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This is our 7th annual report. It recalls some noteworthy events in 2018 and comes just before our
Parish visitation by Archbishop Bernard in January 2019, hence the slightly longer edition. 2018
started with a parish team reduced by the loss of Fr Mario when he left in 2017 but ended with Fr
Srinu arriving and Bob Charles having been ordained a Deacon, alongside two lay appointments Alex
Parker and Dan Marsh. They are working in the area of evangelisation, Dan with young people and
Alex in Catechesis and liturgy. A lot can change in a year!
In one of the greatest of all Papal documents (‘God is Love’), Pope Benedict wrote this of the Church:
“The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: proclaiming the word of
God, celebrating the sacraments, and exercising the ministry of charity.” This year we have broken
our report into three areas reflecting this.
Alpha was a key tool for evangelisation
which continued to develop in 2018,
reaching non-Catholics and Catholics
alike with many finding new inspiration
and clarity in their faith. We have
continued to reach out via social media,
invites & leaflets, welcoming strangers,
friends, work-colleagues and neighbours
to discover a relationship with Jesus.
Starting in Lent on February 19th, thirty-
two people embarked on a new Alpha
Journey with an Away Day held in Oscott
College on 14th April. Our Autumn Alpha began in September with forty people setting off on the
Journey in Faith. The Away Day was at Maryvale where we were looked after by the Bridgettine
Sisters. We also ran a mini Alpha course for busy parents whilst their children were receiving First
Holy Communion Catechesis. Since we began our Alpha initiative just over a year ago, 158 people
have joined us; 106 voluntary roles have been filled
(Leading groups, setting tables, serving, cooking,
leading prayer and worship or welcoming); and thirty-
two 2-course meals have been prepared! “It is the
best thing I have ever done” one person remarked. “It
has ignited my spirituality and my faith” (L.H.); and “I
have discovered the Holy Spirit” (S.B.).
To provide a follow–on from our Alpha, we have set
up two Home Groups which meet fortnightly. They
follow programmes involving discussion, Scripture
reflections and prayer, but most importantly they are
a place to develop friendship and faith together.
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Our Alpha journey was over shadowed by Chris Booth’s sudden death on the evening he was due to
attend Alpha. A prospective convert, Chris had been actively involved volunteering in the Parish for a
number of years and attended Mass with his family each week. He is sadly missed. The courage and
determined faith shown by his family has been inspiring to us all.
RCIA - Our RCIA programme embraces Alpha as the start of people’s Journey in Faith. A team of
Catechists and Oscott Students helped the catechumens to prepare to be fully initiated into the
Catholic Faith at Easter. Four new adult members have become Catholics this year.
Sacramental Preparation: Over a dozen volunteers
have worked together in Sacramental preparation
in 2018, running courses for First Holy Communion
and Confirmation for those children not attending
our Catholic Schools and also Baptism and Marriage
Preparation Courses. 95 children made their First
Holy Communion in 2018, 24 of those were
prepared by Parish Catechists. 55 were confirmed,
7 of whom were prepared by parish Catechists.
Our two schools do so much and work so hard to
help our children grow in faith. Passionate staff, lively and prayerful liturgy, retreat days and creative
approaches to sharing the faith characterise St Gabriel’s and St Elizabeth’s. Their constant desire to
improve is an inspiration to the parish. Like us they are sometimes frustrated that some parents are
unresponsive when it comes to faith matters which is partly why we employed someone to develop
parish youth ministry.
Youth Ministry: Dan started with a bang in
September – he is a big character! His job is shared
with St Francis of Assisi School so he meets some of
our young people there. Fr Srinu joins him on
Wednesdays for Mass. He and Fr Srinu began parish
youth ministry by preparing some young people to
be Eucharistic ministers. This was followed by
school visits, assemblies, ½ term sleepover, bonfire
night, leader recruitment and establishing the new
youth group called ‘Phoenix’. Dan is also looking to
develop groups with older teenagers and young
men and women in their 20’s and 30’s. Once again, Dan is only one man so is delighted to have great
volunteers who have already joined him and offer vital support. We are all excited at what 2019 will
bring in this area of youth ministry.
Tamworth Christian Churches or ‘TCC’ – We have two lay representatives for Tamworth Christian
Churches in Angela Powers and Alex Parker who attend regular meetings during the year. There are
nearly 30 Christian Churches within our parish boundary – all doing great work in God’s name.
Working with them is an essential part of our Christian Mission. In 2018 this led us to work together
on the Good Friday Walk of Witness, a Bible Readathon, Pentecost in the park, Christian Unity week
(we hosted an evening) and a few carol singing events to bring solace to people in care homes and
the Good News onto the streets. Sharing this mission with other Churches increased the impact and
joy of doing it. Our clergy attend monthly meetings with other Christian ministers and support each
other spiritually, as well as in outreach work, especially to the poor in our joint projects (Starfish,
Foodbank and the Winter Night Shelter).
