Thank you very much to the leaders of the various groups, both at Western Road and Queens Park, who have contributed to this report. The Ministry Team and the Stewards are very grateful to them and to their helpers for their continuing hard work which reaches out into the community and gives so much pleasure to so many children, young people and adults. If, as you read the contents of this booklet, you feel you would like to know more about a particular group or activity please visit our websites, wwwbmchurch.org and queensparkchristiancentre.faithweb.com or contact me, email lyn.bowditch@tiscali.co.uk , or visit either site at your convenience. As you can see we have a wealth and variety of activities and we do hope you will find something of interest to you. You will be greeted with a very warm welcome.

We thank God for his many blessings, for the fellowship that can be found here in Billericay and for the freedom to worship in peace, one with another.

Thank you to the stewards for all their hard work and to Mike Tuggey for preparing and collating this annual report.

Lyn Bowditch

Senior Steward

Stewards

Billericay Methodist Church has two teams of stewards, one with particular responsibility for Western Road and the other focussing mainly on worship at Queens Park. The team at Queens Park made up of Jean Brown, George Chapman, Alan Jubb and Liz Read has remained largely unchanged from last year The team of stewards at Western Road consisting of Lyn Bowditch, Brenda Brothers, Roger Davison and Di Small were delighted to welcome Sue Quinney, Gill Rogers, and David Westcott to join them in May 2007. We do hope they have enjoyed their first year with us as much as we have enjoyed having them as members of the team.

Ministry Team

Your Ministry Team continues to meet weekly to pray together and to share information of issues and events that need to be considered. Much of what we speak of is of a pastoral nature and it is good to be able to guarantee a safe environment for such information that often needs to remain confidential.

We have been blessed by the ministry of Dave Chuck working with the young people of the church and those in the wider community. This year Lyn Bowditch in her role as Senior Steward has served on the team, being a great asset with her unshakable calm. Philip Gibson continues as Pastoral Secretary, Heather Ashworth and Elizabeth Hardy as Lay Pastoral Assistants and of course Mark and I.

The team continues to serve Christ’s Church through pastoral care and making connections in the community often through Rites of Passage, by this we seek to make known the practical and spiritual relevance of The Good News for all.

Rev Les Wallace

Finance

The key elements of income and expenditure relating to the running of our Churches at Western Road and Queen's Park for the period 1st September 2006 to 31st August 2007 are set out below.

Cash Flow

Income

£(000)

%age

Offertories

Tax recovered and interest

Use of premises

124

176

100

Expenditure

£(000)

%age

Circuit contribution

Youth Worker/SMB

Property/Maintenance

Grants Donations

Equipment

Miscellaneous

169

100

As in 2005/6 we have lost, for various reasons, longstanding members of the Church and our offertories/donations fell by some £17,000. In consequence of this our tax recovery also fell by £6,000. So although our 'Hire of premises' showed a welcome increase our overall income dropped by £18,000.

As you know we did not have to include a full year's salary for our Youth Worker but for the year ending 31st August 2008 there will be additional costs of £12,000.

As there were no major refurbishments this year the property/maintenance costs reduced by some £14,000. Needless to say lots of work behind the scenes was still undertaken by Ken and Martyn and all the team.

* Our long-term objective must be to balance our income and expenditure and we are now eating into our reserves to achieve this.

* for the year ending 31.8.2008, our expenses continue to exceed our falling income and we expect the shortfall to be in the region of £22,000 unless we can take some practical steps to address this matter.

Hazel Westcott / Vince Loss

Property Committee

At Queen’s Park the main property activity was redecoration of the main worship space which was completed successfully in August. The Queens Park building is due for its first quinquennial inspection in 2008.

Mission and Social Justice

In the last report we noted that we, Western Road and Queens Park, had become Fairtrade churches and that Billericay Town council was working towards becoming a Fairtrade Town. They have recently achieved this status for our town.

Sunday worship at Queens Park Community Church

One of our main duties as stewards at Queens Park is to ensure that everything runs smoothly on a Sunday morning. We hope that we usually succeed in this and that we are forgiven for the odd mishap!

Mark and Les, of course, lead our worship regularly and we have also welcomed several local preachers, a cell group, and an Anglican priest. All of these have brought their own experiences, outlook and styles of worship and we, as a very mixed congregation in terms of age and background, appreciate the variety this brings. We are particularly grateful to the preachers within our own church who help us out, often at very short notice, in times of illness. This is always a great relief to the stewards, who do not relish reading one of Mr. Wesley’s sermons!

Our new data projector has enhanced our worship enabling preachers to use a variety of media. We are fortunate to have a number of people with the technical ability to operate this facility and we thank them for the time they give to this.

The stewards would also like to thank those who contribute to worship in many other ways, by setting up the room, providing flowers, welcoming folk as they arrive, operating the sound system, serving coffee after the service and ensuring that newcomers are made to feel at home with us. There are always spaces on the rotas, so any offers to help would be gratefully received! Music is an important part of our worship and we also very much appreciate the contributions made by our pianists and instrumentalists.

