Diocesan School Building Fund

 

 

 

 

You may already know that as St.Gregory & St.Patrick’s school is a Catholic School in the Voluntary Aided sector, both the government and the Church pay for our building works. The Church contributes 10%, and the government 90%. In recent years the Church’s share in our diocese has been around half a million pounds. 

 

However, it comes at a time when the Church itself is struggling to afford to pay for everything it wants to. The Church wants to give the best it can to our schools so that they can continue to provide the highest possible quality of education for our children. But the sad reality is that because the number of people attending church is in decline, so too the amount of money that is available towards meeting our 10% requirement is also declining. Many parishes are struggling to make ends meet in today’s changing world.

 

The simple fact is that if we want to be able to afford to spend on our school buildings we, all of us, are going to have to find new sources of income. That is why two years ago Bishop Patrick asked for a major consultation to get under way, to look at new ways of tackling this.

 

The result is that a new partnership has been formed between all the schools and parishes of the diocese, to share the responsibility between them, by creating a new Diocesan School Building Fund. Each year from now on the parishes will raise half of the money needed, and the schools will raise the other half. Every school is asked to make a contribution into this new Fund, which is calculated based on the number of pupils in each school, and local economic factors. The amount that we have agreed to raise this year is …£4000 By raising this we will be able to finance the 10% of building projects in the future.

 

So I want to ask for your help in raising this. There are different ways in which it will be done: we will have some fundraising events, and I also want to ask you all if you would give very serious thought to making donations as well. As little as £2 a month can be of great help. And because the Church is a registered charity, donations from taxpayers can be increased by nearly 30% by reclaiming tax under the Government’s gift aid scheme. £2 a month given by Gift Aid will be £24 in the year. By Gift Aid this increases to just over £30.

 

So I want to thank you for reading this letter, and ask you again to help us during the year to reach our target. First by supporting the fundraising events we shall hold – they will be fun as well as doing something very important! – And second by making donations, and by gift aid if you pay tax.

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

Anthony Dwyer

 

 

 

          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Text prepared by Simon Thorrington, June 2003