Our Strategy for 2024

1. Continued Collaboration with the Town Council

Our close collaboration with Macclesfield Town Council ensures that we are open to complement town centre events. This proved very effective in 2023, where we were the venue for several popular events.

 

For example, we opened as the end point for the first Macclesfield Lantern Parade, providing hot drinks to all with the church lit up with fairy lights. We opened at Easter, with an Easter Bunny hunt; put on events for the Jubilee, the 2023 Coronation, Barnaby, and opened for the Lunar New Year Parade Day.

 

The church has also been the venue for the town Christmas Tree Festival for the last 2 years. The RNP have provided entertainment and children’s activities in the church for all these events. Amongst other things, support from the council helps us to provide toilet facilities for bigger events (in the form of a Portaloo) as the church is without both toilets and water.

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2. Providing a Venue for Local Non-commercial Organisations

The size and location of Christ Church makes it ideal for local, non-commercial organisations such as choirs and brass bands to perform. RNP conduct fundraising at these events in conjunction with the event organisers to raise money for the building, for example:

 

• Selling refreshments via a café set up

• Running a book stall

• Taking a percentage of ticket sales for ticketed events

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Funds from these activities go towards maintenance projects, utilities, and other focus areas.

 

Commercial hires

We are also open to other art events run by non-commercial organisations with the same fundraising partnership in place. Anyone wishing to use Christ Church for a commercial purpose, or an event that requires exclusive use of the church, without the accompanying RNP fundraising element, can do so by applying via the Churches Conservation Trust. An example of this is the very successful Party in the Pews, organised by Puffer Fish Press, who have used the church to host the 2-day music festival. The CCT has charges in place for hire of the church for these events.

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3. Preserving and Archiving Local History

To engage with the heritage of the church, we now have a volunteer archivist (who would love some volunteers to help).

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In 2023 we inaugurated an event centred around our war memorials for Remembrance Day. We are also very fortunate to have received a large collection of Christ Church related documents and memorabilia from the Brinton family, which is currently being sorted with the aim of being able to display items in the church for visitors to enjoy.

 

We now have information boards around the church about the history, architecture and features of the building.

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4. Ensuring Appropriate Maintenance of the Building

We cannot carry out large projects such as repair of the roof, or installing running water and toilets, but we are engaging with the CCT in the hope that they can fund these projects as soon as possible. What we can do, is look after the fixtures and fittings.

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With funds raised through running our events in the last couple of years we have...

 

• Replaced the lights

• Replaced the door locks

• Begun restoration of the organ

 

Next on the list is restoring the clock so it keeps ticking for years to come, and other ongoing maintenance projects around the building.

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We also have an active gardening group for our own little garden on the Bridge Street side of the Church, which has been financially supported by the Town Council, and volunteers from ROAR have been working with us to help us keep the pews clean and polished.

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Volunteers are always welcome, just contact us or call into the church when we are open.