They turned down our application for a grant towards our church hall renovation & link, saying we had not shown sufficient need for the application to be successful.
Obviously, we are all very disappointed. We were hoping it would be the final piece in our funding jigsaw & it would allow us to begin our amazing renovation project soon after Easter. But this is a time to see what we do have - and what we don't - and to work out where we go from here.
Five years ago when we began to get a vision for what we needed to do with our church hall, our community projects were tiny. We had one part time worker and a handful of toddlers. That was it. Now, with all our toddler groups, children, parents, grandparents & carers, not to mention all the older people who come to the St Caths Plus events, we have some 200 people a week come through our projects, and two full time workers marshalling a team of volunteers. In five years! For a small church like us, this is frankly amazing. Our aim has always been to serve our community with the love of God, making people's lives better - and we are doing it.
For sure, our building is seriously sub-standard. And yet the work is happening.
So: though we have lost this grant we haven't lost everything. And yes, we haven't just lost this grant. The CFAP (Welsh Assembly) money we gained last year, all £300,000 of it, has gone too - it was time bound, which means that we had to find all of our funding by the end of March or we lost it. They were also surprised we were turned down by Big Lottery. But the people at CFAP are being wonderfully supportive, and are helping us as we re-apply for that grant in the next financial year. Though it has gone, we can ask again. We still have a lot of good will, and far more community support now than we had eighteen months ago when we last asked. We turned in 80 letters of support then - this time we have in one morning produced 75!
We are also approaching the Coalfields Regeneration Trust. They do not yet know if they will have a budget for grants in the next financial year, but are accepting applications, and so we have sent in an application there. We do still have the Aggregates Levy Fund money - but we need to spend that in the next 12 months, so we are again in a race against time.
Knocked down, but not out - in St Paul's words - would be a fair description of how we feel. But God is good. And we love doing the work we are committed to, and helping the community we are proud to belong to, and so we will continue to seek help in renewing our buildings that everyone may be blessed.
If you would like to help, please either get one of the letter forms from church between now and April 10th, write in or just email vicar@st-caths.org adding your support for our Hall Renovation & Link Project in aid of our community projects and our re-application to CFAP following the withdrawal of their February 2010 offer of £300,000. (That wording is helpful in identifying everything.) Please date your letter, give your address and name. The more community support we can show the better!
And pray. We always pray. Thank you.
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