (DA)
· No decisions and no comments. 2. Under 18s (DA-Under 11s/ BH-S- Youth) · Attendance o Average of 16 with a maximum of 32 children and youth at Sunday morning services, which is very encouraging. · No decisions to be made and no comments. 3. Wholeness in Jesus/ Wellbeing (DA); Prayer (JBC). – · Prayer Ministry – o The new WhatsApp group has been very successful and found to be much more dynamic and useful than emails. |
||
| 6 | Finance Report – See Appendix 4 | |
| Treasurers Report
· A big Thank You to Dale who is very efficient. · No questions were sent to Dale to respond to before the meeting. · Planned giving is down £500.00 per month due to previous givers no longer giving. · Last year we paid £7000.00 less Parish Share. o The amount available to pay is reducing yearly and is anticipated to be an extra £5000.00 to £6000.00 reduction this year unless giving changes. |
|
|
| 7 | Parish Update – see Appendix 5 | |
| · Shed at Redwell School
o Redwell School have asked if they can use the shed as we are no longer based there. Proposal: To gift the shed to Redwell School. Proposer: DA Seconder: SC All were in favour. o Plan – To clear the shed by February half-term (Monday 16th o DA to liaise with teams that have items in the shed. o DM to return the spare shed keys to DA · Update re new Vicar o The Archdeacon will meet with the PCC, excluding DA, BHS and LHS, to go through the process of selecting a new Vicar, the rules, Do’s and Don’ts etc. ME will co-ordinate dates with the Archdeacon and PCC to set up the meeting. o Rob Bewley will then continue the process and draw up the necessary paperwork. o At the meeting with the Archdeacon: § the PCC will draw up a Parish Profile of who we are, and what we want the future to look like. o Further along the process the PCC will need to: § Agree whether to accept the preferred Diocesan candidate. § Be brutally honest. § Consider whether BHS and LHS are the best people for the job. § BHS and LHS will also need to consider whether the job is right for them: · There is only one position that will be available. · They could share the position, if the wish to, each working part-time but one would need to be the named incumbent. · There is no law against them applying for the incumbent role where they have been curates. o For the sake of the Church, ME (as churchwarden) has the overall responsibility for the church (even above any curates) when the Incumbent (Vicar) is not available. This includes the interregnum. |
DA DM
ME
PCC
|
|
| 8 | Approving New Groups/ Activities | |
| Easter activities:
· Easter Rock Hunt – Risk assessment has been done Proposer LHS Seconder SC. All were in favour. · Maundy Thursday meal and prayer stations. o To be held at Glenvale C of E School. o Adults £5.00, Children £3.00. o Can use the Hub for food preparation Proposer BHS Seconder ME. All were in favour.
· Good Friday morning Family Event o To be held at Glenvale C of E School. o 10.00 – 11.30 Proposer DA Seconder FC. All were in favour. |
||
| 9 | Safeguarding Report – See Appendix 6 | |
| · All PCC members need to do the “Raising awareness of Domestic Abuse” training. John has sent the link.
· He has also offered to do Face to Face training. PCC agreed that this would be a good idea and enquired about whether it could be done via ZOOM. DA to liaise with John to see if this is possible and will feedback to PCC. |
All
DA
|
|
| 10 | Deanery Synod Report – See Appendix 7 | |
| o Nothing this time | ||
| 11 | New Church Signage – See Appendix 8 | |
| · The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Peterborough Diocese Educational Trust (PDET) has reported that the church cannot have a small sign in the hall.
