Blog

Linda Patrick

Quinquennial Inspection Reports are key documents in assisting a PCC in caring for their church buildings.  When wardens at All Saints church, Oakham, received their latest report they turned to MaintananceBooker to secure contractors to carry out work identified as needing attention.

Mike Thornton, Property Secretary

Funding for maintenance can be difficult to find. In partnership with The Pilgrim Trust, The National Churches Trust are offering maintenance grants to churches who contract work using the MaintenanceBooker service. 

Margaret Firth

What happens when a maintenance check highlights that serious work is needed? A grant from the National Churches Trust can help with the costs of your maintenance.  Despite the coronavirus pandemic, our Grants team and MaintenanceBooker are still open for business.  

Linda Patrick

Regular checks area vital part of church maintenance. Getting into the habit of monthly checks is not only good building management but could also save money on repairs.  

Ian Simpson, Places of Worship Support Officer

Finding asbestos in a church can often fill you with dread. Ian Simpson, Places of Worship Support Officer for the Diocese of Birmingham, has provided this comprehensive guidance on what to do if you have asbestos within your building.

Chris Pullen, Church Warden

Church buildings require maintaining and it is often the routine, mundane jobs, like gutter clearing, that can all too easily be forgotten in the day to day running of a parish. When Chris Pullen, the warden of St Catherine’s church in Birkenhead, realised that they had not checked the state of their gutters since 2016, they turned to MaintenanceBooker for help.

Reverend Claire Turner

I suspect we are not the only church to let routine, mundane maintenance jobs slip a little - in the midst of growing our congregation, ministering to our local schools and local estate, developing worship and involving ourselves in community projects, gutters never seem to come very high up our ‘to do’ list!

Revd Catherine Shelley

In the course of applying for a National Churches Trust grant to develop new kitchens and toilets we received some feedback about other grants available. At about the same time the Diocese sent an email about the same grants, both Preventative Maintenance Micro-Grants and Foundation Grants. It occurred to us that having a high-level maintenance survey, part-funded by a Preventative Micro-Grant, made a lot of sense before we spent more funding on the inside of the church.

Cicely Barnett

MaintenanceBooker not only enables users to book maintenance services at a single building, it also allows users to book a contract for a group of buildings.

Dr Jeff Jones

In September 2018 I received notification that the National Churches Trust (NCT) had launched an initiative called MaintenanceBooker, to assist churches in obtaining quotes for certain services from reputable suppliers. 

Ray Harvey, Churchwarden

For peace of mind and to satisfy conditions laid out in our church insurance with Ecclesiastical, we at St Paternus, North Petherwin in Cornwall have our lightning strike system regularly checked by an approved contractor.

John Sutton, Parish Administrator

A huge thank you both to MaintenanceBooker and Ben Jenkins for the professional and efficient way in which the task of clearing the gutters and downpipes has been organised and completed for St Mary’s.

Margaret Simmons, Associate Vicar

MaintenanceBooker has again helped us with arranging the follow-on remedial work recommended by our architect in our last QI report, and by Ben Jenkins who carried out the gutter clearance work.

Margaret Simmons, Associate Vicar

We’ve been very impressed with the MaintenanceBooker website. We decided we really must get on with the practical issue of rainwater goods maintenance, as recommended in our Quinquennial Inspection.

Simon Hancock, Project Coordinator, St Matthew's Church Surbiton

It was quite a few years since the high-level guttering here at St Matthew’s, Surbiton had any TLC, but when we were spurred on by a forthcoming restoration project to come up with a maintenance plan, we included regular gutter clearance as part of the schedule. There was a definite need, as we had grass growing from one part of the gutter and some substantial plant growth near the tower.

Daphne Boskey, Churchwarden

St Matthew’s Church in Oxhey is a typical, Victorian, red brick building which was consecrated in 1880.

Claire Strachan, Church Buildings Development and Projects Officer

The philosophy of a stitch in time is nowhere better illustrated than in the care of church buildings, and we firmly believe that timely maintenance is enormously important in saving PCCs' money and anxiety in the long term, not to mention the benefit to the building itself.

Richard Lowe, Churchwarden

Keeping up with church building maintenance is an expensive and time consuming process, failing to keep up with maintenance is ultimately even more expensive and time consuming! That is why it is good to have some practical (and potentially financial) help in the form of ‘MaintenanceBooker’, the online maintenance procurement tool.

Cicely Barnett

The Archdiocese of Birmingham has been working with the National Churches Trust and 2buy2 to not only champion the MaintenanceBooker service to its parishes but also help with its ongoing development.

Cicely Barnett

Good news! The National Churches Trust’s Preventative Maintenance Micro-Grants are now available to help pay for the cost of a number of fabric maintenance services. 

Janet Edmond, Maintenance Manager

Did you know that the National Churches Trust is offering free MaintenanceBooker Website Workshops across England and Wales?

Timothy Wright

Drones can be used to really understand the condition of the whole roof, gutters and elevated areas of the building, as well as fixtures and fittings.

Robin Whitehouse, Churchwarden

A couple of months ago there was an article in the Church Times about MaintenanceBooker, and, being the churchwarden at St Stephen the Martyr, I decided to look at their website to find out more information.

Rachel Broomfield, Casework Officer

Rachel Broomfield, the SPAB’s Places of Worship Casework Officer, provides some invaluable advice on rainwater goods maintenance.

Peter Pridham, Churchwarden

As part of our ongoing church maintenance programme survey, last year at St Cuthbert’s we uncovered a loose pinnacle on the church tower, namely the west side central pinnacle situated above the clock.

Cicely Barnett

2018 started at full-pace for me in my new role of Church Support Officer for the National Churches Trust - I am assisting Janet Edmond, the MaintenanceBooker project leader, with the national launch of the service this year.

Janet Edmond

The torrential rain we’ve had in Yorkshire over the past few days should be turning our minds to building maintenance priorities for the autumn!

Janet Edmond

The weather was grim but the mood was high as the first gutter clearance job booked through MaintenanceBooker got underway at St Augustine’s Church, Endcliffe, Sheffield on Monday 5th June.

Janet Edmond

It’s exciting to report that MaintenanceBooker has been gaining popularity since it was launched at the end of February. There have been more than 60 registrations to date and the first few gutter clearance jobs booked with the MaintenanceBooker suppliers will take place in early June in Sheffield. Watch this space for more information on these jobs as they happen.

Janet Edmond

I’m delighted to report that caring for churches, chapels and historic buildings in Yorkshire has now been made easier following the launch of our new web based maintenance service called MaintenanceBooker on 23rd February.