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Parish Website: We are always being told that social media is the future for spreading the Good News
but having the people to run with it is the key. Wojtek has both stepped in and stepped up because
while he has been developing our website for a few years he decided, after attending training on
website design for evangelisation, that ours needed a new focus. Don’t just believe this though, go
to www.tamworthrc.church and see. We think it looks welcoming and inviting. Rob and Kathy have
also been busy updating our records. We have over 2,700 parishioners on our database and can now
send an occasional email notifying everyone when something big is coming up. We have never been
able to do this before and it is potentially a great tool. We are also blessed with some additional skills
that Dan shares with us, especially with Facebook, Instagram, video editing etc but we will see more
in the New Year.
Liturgy - The liturgy is the work and
worship (of the people) combined. It
unites heaven and earth in helping
bring about God’s saving love. It is
central to our life as Christians. We
made a concerted effort to consult
the whole of our Parish - Christ’s
Body - on our liturgies, opening
ourselves up for constructive
criticism. We asked for feedback on
how we could deepen our faith; how
we could ensure that our faith meets our Spiritual needs and the needs of the seekers; the welcome
we give; the homilies that are delivered and our work of Caritas. The feedback was shared and
changes made accordingly. For instance, people asked us to review the Saturday evening Mass to
appeal to the younger members of the church and introduce new music. The musicians and choir have
responded well and, with the extra support of singers Andrea and Carol have adopted that
contemporary style with new hymns regularly introduced across all Masses. The feedback has been
very positive. All of this has to be underpinned by prayer which is encouraged in our weekly adoration
and prayer group, days of reflection in Lent, the Rosary group and in the prayer life of our leadership
team.
Welcome – Our welcome was also appraised. A
team of welcomers and wardens greet those
attending our Saturday evening and Sunday
Masses including a Polish greeting given at the
12.00 Noon Mass for some of our large Polish
Community. We also have a fantastic husband
and wife team in Garry and Pat who welcome
the bereaved at Reception Services for funerals.
Prayer Cards with contact details are available
at funerals and forms are always available for
new parishioners to give their details so that we
can follow up and welcome them properly.
Preaching - The responses regarding homilies were generally very positive. Most find them helpful
and inspiring. Humour, relevance to real life, and sharing personal witness came across strongly in
people’s preferences. Keeping sermons short or in several shorter sections were also regarded as
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helpful to aid concentration. Some said they like sermons that
challenge them. We have been blessed with the addition of Fr
Srinu who brings a touch of humour to his sermons and is
settling well into Parish life; and Deacon Bob who was ordained
on July 1st 2018. Bob is a natural at delivering punchy homilies
and has taken to his new role like a duck to water.
Eucharistic ministers – We are also blessed in having a good
number of Eucharistic ministers serving at all our Masses. We
have added to these with our new young Ministers who are
doing a fantastic service too.
Visiting the sick: A team of 38 dedicated and compassionate
Eucharistic Ministers visit the 100 sick and housebound at
home or in hospital. These are hugely appreciated by individuals and their families. Our Catholic
Community is truly seen at its best when meeting the lonely and isolated at their time of need. Fr
Michael and Fr Srinu visited all the Sick and Housebound between them in Lent and Advent, in
addition to regular visits to those who are critically ill.
Funerals. We had 50 funerals in 2018 across our two churches and at the Crematoriums. Many of
them were deeply committed parishioners missed by the parish as well as their families. Fr Srinu,
Deacon Brian, Deacon Bob and Fr Michael share this ministry. We try to reach out to the bereaved
giving details of our Bereavement Help Point Service and prayer and contact cards are left at all of our
Church services. A counselling service is also available.
This work is vital to any Church or Christian. It is said that the Bible
refers over 300 times to helping the poor. Nearly everyone is moved
with compassion when they see others who have lost something – their
home or job, their health, a loved one, their memory, self-esteem or
their freedom. As a parish we have committed and organised ourselves
to respond to poverty as best we can. Over 200 parishioners have
volunteered to help in some way. Many help with parishioners who are
housebound (over 100 housebound in 2018), bringing them the
Eucharist but also friendship and comfort every week. We have a large
team of 45 volunteers who now lead the two week summer scheme
each year. Over 90 young people enjoyed great activities again in 2018
(its 7th year) with a group for teens also being really well received.
We have also focussed a lot of effort on our charity Heart of Tamworth.
This went from strength to strength last year. Below is a snapshot of
what has been delivered, as well as a look to the future. Our major
problem is that we need someone to co-ordinate it and a facility that
allows us to meet with and welcome the 700+ who visit our centres each week. We hope that this
will be remedied in 2019. We have responsibilities to Swinfen Hall prison too, with Fr Michael visiting
on alternate Saturdays – a new area of ministry for him and the parish. We hope one or two might
join him to support that work in the future.