· Instead, we can have a big board on the external wall outside the Parish Office with an arrow pointing towards the entrance. · As there will only be one sign, the cost will be less. Proposal: To accept the new single sign on the backing – see picture in Appendix. Proposer: DA Seconder: FC All in favour except one who abstained. |
|
|
| 12 | Dates of next meetings: | |
| PCC meetings:
· Monday 13th April 2026 19.00 (to agree APCM reports). · APCM Sunday 26th April 2026 as part of the service, followed by a short PCC meeting. |
||
| 13 | The meeting closed with prayers for:
· Who could be the second churchwarden and who may wish to join the PCC (The applicants must be on the electoral roll, cannot be the spouse of an existing PCC member, must attend church on a regular basis). · DA as she moves towards her next calling. · Closing prayer by BHS at 20.35. |
Appendix 1– update on Key priority 1: Discipleship
- Worship:
Encountering God’s presence in worship continues to be fundamental for me and I believe we need to continue pressing into this much more than we have to date…….
- Connect Groups:
There are now 4 connect groups which, apart from Sunday mornings, is our main discipleship, friendship and care model.
Our four groups are:
- Monday afternoon (Carol Maycock)
- Wednesday evening (Ruth W)
- Thursday morning (Alan Palmer)
- 1st Sunday in the month (Revd. Livvi Haughton-Scales)
In recognition that, apart from one church family, none of our families have made it into a connect group, Livvi has started a monthly connect group which takes place after the café style services. It is very early days and Livvi is finding it a bit of a struggle but we are hopeful it will gain greater traction in the coming months.
The group facilitators continue to meet every couple of months to support one another.
The PCC are currently thinking through what the priorities of the church are and will be as we move forward to a time when the curates will move on and there will be just one full time clergy person. In a recent extra ordinary meeting on Monday 19th Jan, one of the things identified was that more thought is needed around our connect groups and their purpose. More thought is also being given to what it means to be a loving community of God’s people. We know that the early church spent much time and energy on both caring for one another and, on the Holy Spirit ministry of signs/wonders/healings. As they sought to be God’s distinctive community, both of these things made them stand out from the world. There seems to be a recognition in PCC that we need to ‘get back’ to this…..
Revd. DA.
No decisions needed from PCC at this time.
Appendix 2 – Under 18s Ministry
We take the research seriously that tells us that churches who invest in under 18s ministry grow, and those that don’t decline. The national church has a vision to see 30,000 employed children’s and youth workers in an attempt to double the number of children and young people in church on a Sunday morning by 2030!
But ‘growing younger’ was also what I was asked to do when I was interviewed and appointed to be Vicar here, it has therefore been a key priority for me. It is a delight to see how many families we now have as part of the church. In my first year here there were on average 5 under 16s on a Sunday morning with a maximum possible of 7. Now we have an average of 16 on a Sunday with a possible maximum of over 32 (every Sunday it seems we are blessed with new people so it’s a little hard to be as accurate now, so it’s at least 32).
We have raised just over £53,000 to employ a part time children’s and youth worker but unfortunately we have not been able to appoint anyone. We raised £2,317 via the 100 for 100 project last year. We hoped we would raise near to £10,000 through this and while some in the congregation seemed to be inspired by this and engaged really well, many didn’t.
Please keep praying and please consider giving towards this vital ministry.
In Sep 2025 we took on Chiaz Alozie as our Intern. He is supervised by Ben and spends the majority of his time working in the under 18s ministry.
All under 18s groups continue to use the Energize resource.
In recent months we have had numerous parents now complete the relevant safeguarding procedures enabling them to support the under 18s ministry on Sunday mornings. I am delighted and it is very welcome.
However, we continue to struggle to support the teen ministry on Sunday mornings. We have more teenagers than children and in September we split the group into two groups (yr 6/7 and yr 8+). Both groups meet twice in the month. This continues to work very well:
- Chiaz leads yr 6/7 group and has 2 people who help support where they can. However, sometimes there have been gaps and we have needed to ask someone from the children’s team to move groups at the last minute.
- We also seem to be getting more creche aged children and so moving one of the children’s workers might begin to prove difficult and so we need to find others who can support the yr 6/7 group on a more regular basis.
