Raising Funds

To continue its work in the community a typical London parish church has to raise around £110,000 each year. This is to cover the costs of a priest, utility bills, maintaining and insuring the building, providing materials for services and children's work, supporting community programmes, and contributing to central Church costs including property and legal services.

Contrary to common belief, parish churches receive NO funding from Government, NO funding from taxes, and NO funding from "central Church funds" - in fact, the opposite is true, as each church must pay into the central church funds, to help fund the costs of the Bishop's office, training new clergy, supporting retired clergy, and operating church schools.

Here in North Acton we do receive generous subsidies from neighbouring churches, because we operate in a more deprived area of London. Nonetheless, we have to raise about £70,000 each year. Our regular sources of income are what our own congregation put in the collection plate Sunday by Sunday, plus the donations kindly given by friends and supporters.

Contributing

If you would like to contribute to the cost of maintaining St Gabriel's and its ministry, please use the following details to make a bank transfer (BACS) or to set up a regular bank standing order:

Bank:    NatWest Bank
Account Name:    St Gabriel's PCC
Sort Code:    50-41-20
Account Number:    40222098

Thank you for your support.

Gift Aid

If you are a UK tax payer, you can make your donation go even further by completing the attached Gift Aid form. Fill in the form and send it back to us. There is a postal address on the form, or you can email it to the parish office, or just hand it to a priest or a Churchwarden at church on Sunday.

Sponsoring a Lamp

In our church there are many votive lamps. These are candles that burn in places of particular significance - each statue of a saint has a votive lamp burning beside it, and there are also lamps that burn beside the Blessed Sacrament and at the Shrine Altar of Our Lady of Walsingham. These lamps can be sponsored. The cost of sponsorship for ONE WEEK is £5.  If you would like to sponsor a lamp, please transfer £5 (or multiples of £5 if you wish to sponsor multiple lamps, or for multiple weeks). At the same time please email the parish office (office@saintgabrielacton.org) and give your sponsorship details. The details we need are:

• Which lamp are you sponsoring (Blessed Sacrment Lamp, or Our Lady of Walsingham Lamp)

• Do you have a short dedication (eg Sponsored in memory of my brother Keith on the anniversary of his death)

• Is your sponsorship for a specific date?

If you do not mention a specific date, we will simply apply your sponsorship to the first available date.

The lamps mentioned above are the ones most commonly sponsored; however, you can sponsor other lamps, for example the St Gabriel Lamp, or the St Anne Lamp, or the St Francis Lamp.