Renfrewshire church wins national award for church maintenance

Bishopton Parish Church in Renfrewshire are ‘delighted' to have received a special award at this year's National Church Awards for ‘excellence in church maintenance'.

The National Churches Trust picked Bishopton Parish Church as their Scottish winner of the 2022 Nayler Award for Excellence in Church Maintenance, commending the congregation on their planning skills and teamwork approach, particularly during the pandemic.

The church received a prize of £2,500 and a special plaque at the awards ceremony which was hosted by comedy actor Hugh Dennis in London on Monday 24 September.

‘Recognition of the hard work and dedication'

"As a congregation, we are delighted to receive this national award and it is recognition of the hard work and dedication of all our volunteers who take care of not only our church buildings but ensure that the church fellowship remains welcoming and active in our community and beyond," said Rev Yvonne Smith, the minister of Bishopton Parish Church.

"We believe we are only doing what other churches and congregations are doing through our nation and promoting the Good News message and demonstrating God's Love."

Jamie McNamara, the Church of Scotland's Buildings Officer for the Presbytery of Clyde, said:

"Bishopton continues to be an exemplar in excellent church maintenance and repair for the Church of Scotland.

"This truly is great news for all those involved and a brilliant illustration of what we can achieve when we work with our buildings and alongside the right conservation professionals in this historic instance, well done."

In the feedback, the judges said they "loved that the church has a well organised plan to look after a complex building which they managed to keep going throughout the lockdown period."

"Maintenance is very much a team approach with a good balance between volunteers and contractors and a good matching of tasks with volunteer skills.

"The church makes good use of computerised system where live issues can easily be identified. The judges also felt that it was refreshing to see the church articulate how the "soft" processes (volunteer training, fire drills, incident reporting etc) work alongside the repair work and the challenges of ensuring these are done right so they don't become bigger problems."

Bishopton Parish Church was also a shortlisted nominee for the Volunteers Award.

To celebrate their win, the congregation held an afternoon tea on the day of the awards ceremony and invited all of their volunteers to attend and watch the live-stream of the event.

"No-one apart from three of us knew we had been selected to receive one of the awards. As you can imagine, there was great joy and celebration as our church's name was announced", Rev Yvonne Smith said.

You can see the list of winners at this year's National Church Awards on their website.