- At the moment we only have Jackie BC leading the year 8 and above group once a month. She no longer has someone to support her and you would have heard me recently let the church know this and ask for others to volunteer. There have been 2 people who have offered to support where they can, but they are already committed in other ministry areas.
- Rayo who is a young person herself, continues to lead the yr 8 and above group once a month. She is doing a fantastic job!
- Under 11s Ministry
Sunday mornings
The under 11s continue to use the Hub room on Sunday mornings for their group. A huge thanks to everyone who leads and supports this age group and for their willingness to guide the children in their individual journeys with the Lord.
Outreach – Glenvale Park toddler group
We began this group Easter 2024. Glenvale Care home provides a beautiful room, toy storage and refreshments for this group. Some of the residents join the group also.
We have around 50 families now on the register and anywhere between 7 and 16 households can turn up on any given week! This continues to be the case.
Outreach – primary aged children
PCC is aware that we did not restart Ignite after October half term due to both the rent increasing and the numbers of children attending decreasing. We were making a loss of around £40 a week during that half term and despite Livvi’s best efforts, we could not increase the numbers. It is hoped that in the near future, particularly if we appoint a children’s and youth worker, that something new will be imagined.
School’s work
Being present in our two primary schools is a very significant part of how we serve our housing estates and the mission of the church. It is largely ministry unseen by the church but plays a huge part in what I would describe as ‘oiling’ the rest of ministry.
We continue to have a very good relationship with Redwell School which means between Ben, Livvi and I we are present on a regular basis, either through assemblies, collective worship, new parent intake evenings, Narnia prayers spaces, year 6 transition sessions, well-being groups, parent evenings and the various fayre’s and school productions.
Glenvale Church of England School continues to grow and it is anticipated it will take around 10 years for it to be fully open. I am now part of the governing body which is now called The Schools Forum and has quite a different role.
Revd. DA.
- Youth Ministry
Sunday Mornings
Sunday Youth occurs on the second and fourth Sunday mornings of the month during the service. During this time there is in-depth Bible teaching and discussion.
We do not have enough leaders to run Sunday youth on third Sundays in the month and have been seeking to use this as a ‘Serving Sunday’, encouraging the young people to help with various aspects of the morning service (such as assisting with children’s groups, playing in the worship band, serving tea and coffee, and washing up). The new church Youth Band have now led musical worship at several café services – they’re doing really well and it will be exciting to see them continue to grow as worshippers of God! We’ll continue to explore other serving opportunities for the young people and are open to ideas church members might have.
Since September 2025, Sunday Youth has split into two groups – one for years 6 and 7, and one for years 8 and above. We are really grateful to all those in the church who have stepped up to lead and help with these groups, and things seem to be going well generally. However, due to Jasmin Childs being without a car and currently unable to get to church on Sundays, there is a pressing need for helpers once a month for both the year 6/7 and year 8+ groups.
The number of young people attending on Sunday mornings varies from week to week. When all the young people are there, we now have around 18 young people on a Sunday morning. That’s really fantastic news!
Connect Youth
Connect Youth is our discipleship group, which meets fortnightly on Sunday afternoons. Ben, Livvi, Dawn and Chiaz lead this group. We begin with a game and snacks, then have a time of worship, Bible teaching/discussion and prayer.
So far this school year, 18 young people have attended the group, with an average attendance of 10, although we’ve had to cancel a couple of sessions recently due to low numbers being available. We hope these have just been anomalies and that there will be a consistent run of well-attended sessions this term. Most of the young people are connected with church, though we have started to see them invite friends from outside the group too. Our prayer is that they would all continue to build friendships and explore faith in Jesus together.
For the last couple of terms, we have been following a series on Christian Lifestyle using the church’s Energize resource and have run sessions on holiness, contentment and resilience, amongst other topics. We continue to hold half-termly social sessions, which have been really good ways of deepening friendships among the young people. This is especially important, as they attend lots of different schools and may not see each other much during the week.