We have also seen a huge change in the use of our facilities at both churches. The chart below gives
a good idea of how these too are at the service of building God’s Kingdom.
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Activities That HoT runs with volunteers:
Groups we accommodate but also connect with by
promoting their service:
1. Saturday morning Breakfast Club
2. Bereavement Group
3. Memory Cafe
4. Older People’s Club
5. Men’s Group
6. Summer Scheme
7. Youth Club
8. Home Visits to over 90 housebound people
9. Homeless Service – befriending and ‘move
on’
10. Winter Night Shelter
11. Christmas and Easter Meals for 60 plus and
hampers for 50 local people
12. Travellers’ support/advice service
These are all new services established by HOT
1. All of Community Together’s Activities:
i. Employment clubs
ii. Healthy Eating schemes
iii. Youth activities
iv. Community Café and more
2. Multiple Sclerosis
3. Pilates x 2 weekly
4. Breast Friends
5. Drama group for People with Learning Disabilities
6. Women’s Craft Group
7. Stroke Club
8. AA Groups on two nights
9. Guitar Club
10. Refugee Action
11. Dementia Action Alliance
12. Tai chi groups – twice weekly
13. Slimming world
Services established with support from HoT
Groups We Support and helped establish: New Groups to be established
1. Parent and toddler
2. Singing for the Mind
3. Gamblers’ Anonymous
4. Tamworth Polish Association
5. SPIN Special Needs Group – new café
project
6. Counselling Service – 3 Times Weekly
These are services new to Glascote Heath or Town
Centre and supported by HoT
1. The Disability Forum
2. 2nd Dementia Café
3. 2nd Daytime Bereavement Group
4. Film Club
5. Walking Group
6. Community Choir
7. Arts and crafts group
8. 2nd parent and toddler group
9. Teen Youth Group targeting young people who self-
harm
10. Holiday activity Group (½ terms, Christmas and Easter)
These are all new groups made possible by the new worker
and hub 4 more groups would be identified in yr 3 after further
consultation
The answer to that is God and his people.
All of the work described above requires
approximately 60,000 hours of work each
year. Some are working full time but most
of these hours are made up by over 200
volunteers who do cleaning, reading, visiting
the sick, fundraising, work with bereaved,
people with dementia, the homeless, young
people, choirs, office work, finance,
catechesis, flowers, building work, members
of our longstanding UCM involved in many
activities and much more. God constantly blesses us with amazing people who grace and enrich our
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parish. However, without wishing to be greedy, the more people involved then the more we can do.
Also some volunteers have to cease because of other commitments or illness so we are always
recruiting.
Summer Fayre: A fantastic 64 volunteers were involved with this wonderful Parish event. Sixty
businesses were approached and donated prizes to our huge tombolas and raffle. A day of
Fundraising, having fun and building our Faith
Community as well as an opportunity to reach
out to the Community. The Amington Brass Band
added to the atmosphere and, despite a clash
with a world cup match, the turnout was good.
An Alpha stall for people to find out about our
courses meant that we did not miss out on an
opportunity to invite people to find out about the
Christian Faith at our Church. £6,000 was raised
in the process and the proceeds will be used to
support our ongoing building projects providing
office space for our charity and Parish work
Apple Festival: As a Live Simply Parish, we try to find exciting ways to avoid waste and use God’s
harvest productively. Our Annual Apple Festival has been a great way to use up 1000’s of apples that
would otherwise be wasted. This year over 50 people were involved in the Apple Juice Production-
from picking apples from the trees to preparing, crushing, pressing, bottling and pasteurising the juice.
We made 173 bottles of Apple Juice. In addition, many more parishioners were involved baking pies
and crumbles and making chutneys to sell to other parishioners who loved this homemade produce.
£546.67was raised and donated to CAFOD to support the Tsunami Earthquake victims.
Our Buildings are another great blessing. A few years ago these were a major headache, being under-
used and in need of major repairs. Last year we refurbished St John’s Church. The response has been
overwhelmingly positive. The chair of the Diocesan Art and Architecture committee said ‘It is
magnificent – I can’t wait to tell the
rest of the committee about it’. Other
people who have lived in Tamworth all
their lives have said it has never looked
as beautiful. We project managed this
and employed volunteers where
possible to make it affordable for us.
We also used professional craftsmen
to ensure a high quality finish and
many of these professionals gave in-
kind help too. We are grateful to them
for their generosity.
