What's it all about?

We have now completed repairs to our Church roof but we still need to raise more money to pay the bill.

The problem was with the lead used for the rainwater gullies, and to seal the roof. It’s old and had started to crack and degrade.

See our picture gallery for some pictures of the work and results >more.

We send out 300 magazines to houses around the parish so if every household who got a magazine gave £10 we would raise £3,000. If everyone who got a magazine signed a standing order for £10 per month, for a year, the problem would be solved. If you asked your neighbours to help as well we would get there even quicker.

Think about what you can buy for £10 - would you miss it?  For some people it will be a big sum but lets put it in context. Two tickets for the cinema, less than one months broadband connection, less than one months subscription to Sky or cable TV. Over the year it will be less than we pay for our car tax or TV licence and less than the car insurance. It ends up as about 33 pence a day ….

Progress Updates …

July 2008

The work on the church roof that began on 6th May is now complete and the builders left site on the 18 July.

The work (see pictures here) has been done to standards required for a grade two listed building, approved by the Diocesan Advisory Committee and certified by the supervising Architect. The standard of work exceeds the specification of the original build at the insistence of the Diocesan Advisory committee, so lets hope the roof remains watertight for the foreseeable future.

Unsurprisingly all this high quality work with the Architects supervision is expensive so despite running an Roof Appeal for almost a year, sifting through hundreds of Charities for potential help and writing tens of grant request letters we are have still to raise about £5000 to pay the final bill.

As at the end of July the Roof Appeal fund looks like this:
 

The number of organisations who will make grants to churches is very limited and there is much competition for funds, the funding we have received from Trusts and Hampshire County Council has reached about a quarter of the cost and has been a great help. See the right column for details of grants received

Once the Church has added all or unrestricted reserves (ie not money that has been donated for Mission purposes or the planned Parish Centre) we have find a further £5,000 – allowing for some extra works agreed in the course of work (mostly tile and stonework repairs) that were not in the original contract.
This will mostly have to be found internally as further grant support cannot be expected for the last 10% of the bill. Sincere thanks to all those who are donating to the roof fund but please keep giving. Better still just add your roof fund donation to your general Church giving and that with help us pay the final roof bill and catch up with other bills and costs(some of which are overdue) that the Church must make up by the end of the year.

To make a donation now click the "PayPal" button at the top of the page or send a cheque made payable to Christ Church Portsdown (Roof Appeal). Thank you for your support.

June 2008

Urgent work to replace some of the 133 year old lead and repair the church roof began on Tuesday 6th May and will continue for a period of 10-12 weeks.

Although in a position to commence, there is still a considerable sum of money to raise to pay for the work.

As at the end of April the Roof Appeal fund looks like this:

To date 9 different applications have been made to grant making bodies. The number of organisations who will make grants to churches is very limited and there is much competition for funds. See the right column for details of grants received

We still have to find about £8,000 – that is quite a big number so we still need everyone to think about how much more they may be able to help.

To make a donation now click the "PayPal" button at the top of the page or send a cheque made payable to Christ Church Portsdown (Roof Appeal). Thank you for your support.

May 2008

I am delighted to be able to say that work on the roof begins on Tuesday 6th May for a period of 8 – 10 weeks.

During this time the external vestry door will be inaccessible , so access to the church will be through the front door only ( although the vestry will still provide an emergency exit ) .

Access to the graveyards to the rear of the church will be maintained, but will be down one side or other of the church. If the South side is blocked please use the North side & vice-versa.

Although we are in a position to commence this project , we still have a considerable sum to raise to pay for the work .

Please continue to give generously .

March 2008

We have three grants agreed:
National Churches Trust £5k

Hampshire & the Islands Historic Churches Trust £4k

Hampshire CC, sponsored by Councillor R MacIntosh, £1k
 

We have receive 2 generous donations, both of £1k at the end of 07 and early 08 direct to the Roof Fund.

We have 11 monthly standing orders for the Roof Appeal together with individual donations in the Church Plate - These produce about £150 pm.
The Gift Aid refund of Roof Appeal donations for 2007 is £1940

All the above are included in the following total to date 1 Mar 2008:
2007 = £7580.84
2008 = £11488.71
Total = £19069.55

Additional Architects' fees are estimated at £1860 (a separate Architects bill of £1556.98 was met last year from Church funds)

What you can do …

Make a one off donation

Use this button to do it right now ...

Make a regular pledge

Open this form and complete a pledge form. If you pay tax then don't forget the Gift Aid part - its worth an extra 28% for the church >More

Grants received to Date

Special thanks to the following Trusts:

Allchurches Trust Ltd who have given us a grant of £500.  Allchurches is funded entirely from the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group with the objective to promote Christian Religion. For more information on the trust and its work see >here

Hampshire and The Islands Historic Churches Trust who have given us a grant of £4000.  This is a charity which, like the other County Trusts, raises funds to help churches of all denominations with repairs and improvements to the fabric of the buildings and their contents, as well as to their surrounding churchyards. For more information on the trust and its work see >here

Hampshire County Council who have given us a grant of £1000.

National Churches Trust who have given us a grant of £5,000.  The Trust's objective as an organisation is not just to ensure that churches attain the minimum standards of any historic building, but also to encourage their continual use and embellishments as centres of local community life. For more information on the trust and its work see >here