Help for Church Councils

Firstly, thank you! If you are reading this you are probably a member of Church Council. Your willingness to commit to this is really appreciated.  We understand that it is a responsible job and that sometimes it can feel overwhelming or confusing.  The following are some notes to help explain some of your responsibilities and to make your job easier.  This is a work in progress.  If you have ideas about what you would like to see included, please contact the GRP Office on 9579 4682 or send an email to admin.grp@nswact.uca.org.au.

Property Matters

You are probably aware that Congregations are not legal entities and that the legal title in all property is vested in The Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust (NSW) or The Uniting Church in Australia (ACT) Property Trust (“Property Trust”).

What this means in practice is that whilst Congregations can decide that they wish to buy, sell or build; when it comes to signing a legal document, Synod Property needs to do this. This includes signing for a Community Grant. 

For this to happen, there needs to be a trail of approvals:

  • Firstly Congregations / Church Councils.  There needs to be a clear motion approved and minuted as to the decision made to buy, sell etc. This is used when filling in the Application Form. The Application Form will also ask you about the missional motivation behind this application.
  • The GRP Property Committee needs to be kept informed as they are ones who will make a recommendation to Standing Committee on behalf of the Congregation
  • GRP Standing Committee will receive the recommendation from the Property Committee and, if approved, will sign the application form.
  • Uniting Mission and Education will also need to be asked to sign off before it goes to Synod for final approval, so if the Presbytery have been kept informed and aware of your missional intents, they can send it directly to UME and then to Synod with their recommendation.

For full details click on the relevant link:

Synod Compliance Support

The Synod is now publishing a monthly Congregation Toolkit and has a page on the Synod website for this UCA - Congregation Toolkit. The intention is to support Congregations with their compliance responsibilities. The monthly publications help to ease the burden of these responsibilities by advising which actions to tackle in each month, thus spreading the load throughout the year. The Governance Toolkit and the webpage contain links to many resources and templates to help Congregations.

If you haven't yet subscribed to receive your Toolkit, please click this link and sign up UCA - Congregation Toolkit.

ACNC

The Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) is the national regulator of charities. All Congregations need to report to the ACNC annually by submitting the Annual Information Statement (AIS) by 31 December. Church Councils are responsible for ensuring this is done. Most Congregations are Basic Religious Charities (BRC). This means that the reporting requirements are quite simple. In practice, BRCs need to nominate one or two people as the Authorised Persons, who will then update the names of the Responsible Persons (the other members of the Church Council) and update some basic data about your church activities.  Here are some simplified notes on how to do this: ACNC - How to Report

Culture of Safety (Formerly Safe Church)

How To Get Started

All Church Council members are now required to hold current and verified Working With Children Checks (WWCC).  Volunteers in relevant roles including all church Council members will need to attend a Safe Church Awareness Course and a refresher every subsequent 3 years.

There is a Synod Culture of Safety Unit which has carriage over all aspects of safe church and they are the key contact for Presbyteries and Congregations for these matters. This is the link to the ‘About Us’ page for the Safe Church Unit on the Synod website https://nswact.uca.org.au/safe-church-unit/about-us/.  It includes the team members and the scope of their responsibilities.  The team can be contacted on safechurch@nswact.uca.org.au.

Copyright

Please see Copyright for some guidelines, tips and resources.