The meeting rooms at St John’s are getting greater use and offer a service not just to the parish but
also to the wider community. Sacred Heart rooms are in great demand with Nora making sure all
guests are welcomed and needs are met. Our former presbytery houses 6 girls and 6 babies most of
the time with Homestart guiding these young women as they become new mums. The boxing club is
also thriving with their main focus being on educating young people struggling to fit in at school. Our
buildings are serving over 1,000 of the neediest people in the town each week, helping to build God’s
kingdom and touching the lives of individuals and their families.
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Our accounts can be read on the back page. It
should reflect our priorities which are worship
(including large outgoings on St John’s church)
and people, to whom we try to bring the Good
News. That good news is firstly about Jesus’s
love for all but often expressed in our care for
those most in need.
We continue to be careful with our outgoings
but have spent a lot on buildings last year. This
is an investment. We meet God in truth,
beauty and goodness and we want this
reflected in our Churches. Having beautiful
churches is a long Catholic tradition that we have tried to approach prudently. We also use those
buildings to offer other types of ‘service’. We are pleased to say that they are well used and are, for
many people, a real refuge from loneliness or suffering.
Employing People. There are essential costs associated with supporting the work of priests and
deacons. We are also investing more in people by developing two 18 hr posts. This reflects a
commitment to doing what the Lord asks of us. We are called to grow, to spread the Good News
rather than just survive or ‘to keep things going’. This investment in people is our biggest financial
commitment for some years since it is ongoing but it is aimed directly at what Jesus is asking of us.
That’s why quite a few people have committed additional money to fund the youth ministry post. We
thank you for this. We are delighted with the start made by Alex and Dan in 2018.
People continue to be generous with many giving regular donations on top of their weekly
contribution. Rentals, fundraising and grants also boost our income.
Fundraising. We had a great collection of ‘old gold’
with people donating broken gold jewellery, chains
and even wedding rings! These were converted into
cash to buy gold for the gilding at St John’s. Nearly
£4,000 was raised in this way through a combination
of people’s generosity and their love for their church.
Further work is needed on buildings at Sacred Heart
in 2019 so any money we have saved will be used in
this way.
Thank-you to all who worked so hard in fundraising
last year. We had some great fun too (with afternoon
teas, the apple fest, bonfire night and Fayre) but it
takes a lot of hard work.
Thank-you for your support in 2018 in the many various forms in which it came.
For more information on our parish please visit www.tamworthrc.church and see
www.heartoftamworth.org for information on our charity work
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PARISH ACCOUNTS
INCOME 2016 2017 2018
Collection (Gift Aided) 48741 49320 47087
Collection (Non Gift Aid) 25553 26020 26009
Gift Aid Refund 16394 20261 14974
Building Fund 8578 8259 10448
Repository 1532 1861 1489
Votive Candles 3925 3128 3127
Newspapers 1141 1016 848
Donations 30397 23787 32083
Investment Income 2881 3393 3128.
Interest 19 20 202
Rents and room hire 22131 30551 29827
Fundraising events 10343 11174 9769
Legacies1 10000
Grant for shower block 9000
Insurance claims 3785
Special Collections 10980 7591 9677
Contribution for Youth Worker 5059
TOTAL INCOME
191613 199866 193727
EXPENDITURE 2016 2017 2018
Liturgy and pastoral work 8270 11582 23204
Church running costs 10381 13908 14162
Property Maintenance
Housekeeping / Food 3312 2716 1693
House Maintenance 4052 3123 1864
Presbytery running costs
Clerical and domestic salaries 18083 19728 24842
Clergy salaries 3047 2845 1320
Supply priests 400 1255 1220
Motor expenses 6847 6918 7165
Other clergy costs 575 440
Office expenses 3473 4168 5282
Interest and bank charges paid 387 431 462
Diocesan levies 22581 24685 26646
Piety, votive candles and newspapers 3969 6018 2217
Fundraising costs 1116 584 1666
Photo Copier / Projector 1570
New Building Works 18057 25386 98661
Donations 4291 2169 3218
Special Collections over to Diocese 10980 7591 9222
TOTAL EXPENDITURE 119821 136777 223284
SURPLUS / DEFICIT 71792 63089 - 29557
BALANCE AT BANK AT 31ST DECEMBER 2018 49578 121086
91584
In July 2018 our Unit Scheme Investments were valued at £110.464
Expenditure in Liturgy and Pastoral work has increased significantly due to expenditure on icons, restoration of chalices and purchase
of vestments. All of these were entirely paid for with donations and our thanks to those generous donors.
Presbytery running costs are included under Church running costs since the presbytery shares meters with Sacred Heart Church.
The increase in salaries shows that for the last third of the year we employed two lay members of staff.
The biggest increase is in ‘New Building Works’ which was, for the most part, restoration work at St John’s Church. It is a lot of money
but compared to similar projects around the Diocese or here in the past represents good value for money; that was because of
voluntary help and ‘in-kind’ help from contractors. Our thanks to all involved in this.
Registered as a Charity 234216