The Straw Bale Project Team had its second meeting last night and there was a real sense of making progress.

The Diocesan Advisory Committee (the group that will give us the go-ahead on the project) have confirmed their visit on 28 January, so we were keen to get everything ready for them.

Over the next few weeks we will be working on our statement of significance (a document that outlines the historic significance of the church building) and the statement of need (a document that shows how the proposal will help us to meet our needs).

We will also continue to develop our fundraising strategy (thank you Hilary!) and our business plan (thank you Jim and Aileen!)

We’re still looking for a patron for this project. We heard back last week from the Prince of Wales, who said that unfortunately he couldn’t take this role. The letter said, ‘His Royal Highness much appreciated your thoughtful invitation and was interested to hear about the project. He has asked me to send you his best wishes.’

The next project team meeting is scheduled for 10 February.

We’ll let you know how the DAC visit goes.

On Monday 2nd December Holy Trinity PCC agreed to expand our original plan to include a strip of Upper Rooms in
the roof space of the hall.  This is now seen as an absolutely necessary step in order to get permission for building. Without the extra Upper Rooms, the hall will only partially meet our needs. In short, we would still have to hire space beyond the church plant every week for our Children’s Provision.

Although providing for our own children’s ministry is only part of the vision, it is an important one – ongoing into the future. Our previous plan, which left only the hope of a second building was simply not secure enough.

Building rooms into the roof space will definitely be more expensive, but it will be much more cost-effective than a second building, and it will provide a much neater, more economic solution.  For more information, see Our Most Up-To-Date Plan

With this and other factors in mind, we have revised our fund-raising target to £380,000