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Fundraising Update July 2026:
Overall Position: The project has strong early momentum, with approximately $1.43 million identified through the Manse sale, donations and fundraising to date, the Synod grant, and pledged giving. This provides a credible foundation for staged grant applications and future community fundraising activity. The team has been excited and grateful for how the church has come on board this journey with multiple ideas and contributions. Pledge Sunday was a large focus for the team and we were encouraged with how the church wrapped their support around this project.
Celebrations to Date:
· Approximately $220k has been pledged, showing strong congregational confidence and commitment.
· The Synod grant of $110k has been confirmed, providing an important early external contribution.
· Donations and fundraising to date total approximately $100k, including a further significant donation of $50k.
· The first bus trip and soup dinner was a strong success, fully attended and generating approximately $2,800 profit, with interest already supporting a repeat event.
· A clear four-cornerstone funding strategy has been developed, built around the Manse sale, grants, fundraising, and donations/pledges.
Current Actions:
· Synod engagement: To better understand Synod’s medium-term funding position, partnership opportunities, and any other relevant Synod grant pathways. Making good progress on this and understanding the structure they are constrained by.
· Grant readiness: Nick Muirhead and Alan Shanks have progressed a draft grant proposal approach, with timing dependent on resource consent and stage-specific funding requirements.
Future Opportunities and Plans:
· Repeat bus trip: A second bus trip is proposed for 8 August, leveraging the planning already completed and community interest generated by the first event.
· Photography Competition & Auction: The October17th event has potential to become a major fundraiser through photo entries, donated artwork, auction items, sponsorship, and community participation.
· Cookbook: The cookbook remains a medium-term fundraising opportunity targeting delivery by September 2027 for sale before Christmas 2027
· Christmas 2026 pop-up: A seasonal opportunity remains under investigation, including Santa photos, gifts, locally made items, tea towels, calendars, and other small merchandise.
· Additional fundraising concepts: Cake baking competition, quiz night, talent quest, and other community events remain available as future fundraising options.
· Grant pathway: Once resource consent is in place, priority grant applications can be progressed with stronger confidence and clearer evidence of internal funding support.
- There are small ways in which people connected with East Taieri are wanting to contribute to fundraising efforts – selling woodwork crafts, jigsaw puzzle lending library, sale of wheatbags.
Kind regards
Matt Wilson (Fundraising Team Leader)
The Why?
Current church facilities on the East Taieri site restrict our worship. People are stuck in uncomfortable pews. Families with young children are not well catered for. If children need to be taken out of the church they must either go outside in the weather, or walk out the front in view of everyone. The church foyer is cold and unsuitable as a welcoming space. Lighting and sound is difficult to control for performance events, and the view of the stage and projection screens is restricted in some areas. High ceilings, large windows and no insulation make the church cold and expensive to heat.
We are outgrowing our existing church during many Sunday services, large funerals and other events.
Hospitality is a big part of who we are, yet our hospitality team tell us our kitchen facilities cannot cater for large groups of people. Queues at the toilets reveal they also cannot cope with larger numbers.
Our historic church has a leaking roof and the building needs significant maintenance to ensure that it is usable for the future.
The Process so far….
East Taieri Church has always sought to improve facilities to resource mission. 27 years ago, (1991) the Fellowship Centre was added with some offices and the current kitchen and toilets. Then in 1999 stage 2 of that development opened Oak Lounge, further offices and the foyer.
Over the years since, various teams have considered the next step in Mission Facilities, consulting, researching, thinking and praying. . It was acknowledged that something needs to happen in this place or we won’t exist as a church for the next generation.
The Fairfield Manse was no longer needed to house a minister, so the property was subdivided off from the Fairfield Church and sold. The net profit of $425,000 has been spent (or will be spent) on upgrades to the church building in Fairfield (roof, kitchen, toilets) and on professional services relating to the new mission facilities at East Taieri.
The East Taieri Manse is in the process of being sold.
The old church at Ocean View has been sold. The net profit will be available for new building work.
In June 2025 Elders approved the recommendation put forward by the Mission Facilities Group to progress as follows:
· Investigate the existing Church roof structure to gain better information for the Detailed Design documentation.
· Completion of the Detailed Design documentation for all of Stage 1.
· Isolation of the Historic Church building roof replacement as Stage 1a tender package.
· Submission of the Resource Consent application for the building work to be undertaken to the Historic Church building.
· Submission of the Stage 1 Building Consent application for all of the Stage 1 work.
· Establishment of a project fund raising team.
Following approval of this recommendation by Elders, the project was submitted to Synod for approval which was granted in February 2026.
We are now waiting on finalised design documentation suitable for the building consent application and pricing.
The Project
Overall Project Scope:
· Repairs and maintenance to the original Church Building as identified in the Origin Consultants building condition and maintenance survey, which largely relates to the roof replacement and replacement of rotten structural members.
· Removal of the existing pews and levelling the floor.
· Redevelopment of the Kitchen and Ablution areas.
· Redevelopment of the existing office and toilet spaces into Youth café and storage space.
· Modifications and extensions to Oak Hall and associated office spaces.
· Redevelopment of existing entry foyer.
The project has been planned to be staged and phased to help mitigate the risk associated with discovery of unexpected or unforeseen issues.
The staging and phasing are summarised as follows:
Stage 1:
· All work associated with the historic church repairs and maintenance as identified in the Origin building condition and maintenance survey.
· Removal of pews in the historic church and levelling the floor to create a more flexible worship space.
· Redevelopment of the Kitchen and Ablution areas.
Stage 2:
· Redevelopment of existing office and toilet spaces into Youth café and storage space.
· Modifications and extensions to Oak Hall and associated office spaces.
· Redevelopment of existing entry foyer.
Phasing of Stage 1:
Stage 1 is planned to be further broken down into the following phases:
· Phase 1: Roof replacement and maintenance of the Historic Church building.
· Phase 2: Pew removal and floor replacement of the Historic Church building.
Phase 3: Extensions and alterations to the ablutions block and kitchen extension.
Estimated Costs:
The estimated cost for the project are summarised as follows:
Stage 1, Phase 1 $1.4M + GST
Remainder of Stage 1 $2.5M + GST
Stage 1 Total: $3.9M + GST
Stage 2 Circa $800K + GST