As a community church we make every effort to ensure that those who live on Queens Park know of our presence. We pray regularly for the local area and at Christmas our prayer tree was manned each day for a week outside Somerfields, including the Sunday of our Carol Service. When the tree was brought in, prayers were offered for the people mentioned on the request cards.

This year marked both our 5^th anniversary in the present building and also 15 years of working in this part of Billericay. We celebrated these two occasions in style! Firstly by a special service led by Linda, reminding us of the history of the church plant and considering our hopes for the future, and secondly by a roof-raising Songs of Praise led by Mark and Les, with music by Anonymous plus guests. We were delighted to meet up again with many old friends on both occasions. Many of our services are followed by a shared meal, and this was no exception!

Our congregation continues to grow and all who come comment on the warm welcome they receive. It is impossible to please everybody every Sunday in terms of worship style and content, but our flexibility and willingness to experiment and utilise a range of talents, will, we hope, enable us to worship God in a meaningful and relevant way.

Jean Brown on behalf of Queens Park Stewards.

Prayer Chain

The Prayer Chain for the Queens Park Community Church (the Christian Link) has continued over the past year but has not been utilized as much as in previous years. This is expected as it does run on a much smaller scale than the Western Road Prayer chains and is transmitted solely by using email. Generally, the prayers are for those individuals who are specifically associated with Queens Park Church but we also forward prayers to and for Western Road contact point where appropriate and we occasionally get messages from Western Road for the Queens Park Chain. It is good that we can all share our Prayers with others. Prayer is an important aspect of Christian life no matter where we are or who deals with it.

Don Ward

Queens Park Community Church Discussion Groups

During the year a group from Queens Park has been meeting on an ad hoc basis. We began with 'Something to share', by Nick Fawcett and as we enjoyed the opportunity to chat over coffee, decided to meet later in the year and base our conversation on 'Living with questions' by the same author. As I write we are following the York course on the Lord's Prayer. In the spring we hope to reconvene to consider 'Love'.

Linda Patient

Esther's Spa

We held 5 sessions during the year which were attended by a group of some 25 ladies on each day. The majority of our 'clients' were from outside our regular worshipping communitygave us the opportunity to reach out to them through care and prayer.

My thanks go to all those who helped prepare and serve, offering the healing love of Jesus through their ministry.

Christine Gibson

Big Breakfast

It seems almost impossible to me that during 2007 we have made a profit of £771.85 by providing 528 breakfasts over ten months – we don’t work in August or December.

What a footfall over the threshold on one of our churches. It has become a social event for many local people who have taken the opportunity to just come in and enjoy the company and relaxed atmosphere. (It is not always so relaxed in the kitchen where my team of volunteers work). We have cooked 480 sausages, 65 pounds of bacon, 65 pounds of tomatoes, 760 eggs, not to mention beans, mushrooms, hash browns and toast galore.

The working team, Wendy Brown, Karen Skinner, Mary Deane, Rev Frances Drake and Audrey Taylor all tell me they enjoy it. The customers say they enjoy it so I’ve decided we must be doing something right or we are all daft.

My thanks to all the customers without you it would be nothing. A special thanks to the ‘workers’ without you it couldn’t be done.

Joyce Scott

QUOGS

Our monthly meetings have been well attended throughout the year with an average of 30 ladies and gentlemen. We have had the usual variety of entertainment with old and trusted friends and a few new faces during 2007.

Shirley White talked about ‘Real Estate’, not her hips just her dolls’ houses. The Vicar of Dibley Minor always raises a laugh. In fact she turns up out of the blue just to share in the afternoon and we are always pleased to see her. Our friend from ‘The North’, Doreen Potter, entertained us and it is always a joy to listen to her monologues, poems and she is great at tickling the ivories, too. Mark managed to provide us with a very relaxed afternoon of tales of the unexpected. Tony Brothers brought a few of his friends from the Barber Shop Singers. They were all very well received. There were very easy on the eye too, very smart!! Well done the wives.

We had a super afternoon tea at the White Horse at Pleshey during one of our summer coach trips and another at Monks Eleigh. Our coach trips usually start at about 2.15pm and return home by 7.00pm in time for Coronation Street.

At Christmas we had a trip to see ‘Cinderella’. My favourite pantomime – I like a happy ending. Joe Pasqualle played Buttons. A Christmas party with a four course meal followed by a singing duo was enjoyed by forty people. We have no membership as such. We meet on the first Wednesday of each month and everyone is welcome. Thanks for your support over the last five years.

Joyce Scott

Daniel’s Den

We have had 19 families passing through during our first year of Daniel’s Den, with 6- 8 families, now attending regularly. We have benefited greatly from the grant we received from the Essex Foundation, having been able to re-stock all our Toys and Musical Instruments at QP, give each of our Families a voucher and biscuits at Christmas and give a regular weekly donation to the church.

