From Seeds September – October 2022
As reported in the May edition of Seeds, the Centre Property and Finance team have begun trialling six key indicators to illustrate how things are going across our remit and reporting in a more visual way. Recognising the impact of Covid, we use the most recent equivalent pre-Covid quarter (in this case Q2 2019) adjusted by CPI for comparison purposes.
We hope you find this style of reporting helpful, and would love to hear your feedback so that we can make these updates as informative and digestible as possible.
BUILDING UTILISATION (CHARGED AND OTHERWISE).
There were 270 bookings compared to 414 for the same period in 2019. In Q1 2022 we were still hosting the Grassmarket Community Project which masked an otherwise underlying change in church activity. In particular in-person ministry and mission activity has yet to return to pre-Covid levels.
BOOKING & RENTAL INCOME
Booking and rental gross income was £33,242 compared to £38,502 for the same period in 2019. It should be noted that our room booking charges increased by 7% in January. We believe we are still very competitively priced versus comparable city centre venues.
OFFERING INCOME
Offering income was £11,099 compared to £8,865 for the same period in 2019. We are very grateful for everyone’s contributions whether financial or otherwise, especially in these challenging times.
BUILDING REPAIR COSTS
Building repair costs were £7,004 compared to £9,291 for the same period in 2019. The figures exclude the work to repair the Finials on the Church Tower, for which our insurers will only meet 50% of the cost. Other recent works include dealing with drainage issues in the Pend (the cause of THAT smell!), Filter flies in the Archive space at Pend level (still under investigation) and an ingress of water in the Sanctuary ceiling.
UTILITY COSTS (ELECTRICITY, GAS, WATER & PHONE/BB)
Utility costs were £4,524 compared to £5,458 for the same period in 2019. We are fortunate to be on a fixed price deal for electricity which will provide stability until March 2025.
BUILDING RUNNING COSTS (EXCLUDING UTILITIES)
Building running costs were £22,745 compared to £29,432 for the same period in 2019.