Other
Unfortunately, with Livvi and I completing our curacies this year and no parents able to attend in our place, there won’t be an organized group from Connect Youth attending the Satellites youth festival in Summer 2026.
Please pray for the following:
- For all the young people connected with NWAC to be increasingly aware of Jesus’ presence with them.
- Give thanks for those who faithfully support the church youth work activities, and pray for the development of more leaders with a heart and calling to serve young people.
- For the young people in the group whose families are on the fringe of church and/or aren’t yet followers of Jesus – that the light of Jesus might grow brighter in their lives and that they might lead their families to faith in Him.
- Give thanks for the musical talents of the Youth Band, and pray that the young people involved would grow as worshippers of God and develop their confidence in leading others in worship.
- For those young people who are working towards significant school exams this year – that they would know God’s peace that passes all understanding, and that they would bring glory to God through their studies.
Revd. BH-S
No decisions needed from PCC at this time.
Appendix 3 – update on Key priority 3: Wholeness in Jesus/ Wellbeing
- Bereavement Support Group
We continue to have our bereavement Facebook group which has 87 people part of it. It would be a wonderful opportunity for someone with the passion and skills in this area to really grow this ministry.
- Care
We’ve moved away from the language of pastoral care and more towards Christian friendship which I think has been helpful. The main way of supporting one another continues to be via Connect Groups. There is recognition that many families (in particular) have not made their way into Connect Groups and the PCC are currently thinking about this. There is also a desire from the PCC that as a church we think about what it means to be part of a loving community and how we do this better.
- Creations Craft Group
Nothing this time.
Revd. DA
- Prayer
On 2nd Feb we will be briefing PCC members on good practices in praying with and for people during services so that they can assist present prayer ministry members.
This is very welcome as the few who are doing it week in/week out are usually also performing other duties such as refreshments, worship leading, service leading, preaching etc.
We have decided to create a WhatsApp group for the Prayer Chain to make responses faster and more accessible than email. We can also share prayer pointers and helpful information and support each other more easily.
Where possible I will still send emails for those who prefer it.
As usual, many thanks to all who give their time to this ministry area.
Jackie Brooks-Cheesman
No decisions needed from PCC at this time.
Appendix 4 – Finance Report –
Appendix 5 – Parish Update
We continue to see new people dipping their toes in with us and now some are beginning to put their all in with us and really become part of the church community.
There are a couple of things I’m still working on to resolve:
- Signage outside the school building
Access to Wi-Fi and moving the printer to the parish office when Wi-Fi is resolved
- Continue sorting out the parish office area
Redwell School would like to be able to use the shed that we left there when we moved. I have offered to take all the stuff out in Feb half term and would like the church to gift the shed to Redwell School for their continued use. We had initially kept it as we planned on continuing to run groups from the school but that hasn’t been possible. It does now make sense to completely vacate it.
Revd. DA
Decision for the PCC:
To agree to gift the shed at Redwell School to them for their continued use.
Appendix 6 – Safeguarding Report
In the last report, I said that all members of the PCC and all children’s workers are now expected to do the course on ‘Raising Awareness of Domestic Abuse’. 11 people have now done it, which is up from 7 in November. I have sent out a reminder email about it. We have also had an offer from the Deanery Safeguarding Hub Co-ordinator to come and talk to the PCC about safeguarding requirements and/or organise some face-to-face training on Domestic Abuse. What does the PCC think about this?
One DBS has been processed. One person has done the Basic Awareness training and one has done the Foundations training.
John Gilyead – safeguarding Officer
Decision for the PCC:
Should John arrange face to face training on Domestic Abuse for PCC members?
Appendix 7 – Deanery Synod Report
We currently do not have a Deanery Synod rep.
