Money

How we spend our money

Financial Report 2019

Our financial year-end is 31st December. Here is the P&L report for the last complete financial year. Please note, this report is before the accounts have been fully prepared and, as a result, may differ slightly from the officially submitted ones, which can be viewed on the Charities Commission website.

Financial safeguards

Southampton Vineyard is a registered charity (reg. 1045724) and a limited company (no.3039060).  This means that we are governed by strict regulations on how we spend the church’s money.  We are required to submit a report every year to Companies House and to the Charities Commission, that is examined by external accountants.  In order for us to qualify as a charity we were required to state our aims and we must show in the reports every year that the finances of the church are being spent on furthering these aims.

We are required to have a minimum of three trustees whose role it is to oversee these finances and to ensure that money is being spent in a way that is in line with the stated aims of the trust (the church).  They also advise the pastor in areas of finance and budgets.

The trustees meet every quarter for normal meetings and often hold for extra meetings or conference calls if specific issues are dealt with.  As we are also a limited company, all of our trustees are also directors.

Southampton Vineyard currently has five trustees:

  • Matt Cope
  • Andy Deakin
  • Ann Galbraith
  • Dave Panaech
  • Steve Craddock

Financial philosophy

Our overriding philosophy is that the finances of the church are there for the furthering of the kingdom of God.  The money that the church in the New Testament had was used for the poor and so our aim is to reflect these values and so administrative costs and expenses should be kept at a minimum in order to make the most resources available for this.  This currently means giving to other organisations in Southampton, missionaries, orphanages in India and Zimbabwe as well as being able to give away to those in need.

We want to be able to show that the money that we are responsible for is used to benefit the community and so we should qualify as a charity because of this fact and not just because we are a church.

Payscale philosophy

The trustees set the payscales and salaries for the staff, including the senior pastor (who cannot be present or have any say during any discussions that will affect his own salary).  The staff all receive a pension and the church has an insurance policy that will cover individuals if they are no longer able to work through illness or injury.

Everyone working for the church receives the same salary pro rata.  However, the salary paid to individuals will not exceed the “going rate” for their specific job.  In other words, it would be an inappropriate use of charitable funds to set salaries that are in excess of an accepted going rate for the same job in another sphere.  We use guidelines from Vineyard Churches (UK) in helping to decide these.  It is generally agreed to aim for the total payroll to not exceed 50% of the church’s income, although this is not always the case.

Message from the Trustees 28th February 2016

This is a brief talk from Matt Cope and Con Williams (chair of trustees) to outline the current situation and plans for the coming year.

Message from the Trustees

PowerPoint from the Talk (including pictures of the trustees for your screensaver!)

Standing order and gift aid

If you would like to set up regular giving then the church Bank details are as follows:

Southampton Vineyard

The Co-operative Bank, P O Box 250, Delf House, Southway, Skelmersdale, WN8 6WT

Sort code: 08 92 99         

Account no: 65322529

If you are a tax payer then through gift aid we are able to reclaim a further 25% from the HMRC if you can fill in a gift aid form below.

1. Please notify the charity if you change your name or address. 2. You must pay the amount of income tax and/or capital gains tax at least equal to the tax that the charity reclaims on your donations in the tax year(currently 25p for each £1 you give) 3. If in the future your circumstances change and you no longer pay tax on your income and/or capital gains equal to the tax that the charity reclaims, you can cancel your declaration.

If you would rather do it old school then feel free to print off and send it in.

Gift Aid form