Please help support our church.
We estimate that our premises are used by over 250-300 people every week, offering a wide range of community activities – from art classes to yoga, from support for the sight-impaired to the Transition Buxton Repair Café – in addition to the chapel being a place of worship for over 60 people every Sunday morning.
To ensure the church continues and the buildings remain open, we need to ‘balance the budget’.
Last updated 02.05.2025
In line with our Mission, Buxton Methodist Church aims to provide a welcoming environment to all users, in a building which is clean, warm and well-maintained. The cost of providing this positive environment has risen steeply, particularly due of the doubling of energy costs in the past 2 to 3 years.
Furthermore, the ‘Raise the Roof‘ project works in 2023-2024, to address the leaking roof, used up a considerable portion of our financial reserves.
As a result, the church expenditure is exceeding its income and we are expected to exhaust our funds within 4 years (by 2028).
In addition to financial contributions, the church needs more volunteers to assist in the work and maintenance of the church.
The first step in our journey was to understand what the situation was. We called this part ‘Working Together’.
The project steering group applied for some grants to spend on:
Some of our regular room users kindly wrote letters of support.
The business review would help us to see how we can better look after our heritage building and to involve more people in its care. It will also determine how we can increase its use and income and improve our resilience.
We received a £9,995 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to carry out a business review plus a grant from Manchester & Stockport District’s Climate Fund, via the High Peak Partnership, for the energy audit, and we contributed £2,500 from our own reserves.
Following a tendering process, we appointed a business review consultant – Marc Collett of Burns Collett, a consultancy based in Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire which specialises in project feasibility and development, advice and support to organisations working in the heritage, housing, arts & festival sectors.
The business review was undertaken, with Marc speaking to our project steering group, our staff and some of our room users.
An accessibility audit of our premises was also completed with a variety of tasks identified to help those with impairments use our building.
Marc presented his business review report to the steering group in November.
A series of proposed changes were presented to the Church Council for discussion.
We agreed targets to reduce expenditure by 6% and increase income by 7%. A volunteer stepped forward as a ‘transition adviser’ to manage the significant change process.
We had an open Church Council meeting at the end of January 2025, attended by over 40 people, with a second session one afternoon, attend by a further 20. It was decided to increase room hire rates (effectively immediately to new hirers, from March for current hirers).
A review was undertaken into our communications – weekly notices and quarterly magazines – and we held an additional Church Council meeting to discuss the urgent needs to the church.
To help reduce our expenditure and to maintain the operation of the building, we need more volunteers to help with cleaning, opening and closing the building for users and maintenance of the church.
If you are interested in supporting us with this, please get in touch.
If you are able to support our church, here’s how you can donate:
If you can Gift Aid your donation, please let us know. Download a declaration form here.