In March our grant will terminate and the small sum we will have left will be returned to The Foundation, as requested, leaving us with a very small amount of weekly donations, from the families who attend.

Also because the needs of the Families, (children and adults) attending, are different from those requiring an ordinary Toddler group, as from Easter, the group will be known as a ‘Family Drop In’, continuing to meet on a Tuesday morning, with a new time from 9.30am to 12noon.

Two of the ‘mums’ have become Helpers, with others also helping to ‘get out’ and ‘put away’ the Toys.

We look forward to being able to help other families, in the community, recommended to us by the Health Visitor, who visits us each week, with inputs from other people as the need arises.

Elizabeth Hardy

Thursday Coffee Pot

We continue to be open for passers by to call in for refreshments, fellowship and/or prayer. There are also groups of friends who use us as a meeting place and tables available for those who are creative in the area of various crafts. It has also been our delight to enjoy the background music of our 'resident' harpist Jan Bunker on many occasions.

A dedicated team of refreshment servers, in particular Joan and Ron Haggar and Maureen Davies, has enabled us to open every week in the year and we are grateful to all who have helped us to reach out to the community around us in this away.

Christine Gibson and Elizabeth Hardy

Friday Coffee Pot

Friday morning ‘Coffee Pot’s’ continue to run smoothly each week, with Yvonne & Audrey doing week 1 and Eileen, Monica & Elizabeth doing week 2, although both sets miss their original leaders, Joyce from week 1 & Joan from week 2. We miss them very much and thank them for all their hard work over the last few years.

Numbers have dropped, especially on week 1, when the Library Van is in the area, but we still have regulars coming in to enjoy warm drinks and delicious home made cakes, being joined by visitors, who are having their car cleaned, tyres changed, or just passing - and receive donations of £10 -£15s each week.

Elizabeth Hardy

Pause for Thought

The number of people staying for, or coming specifically for, ‘Pause for Thought’ continues to rise, with an average of 20 people each week. It is especially encouraging to see people who don’t attend worship on Sundays, joining others at this time; we are thankful for answered prayer.

Elizabeth Hardy

Queens Park Monday Baby and Toddler Group

Thanks are given to Shirley Green and her team who have been so committed in their work for this group since our building opened. Shirley has officially retired but still comes along to help from time to time as do her team members.

The group continued as a Drop-in during the winter term under the leadership of Mark Conlon and since then I have taken on the basic administrative work supported practically by a member's mother and Suzan Prior. There are also a group of volunteers who come along to provide the refreshments.

The number of Carers and children at the meetings has increased to full capacity over the last few weeks. All have been registered and issued with guidelines for the meetings to ensure both safety and enjoyment during our sessions.

Please pray for our youngsters and their carers that they will absorb the love of God that surrounds them as they come into our building.

Christine Gibson

Queens Park Children's Group:

The Children's Sunday Morning Group at Queens Park has continued to meet each week and we are delighted that Anna Martin has joined our team.

We have been able to have a separate crèche for the under 5's in the Church lounge. This has allowed us to make the activities more focussed for the 5 to 11 age group. The lounge also provides a comfortable area for mothers with babies to use during the service.

We have continued to use "Light" as the basis for our teaching programme through the year with games, craft and refreshments to help us enjoy ourselves.

Suzan Prior

Painting for Pleasure Art Group

Painting for pleasure at Queens Park continues to meet every week and is flourishing. The friendly atmosphere is remarked upon by all who join.

Each summer we organise a coach trip to an Art venue and this year we went to Art in Action at Waterperry House in Oxfordshire. Our trips are an opportunity to invite other Art groups in Billericay to join us. Unfortunately the day in July that we went was the day Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire became flooded, so it really was a day to remember.

One Saturday morning in October we held an Art Exhibition at Queens Park. We displayed over 70 paintings and had over a hundred people viewing. We apologised to Joyce Scott and her team for doubling their breakfast numbers. I believe they served over 80 breakfasts.

At Christmas we had a buffet lunch together. We continue to donate, through our funds, to the Church in Kenya.

Pat Crabb, Pat Carter

Queens Park Court Activity Group

This year again, we have enjoyed many Monday mornings of gentle activities, tea and lots of talking. As last year, we have around a dozen residents and six helpers each week, and find we can share memories of lots of different topics throughout the year.

As before, we had a number of flower-arranging mornings, celebrated the national saints’ days, Remembrance Day, and of course Easter and Christmas. We tried to remember radio programmes of 50 - 60 years ago and how families coped in the days of ration books. The Queen’s diamond wedding was an occasion to share royal reminiscences, and we enjoyed music and memories of ‘Carousel’, ‘West Side Story’ and ‘The Merry Widow’.

We finish each Monday morning with a prayer, and each month with ‘Time to Share’, a short service led by one of our local preachers. It’s at 10.30am in the main lounge. Do join us then if you can spare an hour. The next two dates are February 25^th and March 17^th.

Ann Bray