ST PETER’S CHURCH GIFT DAY – APPEAL FOR HELP BY OCTOBER 2022.
Dear Friend of St Peter’s,
Some of you may be a little surprised to receive this from me as your new Treasurer. You might remember me from previous different roles in the anglophone community of Chantilly.
Today I have the humbling task of taking over from John Souter as St Peter’s Treasurer. My appointment was already under consideration by the Church Finance committee before John tragically passed away. I want to put on record our deep appreciation of the extreme courage, the unswerving dedication and the good-humoured professionalism that John showed as our Treasurer during a difficult time in our history. Our prayers are with his family and friends.
I also want to thank you for all your giving to St Peter’s Church. As you probably know, St Peter’s exists only thanks to the generous support from you, our members and friends, and receives no funding from the Diocese of Europe. In fact, we have an obligation to support the Diocese financially so that, in turn, it can help us in our ministry. We have not been able to fully honour this obligation in the recent past.
With your input, your chaplaincy council is currently working on an exciting new vision to ensure St Peter’s regains its dynamism and is even more meaningful and full of energy for the future. We are currently in an Inter-Regnum period, and we must use this time to prepare for the years ahead, and in particular to establish the means of employing the new chaplain we need to recruit.
Of course, the cornerstone of our finances remains regular, planned giving through monthly tax-deductible standing-orders, or the weekly collection. Whilst I am fully aware of the present economic climate, I would ask you all to consider regular giving or to see if it could be possible to increase your present contributions.
St Peter’s received many generous gifts following John’s appeal last year but our financial reserves have continued to fall. To be able to welcome old and new members into our community, to grow our ministry and to fulfil our mission we really need your help to rebuild our reserves.
Against this urgent background we are launching the St Peter’s Gift Day Campaign to raise 10,000 Euros by mid-October 2022.
Please will you –
- Help us all that you can to reach the €10,000 target by the end of October 2022.
- Pass this request on to friends, colleagues or organisations who might also be ready to help St Peter’s.
Every contribution – small or large – will help us to achieve this goal. You will note on the church web site that we have also made it much easier to give (including the option of direct payment by bank card).
Please see https://stpeterschantilly.org/about/#howgive
Should you need any further explanations, or if you can offer any advice on how we can continue to grow our income in line with our Ministry, please do not hesitate to contact me, or the other members of your finance committee, Matthew Foster and our church wardens Nick Sansbury and Ian Cawood.
Thank-you again for your highly-valued gifts and for all that you do for St Peter’s church.
Yours sincerely,
Geoffrey Auckland
St Peter’s Church Treasurer