The project for redeveloping Christ Church is gathering pace. The recent and welcome news is that the church received support from Bishop Pete, the Diocesan Advisory Committee and then the Chancellor for the revised and simplified plans that were submitted. We now have all the permissions we need to start. Martin Blower, Iain Lowe, Andy Patrick and John Cunnington, architect, worked with consultants to look at possible savings and brought the cost of the construction for Phase 2 down to £671,000. When adding the consultants fees and contingency this approximates to an overall cost of £800,000. On the other side of the coin the Fundraising Team and Steve Clarke, deputy treasurer, have worked on raising money. Applications for funding to trusts have numbered over 40. We are very grateful to Sheffield Church Burgesses Trust, Benefact Trust, Garfield Weston, Gavins Foundation, Cutlers’ Trust, Dore School Charity and Land Trust, Sheffield Diocesan Board of Finance and Aviva for their support for Phase 2. We await the results of three more trusts who will report back by the end of January whether or not we have been successful. The PCC met for an extra meeting on 30th November 2023 dedicated to looking at the financial background and whether we should step out in faith at this point and sign contracts. The PCC decided that it was important to do this because deferring would incur significant costs from inflation and renegotiation. This will mean that because there was a potential £200,000 shortfall a loan or loans would need to be arranged. The day after the meeting we received welcome news, as a result of your prayers, that we had been awarded £25,000 and so the total we need to borrow is starting to come down. There have been exploratory conversations between Steve Clarke and 4 potential lenders regarding a loan. Some members of the church congregation have come forward to say they are prepared to loan the church some money. This would be arranged through Steve Clarke who is happy to have confidential conversations with you if that is what you wish to explore. The decision of the PCC was to direct Martin Blower to sign the contract with our construction company T&C Williams, Builders of Sheffield. This is good news for us as an eco-church that we have a local company with a smaller carbon footprint and also gives local Sheffield tradespeople work. So what next? There will be a phase of communication with our church family and then the neighbours and community. The church building closes on the last day of the year with a combined thanksgiving service at 10am. The whole church will come together and give thanks for God’s goodness helping us along a difficult road. On 8th January some items such as the Decalogue Plaque will be removed and put in safe storage for conservation. Others such as the pews will be removed. The next few months will see changes and this can be both exciting and unnerving. The church leadership will be communicating regularly with you about what is happening to the church building and if you have any questions please speak with a member of your PCC. Update from the PCC December 2023
We are pleased to formally announce that at a meeting of the Parochial Church Council held on 14 November, the decision made by our Project delivery team to nominate T&C Williams of Norton, Sheffield was unanimously supported.This concluded a 3 month period of competitive tendering and post tender Question and Answers. Over this period T& C Williams consistently demonstrated best value and a co-operative constructive approach to seeking and realising Value Engineered options with our project delivery team.Work has already started on the next 'pre-construction' phase of our project. We anticipate that works will now start on site in early January 2024, subject to receipt of approval of our revised plans in the next Diocesan Approval Committee due in late November 2023.
Progress on the project has accelerated in the last 3 months. Key project milestones of Invitation to Tender (ITT) to contractors and Tender returns were achieved in the period. A significant amount of work was required by the Project delivery team in order to issue a detailed and robust ITT to our contractors. Thanks go to John Cunnington, our Architect, our subconsultants Tim and Anca of Shearstone Mechanical and Mason Clark Associates respectively and Lewis and Alex of RLB, our commercial consultants. The CCD project delivery team welcomed Steve Clarke as our project treasurer. While overall responsibility for all of CCD accounts naturally remains with Alison, Steve will have day to day responsibility for the project finances reporting through to Alison. Comprehensive and detailed tender returns were received from 3 contractors at the end of September and a process of review and interviews is underway now. We plan to have concluded our due diligence and nominate a preferred contractor by the end of October. Also at the end of August, Practical Completion of the Vestry roof replacement contract occurred. A number of additional items were added to that project scope which extended the contractors period on site and impacted the final value: these included removal of the church safe through the roof, renewal of a blocked and broken drain in the churchyard, the re-building of an unrecorded collapsed manhole and a long overdue replacement of the lead piped water supply to the church building. During September, the fundraising team continued their tireless efforts to attract grant funding. Unfortunately, to date with mixed success due to an altered economic landscape. However, that was outshone by the generous giving of the church congregation and a number of individuals in the wider village community in the recent “Step into the Light” 11 days of celebrating God’s gifts. These efforts have taken us beyond 75% funding at the time of writing. Exceeding this benchmark opens the door for us to be able to access further grant opportunities that are conditional on achieving 75% funding. Finally, we discovered recently what information would be required by the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) to allow them to understand and approve our revised plans. This will entail a re-draft of the Statement of Needs and a site visit by representatives of the DAC in early November. The DAC then meets at the end of November to make a recommendation. This meeting is so close to Christmas that this has required us to delay the likely commencement of construction until early January 2024. Although this delay is unwanted, there are benefits that accrue from a delayed start: it allows us to organise ourselves well to commence the work, it provides an extended procurement and mobilisation period for our preferred contractor, it allows us to hold our Advent & Christmas services in the church building this year, it extends the window for grant submissions and, according to programmes submitted by our tenderers, should allow us to hold our Advent & Christmas services 2024 in a shiny new and re-ordered building. There are a growing number of positive signs that lead to increasing confidence in our ability to realise the delivery of the long planned Church re-ordering project. But there are some significant imminent hurdles to overcome too- the most important of which are DAC approval and achieving a fully funded project. Your continued generosity and prayerful support will be welcome as we seek to clear all the obstacles in lie in our path.
At the time of writing, the Church leadership is aware of an upturn in Covid infection in the UK as a whole and, in particular, in the region of Yorkshire and Humberside. We are also aware that Sheffield Teaching Hospital Trust has recently mandated the wearing of facemasks in all their facilities as a precautionary action. Taking this into account, the leadership of CCD have made the following recommendations in the control of the spread of Covid: · Face masks are to be made available for the individuals in the congregation to wear should they so choose. · Hand cleaning stations will be refreshed and maintained for those attending church to use. · Singing without face masks will continue to be practiced · A 2m physical separation between people in church is not required · People who have tested positive for Covid should not attend Church under any circumstances until either a negative test result has been returned or a suitable period of time has elapsed from the first symptoms · People who feel ill or ‘under the weather’ but have not tested positive for Covid, are requested that they avoid attending Church until they no longer have symptoms. · Those individuals in vulnerable categories are encouraged to obtain their Covid and influenza booster injections in this season This guidance is not intended to be exhaustive and will be subject to regular review over the Autumn/Winter period. The leadership of CCD are grateful for the support and consideration of all members of the church family in minimising the risk of Covid in our community.
