AGM Reoprts

During the year we were able to sustain the momentum established in the youth work at St Matthew's Church over the last few years however two of our valuable volunteers moved on thereby creating a void in the number of volunteers we have to assist us in Youth Ministry.

This has not affected the quality and the numbers of young people coming to the youth club but definitely it is a challenge without the necessary support of more volunteers.

The youth work is going through transition in the sense that most the young people I started with are now young adult who have new social network and therefore find other social outlets.

With this in mind, we are starting to raise awareness for the next set of young people coming up in age to join CYFA. CFYA no longer meet as only two at the moment. Discussions are still on the way to see how to restart this wonderful discipleship group to help young people in their Christian growth.

The other youth work- the Blue Coat Christian Union is growing and there has been phenomenal increase and maturity notice in their Christian faith. Last year, 30 of us went to the weekend away where we had a great time in the presence of God. We had 62 people I attend Soul Survival from here and a lot of the young people gave their lives to Christ during the conference. This year we are hoping to have 100 attending.

There has been an increase in the number of those coming in for the Friday social, the challenge however is that 99% of the young people coming are unchurched, which provides us with a great outreach opportunity but without enough volunteers this has remained untapped .We showed some of the Nooma series but have not been able to follow up on that.

The drop in centre has been going on very well; we have approximately about 20 kids attending every week. I have had to turn kids away because we don't have enough help hopefully this will be sorted as soon possible as we are having talks with Walsall Youth Service.

St Matthew's Asian Congregation has completed her four years of existence in March this year. I would like to extend my profound thanks to all of you for your prayers and support. This Congregation is effectively sharing the clear vision of making Christ known to all and offering a taste of worship to Punjab, Urdu and Hindi speaking Christians in their own style.

Worship Timings and Sunday school Sunday service timings are 3 pm, 1st and 2nd Sundays are the Holy Communion Sundays. During the Sunday service a regular Sunday school is being run. The average attendance in the Sunday school remains fifteen every week. The medium of learning is bilingual (Urdu and English).

Children's Rally During the February half term from 11 to 15 February a children's rally was organized in the St Matthew's Centre. Children enjoyed games and fellowship from 10 am to 4 pm in the comfort of the centre. This rally encourages the organizer to hold more children rallies and programmes in more organized way for children in future.

TV Evangelism On 12 August 2007 Asian Congregation organized a Sunday service on the Wonderful Television channel. The challenge of meeting the travelling expenses by coach up and down from Walsall to London was met by selling Asian food and by generous donations. This service received a significant feed back.

Advance Christian Education Programme Advance Christian Education is a teaching, learning and sharing programme of the Asian Congregation. This equips the people of all age group with a sound knowledge of Christianity. The idea behind this programme is to make young people bold and confident to give answers of the questions and queries come from non Christian people. The topic for learning and sharing comes from our day to day religious life matters. This programme is going very well once a month.

24 Hours Prayer Chain and Lent Prayer Campaign A 24 hrs Prayer Chain once a month is going very well. During this Lent season again the early Morning Prayer campaign was carried on. It also went very well successfully.

Bishop's Certificate One of the Asian Congregation members Adil Zareen has completed Bishop's Certificate Course this year.

Christmas Carolling at Caldmore Green Like past years again this year (Christmas 2007) a very good number of people from Asian Congregation took part in Christmas
Carol singing at Caldmore Green.

Website of Asian Congregation St Matthew's Asian congregation now has its own website for up dates, www. stmatthewasianchurch. co.uk

Group meets approximately bi-monthly, to offer mutual support and encouragement, to share, pray and discuss ways of promoting Pastoral Care at St Matthew's.

• post -funeral visiting where appropriate, referred by clergy and Lay Readers.

• people to listen and refreshments to be offered after Memorial services, November and April.

• group members in contact with Chaplaincy; weekly visits to hospital bedside.

• Clergy/pastoral carers to refer members of St. Matthew's congregation in hospital

• praying for baptism families/children (Jeremy Sargent to follow up in Prayer news)

• occasional activity events for adults and children outside Sunday services.(eg. Advent, Easter, Baptism families meeting in groups, invitation to lunch?)

Talk and discussion on "Aspects of Dementia" 20 people attended indicating level of interest in the topic. To be followed up.

• May l2th, Bayston Hill, Shrewsbury: 3 representatives attended workshop led by Paula Smith on boundaries and referrals in Pastoral Care.

People are making good use of the extended opening hours at the Glebe Centre, to
7.00pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 9.30am to 4.30pm on Saturdays. We are fifteen months into our three years of Big Lottery funding that paid for the extended opening hours and for more staff. Later this year we must start seeking funding for these staff and opening hours for 2010. Walsall Drug and Alcohol Action Team gave us extra money to use alongside the Lottery money for more staff hours. The Drug and Alcohol Action Team then ended, instead of renewing, its grants to Walsall organisations - leaving us to hope we can re-apply, under changed rules, in the future. We would have had to make one staff member redundant but he had just found an opportunity to work abroad and resigned.

