Financial Support

What are the costs of Church?
Our financial year runs from January to December and just as you have bills at home so we have bills as a Church; for example for the last financial year it cost just over £2,768 for heating and lighting and over £7,373 to keep the church open. In addition to this, we pay our parish share which currently stands at £38,478.

The costs for the maintenance of our graveyard currently stands at £5,188. All profits made by the parish magazine currently go towards this.

We also support missionary projects overseas, which are displayed on the home page. In total, £3,310 was sent over the last year to these charities.

Our finance accounts are published in the PCC Annual report. The latest is the 2023/24 PCC Annual Report

Supporting our work financially
You’ve no doubt seen the offering plate being passed around during the Church service, but that is only one way of regularly giving financially to support your local Church. You can also use a standing order, envelopes or cash on the plate. Please note that cheques need to be payable to “St Margaret’s PCC”.

Standing Orders

A standing order is a way of setting up a regular, fixed payment from your bank account. Standing orders are controlled by you (the Church cannot change the amount or payment date), go out of your bank account at the interval you specify and can be changed or cancelled by you at any time, just by getting in touch with your bank. 

Gift Aid
For UK taxpayers Gift Aid provides a really valuable way of increasing the amount of money a charity gets from your donation. Completing a Gift Aid Declaration form allows the Church to claim an extra 25p for every £1 you donate at no extra cost to you. So for every £1 you pay in income tax you can ask for Gift Aid to be claimed on £4 of your giving. It may only seem like a few pounds to you, but when everything is added up it makes a significant contribution; a claim is submitted on an annual basis for an additional £8-9,000!

But Gift Aid is not a passive action, you need to first complete a declaration that says you are a UK taxpayer and that we can reclaim the tax on donations that you make, and then after that we need to be able to identify your donations. There are a couple of ways you can do this, either setting up a standing order direct to the Church bank account (with a specific reference that we give you) or putting your offering in a marked envelope (we will supply you with an anonymous set to use).

To register for Gift Aid please print off and fill in the form below and return it to the Church Wardens.

Missions Collections

Cash collected on the plate during mission Sundays are donated towards the Mission collection. If you wish to make donations to our supported mission at other times, please make your cheque directly payable to them.

Gift Aid and Standing Order Documents