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Data supplied: Easter communicants 317 Christmas communicants 350 Electoral roll 290 Parish magazines sold 400 per month Average church attendance 150 per Sunday Lichfield assessment 200 potential giving units. The electoral roll will be somewhat out of date, it is normally only fully reviewed once in four years, when it can reasonably be expected to drop twenty-five to fifty per cent (subsequently rising as newcomers add their names), and as 1978 would be a review year, it was felt that in this case a realistic figure would probably be 200, rising again to 250. Allowing for husband and wife combinations (which are regarded as a financial unity) that was taken to indicate 150 giving units. Since anglicans are doctrinally expected to receive communion at Easter and Christmas, the figures for attendance thereat are a valuable guide, but again allowance must be made for two or more persons coming from a single household. In this case the indication seemed to be something in excess of 200. Average church attendance is a statistic to be treated with caution because it will include both regulars and casuals and apparently little or no research has been done to show the relative proportions; likewise the figure for magazines sold, since a proportion (again, apparently, unknown] of these will go to non-anglicans; but these two statistics can provide useful corroboration. In this case the figure agreed was a current of 200 giving units with a potential of 240 giving units four years hence. Having thus obtained the number of units, the next stage is to decide the rate per unit. In this the assessors were guided by figures obtained from stewardship programmes held during the preceding year and which suggested that the target for a poor parish in the urban |
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