Volunteers are useful and welcome, in the kitchen or the clothing store, or to work with the clients if they have skills such as counselling. People also come in on work placements from training agencies and on Community Service work. Continuity comes from Lynne, the Centre Manager for nearly nine years now, and from Officers and Management Committee Members, some of whom have been involved from the early days in the 1970's, but some have had to leave. We have a new Treasurer -found by one of the ministers on the Management Committee from among a group of younger Christians she was discipling. Our solicitor pointed out last year that the Management Committee Members were acting as shadow Trustees and Directors. Some Members then became Trustees and Directors while others remained just Members. New people would be welcome in either role.

Local donations are always appreciated, e.g. from Lent lunch times at St Paul's at the Crossing or from Fare Share 'just in date' food that Pat the cook works into her menus

We lost the income from Beswick House hostel in Pleck when the agreement to provide Day Provision for their residents ended in September. It had been good that the agreement overlapped in time with our Lottery funding because some Beswick House residents quickly came forward for help with alcohol problems from our Lottery-funded Alcohol Worker.

Small-scale, another need is still for toiletries or other small items for prizes for Saturday bingo. Larger-scale, our Fund Raiser, in his report to the March committee meeting, challenged people to donate regularly to Comex by Standing Order. Back around 1990, Bill Kempson and I were in a group of people asked whether the Church Urban Fund should continue. One of my arguments why it should continue was that most of my time and energy went into my job that was in a more affluent area, so I could only contribute to CUF-type work financially. If you do not see yourself connecting with the Glebe Centre in other ways, could you respond to their Standing Order challenge?

St Matthew's Centre Report

The Centre has been open just under 2 years.

Wednesday starts early with unlocking for the toddler group helpers at 8.00am. While toddlers meet from 9.00am onward a Rosemary Conley fitness group exercise upstairs in the main hall. Later on another fitness group for the over 50's meets as part of the extend program and in the evening the guides have the evening slot. Locking up is at 9.30 ish!

Kola runs drop in sessions late afternoons.

The lower hall is now in need of some redecoration. As was originally envisaged it is used mainly but not exclusively by young people.

On Thursday nights there's a French class and Narcotics anonymous meet in the Blue room.

The Centre has been well used by the Walsall Bereavement Services who from time to time
book blocks of weekly sessions. Other users include our own ladies group, the craft group,
Home group leaders meetings, the Asian congregation on Sundays and socials at other times
and so on.

Although it sounds very busy the actual utilisation is low and we are in need of a manager to promote the facility. If that should become a reality then someone to unlock and lockup would be required. Those of us who give of our time freely are sometimes run ragged keeping up with events.

While the above is not exhaustive it hopefully gives a feeling of how the building is being used.

The group serves refreshments: tea/coffee/squash and biscuits after the 10am and the 6.30pm services each Sunday, and at other times during the week when needed.

We are very happy to say that we are able to donate £150 from our takings to St. Matthew's church funds.

The group meets approximately bi-monthly, to offer mutual support and encouragement,

Meetings use the pattern of Welcome, Worship, Word and Witness and aim to model 'good practice' in groups.

To help focus the particular aims and ministries of each group, a questionnaire has gone out, asking for each group to choose a name, a Bible verse that is important to them, details of who meets, when and where and a photograph. This should also make advertising easier when people look to join a small group.

• cell groups -what are they for, how do they fit in overall plan of the church

• identifying particular ministries and differences between groups, group dynamics:

preparing for Lent - introducing Lent course; quiet space for personal reflection.

Twelve couples chose to marry in St Matthews church last year. Chris and Amy Lane act as hosts for the "Marriage Matters" course led by John Edlin and this usually takes place on two consecutive evenings with three wedding couples.

The evenings act as a privileged opportunity to meet couples and to share aspects of their relationship with others in a structured way - an opportunity that might easily pass by if the church didn't take the initiative. Through meeting in a relaxed context, they see at first hand Christ in ordinary church-going Christians. It is reassuring to note that all who come value the evenings greatly and through the course a significant bridge is formed to the point where some visitors become Sunday regulars.

1. People who want to find us, particularly those below the age of 40 whose first instinct is to look on the web. Surfers finding the virtual church have been known to visit the real thing after their introduction through the web.

2. Increasingly it will be used as a communication tool for St Matthew's people - for prayer requests, rotas, etc using the message board, Calendar and downloads.

3. People who want to find specific information eg telephone numbers, service times or more generally to find what St Matthew's is about - using the Coming Events, AGM and many other links.

Its potential as a tool for communication and evangelism has not been developed fully - this requires visitors to feedback info to me - but we're getting there.