Sunday is a busy day for our churchwardens, Chris and Kevin, with an early start to open the church and set up for the services. They take responsibility for ensuring that the church services run smoothly. The congregation will often see them making sure that the sound and video system is functioning optimally, which can be quite challenging! Their role is very varied, and behind the scenes they have many duties and responsibilities to support the day-to-day functioning of the church and parish. After the Sunday services, one of Kevin’s duties is to review the activities that are taking place during the week ahead and programme the boilers in each of the church buildings so that they come on at the right time and the room temperature is comfortable. This is not an easy task with our unpredictable weather!

The churchwardens must ensure that the church buildings and grounds are well maintained; this includes supporting the Parish Church Council (PCC) with the management of the current challenges that they face, such as the restoration and redecoration of the church interior and the boiler replacement programme. They also maintain the church property inventory and Terrier (a record of the church land including the garden and graveyard). This recently involved locating and counting the chairs in the various church buildings for the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) fabric report! One of the more unusual situations that Chris was called in to deal with was a noisy and destructive squirrel who had taken up residence in the roof of the Youth Centre. The squirrel was successfully evicted, but it moved into the Gordon Rooms so the process had to be repeated!

As churchwardens, Chris and Kevin are officers of the Bishop which carries certain responsibilities and requirements for communication with her. They have had a significant role during our clergy vacancy and have been busy ensuring that the life, worship and mission of our church continues until the new Priest in Charge is in post. They also have governance responsibilities and are required to help with the legal running of the parish, which involves supporting the Clergy, Church Administrator,Treasurer and Safeguarding Officer. They are ex-officio members of the PCC and standing committee, taking part in the decision making at the various meetings and helping to implement these decisions.

Having members of our church family who are happy and willing to take on the lay volunteer role of churchwarden is key to the life of our church. Even in this brief overview we can see that there is a lot of work for them to do, and the help and support they receive from the congregation is much appreciated.