Support Us
There are a number of ways to support St Laurence: through worship, through the giving of your time and through the giving of your talents. We appreciate enormously the support we receive from those who assist in a wide variety of areas, ranging from flower arranging and gardening, through music and singing to finance, administration and sitting on the PCC(Parochial Church Council).
If you would like to support St Laurence Church in any of these aspects, please contact office@stlaurence.co.uk.
In addition, there are various ways of giving financially:
by donating directly to the Church or by supporting our Fund Raising initiatives:-
What is the Parish Giving Scheme?
The Parish Giving Scheme is a new, free way to help you plan your giving and, if you are a taxpayer, to do so tax efficiently. Whether you currently give by Standing Order, the envelope scheme or by occasional donation, you can easily make the switch to this secure and efficient Direct Debit system.
Tried, tested and highly recommended by over 40,000 people in nearly thirty dioceses for its reliability and ease of use, the Parish Giving Scheme can help you give to your church in an easy, straight forward way.
How does the scheme work?
You give your regular donations for St. Laurence Church to the Parish Giving Scheme by Direct Debit on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis on the 1st of the month. Your full gift and any associated Gift Aid are automatically credited to the church by the Parish Giving Scheme in the same month. You can choose to inflation-proof your gift which will really help our finances. You can even give anonymously, if you wish. You can change or cancel the amount at any time by a simple phone call or email to the Parish Giving Scheme team.
Why does inflation matter?
Our church, like every household, faces increasing costs every year. If your giving does not keep pace with the increasing costs then, over time, it can lose its financial value. The illustration below shows how much a donation falls in value if it does not change with inflation.
| Year | 2004 | 2009 | 2014 | 2019 |
| Gift | £20.00 | £17.47 | £14.59 | £12.93 |
The Parish Giving Scheme tackles this by enabling you to choose to increase your giving annually in line with inflation. You simply tick the relevant box on the gift form to authorise an inflationary increase.
If you choose an inflationary increase the Parish Giving Scheme will send you a letter before it increases, and if you do not want it to increase then you simply call them to ask for it not to take place. So far, nearly two-thirds of givers across the participating dioceses have opted to increase their gift annually in line with inflation.
Why give in a new way?
The Church of England has a Christian presence in every community, seeking to be at the heart of all our cities, towns and villages. We serve our community by sharing our faith and values, worshipping together, and by our wonderful buildings. This valuable contribution to our community comes at a cost, which is largely met by personal gifts from you and other church members.
For us to grow and fulfil the vision we have for the future, we need to increase our giving, and have more people giving regularly. Money often dominates too many agendas in the church and takes up a lot of volunteers’ time in counting the money, administration and claiming Gift Aid. If you sign up to the Parish Giving Scheme, more of your money and our time can be devoted to God’s mission.
How Much Should I Give?
Giving by individuals is essential to secure our ability to serve its community and for the Church of England to minister across the country. How much you give is a matter for your personal and prayerful reflection.
Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. (1 Chronicles 29:14)
Our giving should reflect not only our willingness to give, but also our ability to give; since individual circumstances differ significantly, so will our individual gifts. A starting point when reflecting on our Christian giving is that when giving to others, we should give in proportion to what we ourselves receive from God i.e. in proportion to our income. This practice of tithing has Biblical origins and the “tithe” literally means a tenth.
For some time, the Church of England General Synod has encouraged us as Christians to review our giving annually and to give a proportion of our income. The initial target suggested by General Synod is 5% of post-tax income to and through the church and a similar amount to other kingdom building charities. You can choose to calculate your proportionate giving on pre-tax, post-tax or disposable income but do whatever feels right for you.
Each person should give what they have decided in their heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)
How to Sign up ?
St. Laurence Church has already signed up to the Parish Giving Scheme. Our PGS Parish Code is 060606234.
- There is a QR code above and on the home page which is unique to St. Laurence Church.
- You can also sign up to give this way is by phone on 0333 002 1260
- or by visiting www.parishgiving.org.uk.
- If you prefer, you can complete a Gift Form – available from the back of the Church, or from Julian van Kan or Robin Crowther (or click the PDF link below). You will need to tick the necessary boxes on the Gift Form to select an inflationary increase. Send the Gift Form direct to: Parish Giving Scheme, 76 Kingsholm Road, Gloucester, GL1 3BD. Keep the PGS Information pages (1-2) which you were also given, as these explain what will happen next.
More information and copy of the required form can be found in the attached PDF.
Everyone benefits with the Parish Giving Scheme
- You are in total control of the amount you give.
- The Direct Debit guarantee means your gift is secure and safe.
- You can choose to increase your gift annually by inflation if you wish.
- Parish Giving Scheme tokens are available if you would like something to put in the offertory plate.
- Gift Aid is automatically claimed for the church every month, and this means reduced administration, less work for your treasurer and Gift Aid secretary and better cashflow.
Questions?
If you have any further questions, please contact Julian van Kan or Robin Crowther or the Finance Team for the Canterbury Diocese (parishgiving@diocant.org ).
Alternatively, you can visit our web page http://www.canterburydiocese.org/parishgiving where you can find more information and resources.
Help / Contact Details
Julian van Kan Email address: julian@thevankans.com Mobile no: 07710 995 644 am available to support fully in any way, including help with the Gift Form or on-line application, and answer any questions you may have if you do not wish to call or contact PGS or Canterbury direct.
In common with all C of E Churches, St. Laurence relies on the generosity of people within the Parish to provide the income necessary to pay for the work of the Anglican Church locally, nationally, and internationally throughout the world.