Appendix 8 – New signage
PCC Meeting Minutes 19/1/26
Minutes of the PCC Meeting
Held on Monday 19th January 2026
| Action | ||
| 1 | The meeting opened at 19.10 with prayer | |
| 2 | Attendance | |
| · Dawn Airey (Chair), Chiaz Alozie, Sam Carew, Fiona Clarke (PCC Secretary), Matt Ellson (Vice Chair), Melanie Hartung, David Meleleu, Alan Palmer, David Wells, Ruth Wium.
· Apologies: Ben Haughton-Scales, Livvi Haughton-Scales |
||
| 3 | Minutes of last meeting etc. | |
| This was not a planned full PCC Meeting so the usual topics were not discussed and will be addressed at the next meeting on 2nd February. | ||
| 4 | Business Signage for Church at Glenvale School – See Appendix | |
| As Glenvale Church of England School is our church’s permanent home, signage is needed so the public can see that we are there. Peterborough Diocese Education Trust (PDET) arrange the signage. A couple of options have been provided – see Appendix. There will also be a small sign by the church office in the school and this sign is included in the prices shown:
· Large sign in same script as the school’s signage £4500. · Smaller sign on a white backing board with writing and church logo £2500. The existing material banner will be moved to in front of the fence by the school’s staff car park.
After discussion: Proposal: To accept the smaller, cheaper sign, with the font changed to the cursive script of the school’s sign, plus the office sign, with funds taken from the Building Fund. Proposer: DA Seconder: SC All in favour except one who abstained. Motion carried. |
||
| 5 | Planning for the future | |
| A discussion ensued regarding the implications of the church being reduced to one clergy (Vicar) and one admin when our two Curates (BH-S and LH-S) and Intern (CA) move on. This was a preliminary meeting only and no decisions were made at this time. |
|
|
| 6 | Dates of next meetings: | |
| PCC meetings:
· Monday 2nd February 2026 19.00. · Monday 13th April 2026 19.00 (to agree APCM reports). APCM Sunday 26th April 2026 as part of the service, followed by a short PCC meeting. |
||
| 7 | The meeting closed at 20.30. | |
Appendix
PCC Meeting Minutes 25/5/25
Minutes of the PCC Meeting
held after the APCM on Sunday 25th May 2025
| 1 | Attendance |
| · Dawn Airey (Chair), Chiaz Alozie, Fiona Clarke (Secretary), Matt Ellson, Ben Haughton-Scales, Livvi Haughton-Scales, David Meleleu, and Ruth Wium.
· Apologies: Sam Carew, Melanie Hartung, Alan Palmer, David Wells. |
|
| 2 | Appointment of Officers |
| · Lay Vice Chair –
Matt Ellson. |
|
| · PCC Secretary – Fiona Clarke
Already holds the position. v |
|
| · PCC Treasurer – Dale Gilbert
Subject to satisfactory checks. Not a voting member of the PCC. |
|
| · Electoral Roll Officer – Marion Darker
Already holds the position. Not a voting member of the PCC. |
|
| · Safeguarding Officer – John Gilyead
Already holds the position. Not a voting member of the PCC. |
|
| 3 | New voting PCC (including ex-officio) members’ admin |
| · Declaration of Interest and Fitness to serve paperwork
Completed by Chiaz Alozie, Fiona Clarke, David Meleleu. |
|
| · DBS and Safeguarding Training
Those new to the PCC were reminded that they need to complete their training and paperwork as soon as possible.. |
|
| · Who’s Who
New PCC members were asked to send a photo of themselves to Fiona Clarke to be placed on the website under Who’s Who. |
|
| 4 | Safeguarding Policy
To be accepted at the next full PCC meeting on 21/07/2025 |
| 5 | Appointment of Independent Examiner
All present voted to appoint Mr Darren Warren of Denton Tavara Ltd. to continue as Independent Examiner for this year’s accounts due for next year’s APCM. |
| 6 | Dates of next meetings
· Monday 21st July 2025 19.00. · Monday 29th September 2025 19.00. · Monday 17th November 2025 19.00 |
| 7 | The meeting closed at 12.00 |
