Each parish is required by Canon Law to have a Finance Committee whose role is to advise the Parish Priest on all significant financial items. One key purpose is to support the Parish Priest so that he can concentrate on his pastoral and priestly ministry. Our committee meets monthly and covers buildings and resources as well as finance.

The members are nominated by the parish priest. If you are interested in getting involved please get in touch with the chair, Tad, or Father Kieron.

Members
The current members are Tad Matus (chair), Canon Kieron, Simon Keane, Rolan Murray Logue, Ted Osborn, Nick Wells with AnnMarie Klein as Administrator.

Income & Expenditure
The parish relies for its income on two main sources – the offertory and donations given by parishioners, and rental income received through the property we own. In our case we are hugely reliant on the rental income, as the offertory covers less than half of our running expenses.

We are required to pay part of the costs of the Diocese, and local major expenditure notably the costs of heating the churches, normal maintenance of our property, running the office, running liturgical and sacramental programmes, and the living expenses of the priests.

The priests have no direct income except the Christmas and Easter collections, and some fees received for dedicated masses.

Property
Both of our churches are grade 2 star listed buildings (listed here and here). This national heritage grade is defined as particularly important buildings of more than special interest. We have the only two churches with this designation in the whole Diocese, beaten only by the cathedral which is grade 1. It is wonderful to have these environments at the heart of our worship, but with it also come particular responsibilities and costs. We are very limited in any alterations we make, so that the original inside and out is preserved, and every repair has to use heritage contractors and materials at significant cost.

The parish also owns the Fitzherbert Centre at St John the Baptist, including the church hall, the presbyteries at both churches (the one at St Joseph’s being rented out to the Wellspring Community), the church hall at St Joseph’s, and one house in Elm Grove also rented to the Wellspring Community.

Both church halls and the house in Elm Grove require significant repair and renovation.

Capital Fund
The parish benefits from a significant fund formed by the proceeds of the sale of St Francis’ church, together with a bank balance previously held by St John the Baptist parish. That balance and a significant part of the sale proceeds were spent on the renovations to the Fitzherbert Centre and SJB presbytery. Another £150,000 was spent on the internal renovation at St Joseph’s – primarily a new floor and glass screening.  The Diocese expects these funds to be used for capital projects that fulfil our parish mission: Loving Jesus, living and sharing our faith, welcoming all.  £175,000 from the St Francis sale is being invested in the new Fitzherbert Community Hub development to provide improved parish facilities and a social hub to relieve food poverty and reduce social isolation in Kemp Town. The remainder is being held in discussion with the diocese for the next strategic developments – one of the key areas under consideration is the future of St Joseph’s Hall.