There are several methods available for people to make their offerings. These are:
a) Freewill Offering Envelopes
b) Bank Standing Orders
c) One-off Gifts
d) Open Plate Collection.
With the introduction of the Parish Giving Scheme way of making donations, offering via Open Plate Collection will continue – all other methods should now be made via accessing the PGS link;
https://www.parishgiving.org.uk/donors/find-your-parish/hawkhurst-st-laurence-hawkhurst/
Freewill Offering Envelopes
Whilst envelopes (yellow) will still be made available for the near future to accommodate Open Plate Collections, The Freewill Offering Envelopes will be replaced by the PGS method– the significance of this being a Freewill Offering remains unchanged.
The form to be filled out for submission to the PGS allows you to set the amount of your offering and to elect whether it is eligible for Gift Aid. As with the previous method, this is entirely anonymous with only the Freewill Offering Recorder having oversight for administration purposes. However, should you wish to remain entirely anonymous (other than to HMRC should you elect for Gift Aid), then you can also elect to do so by ticking the relevant box on the form.
Bank Standing Orders replaced by Direct Debit
This will be replaced entirely by the PGS method of accepting offering which uses Direct Debit. The fundamental difference is that a Standing Order is for a fixed amount authorised by you (the donor) whereas a Direct Debit allows for changes which can be requested by the payee (PGS on behalf of the Parish) – the only change in this case relates to whether you agree to have your offering adjust for annual inflation (a tick box on the form). In any event you will be notified 30 days in advance of the donation date.
One-off Gifts
As the name implies, all one-off gifts are always welcome and again can benefit from Gift Aid. These one-off gifts can be made via the Gift Form or online using the PGS link;
https://www.parishgiving.org.uk/donors/find-your-parish/hawkhurst-st-laurence-hawkhurst/
Open Plate Collection
As the collection bags are passed round, the congregation can drop their offering into the bag, either a Freewill Envelope or cash on its own. All loose cash is known as Open Plate and under new rules, gifts of £20 or less are also able to be enhanced by 25%.
Gift Aid
Gift Aid is a government scheme available to charities which enables them to recover income tax on donations deemed to have been paid by the donor at the basic rate. This tax recovery can only be made on offerings recorded against individual donors who pay sufficient tax to cover it. The new PGS method will do all the reconciliation with HMRC thus removing a tremendous amount of administration from the Parish. As stated above, this information is confidential to the Freewill Offering Recorder.
The effect of Gift Aid is to increase the individual offering by 25% at no additional cost to the donor. In fact, for donors who pay income tax at the higher rate, Gift Aid provides a method of saving some income tax as the donor’s basic rate income tax band is increased by the value of the annual offering provided.
Thank you to all who contribute in any way to our income.
You are welcome to join the St Laurence 100 Club, another one of our fund-raising initiatives. The Club is open to those over 16 years of age and membership costs £10 a year. There is a monthly draw for three prizes, with first prize being £20, the second £10 and the third £5.
The St Laurence 100 Club Rules and St Laurence 100 Club Entry Form may be found by clicking on the PDF icon of this section. Forms are also available in the Church, the Church Office at All Saints Lodge or from the Vicar, the Church Wardens and Alison Parsons.
St Laurence Church is a member of Easyfundraising, an on-line shopping charitable organisation. Over 2700 well known stores – including Marks & Spencer, JohnLewis, Sainsburys and Tesco – will each donate a percentage of what you spend on your on-line purchases to St Laurence Church, without it costing you a penny.
www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/stlaurencehawkhurst
By shopping via this link you will be helping to raise funds for the Church without it costing you any more than what you spend on your purchase.
How it works
easyfundraising.org.uk helps charities, schools, sports clubs, community groups, and other good causes to raise money when their supporters shop online. So far we’ve raised over £3 million for causes throughout the UK.
It works in a similar way to many other loyalty shopping sites, but instead of earning points when you shop, you raise a donation for your cause instead. It’s as simple as that!
You can shop with over 2,000 well known stores and each will donate up to 15% of what you spend. For example, John Lewis will donate 1%, Amazon 2.5%, The Body Shop 6%, some insurance retailers will even donate up to £30 simply for taking out a policy with them!
It doesn’t cost you a penny more
The great thing is it won’t cost you any more, plus we’ve got lots of voucher codes and special discounts so you can actually save money while you help your good cause. There is no cost for the good cause either – our service is totally free.
How to generate donations
It’s very simple – once you’ve registered with us, when you shop with one of our retailers, our system makes a note of your purchase, collects the donation from the retailer and passes it to your chosen good cause. That’s it! No hassle for you, we do all the hard work while you shop as your normally would.
Get started
It’s really easy to get started (we don’t call it easyfundraising for nothing!)
If you would like to support a cause:
- Click on ‘Find a cause’ and select the cause you wish to support.
- Fill out the quick form to register your details.
- Find the retailer you want to shop with.
- Click to visit the retailer, then shop as you normally would.
- Your donation will be shown in your easyfundraising account within 30 days.
If you would like to register a cause:
Website address : http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk
In the Find a Good Cause box type St Laurence Church – Hawkhurst
Raising with Amazon has changed. It is now done through Smile Amazon
If you search for Amazon on www.easyfundraising.org.uk or the easyfundraising App, you will be directed to AmazonSmile. You can still raise FREE donations for St Laurence Church – Hawkhurst when you buy things from Amazon – you’ll just need to create a free account at smile.amazon.co.uk. AmazonSmile is a website operated by Amazon that lets you enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices, and convenient shopping features as on amazon.co.uk. The difference is that when you shop on smile.amazon.co.uk, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price (excluding VAT, returns and shipping fees) to the eligible charitable organisation of your choice.