Ministers’ Sabbaticals

Guidance Notes by the Development Officer on applications for sabbaticals

In this section of the website you will find:

  1. G2 sabbatical form (aka the “pink” form). When you apply for a grant, this is the form you need to use to get formal approval from me/the Synod Ministries Committee. We will need to discuss fully your sabbatical proposal before you formally submit the form but you may find it useful to produce a working draft to assist your thinking. As to submitting the formal application, we can accept by email from your personal email address an application which contains your scanned signature. Any applications sent by this method should be emailed to Opuene Charles ([email protected]) so that she can have the form ready for me to sign when she next sees me. This method will enable you to get approval quickly if you are short of time. Alternatively, simply complete the electronic copy, print it out, sign it and send it to Opuene at URC Southern Synod Office, East Croydon URC, Addiscombe Grove, Croydon CR0 5LP.
    Nothing here changes the substance of the procedure you will (or should!) have previously followed using paper copies of the forms but merely streamlines the steps involved.
    The existing procedure can still be followed by those who need/prefer it, who should contact Lauren in the first instance.
    I would encourage you to word-process your applications
    whenever possible. Please remember that your sabbatical plans need the approval of the Synod Ministries Committee (as well as myself), which meets only infrequently [for dates see Calendar], so you need to plan your sabbatical well ahead.
  2. CME Claim Form (aka the “grey” form). This is the form you send (with receipts/invoices) to the Synod Finance Officer, Catherine Kingdom, at the Synod to obtain actual payment of your expenses. You may submit several CME Claim Forms relating to each G2 form. You might do so because you have incurred various expenses at different times. You don’t have to wait until you are in a position to claim everything together. Do not send CME Claim Forms, or receipts or invoices to me! Catherine also urges you to submit your claim(s) promptly, particularly at the end of the year as Church House asks us to finalise expenses claims during the first two weeks of January. As you need to be able to produce to Catherine receipts for expenditure (in order to satisfy the requirements of H.M. Revenue & Customs), it is likely to be in your own interests to act promptly as you will have less time to lose them!
  3. Report Form R2 – I need to have this soon after you have done the course. Please give sufficient information on this form to indicate exactly what training you have done (i.e. training institution, course undertaken, etc) and to enable the reader to form an opinion of the value or otherwise of any courses you have taken. Please send the reports to Lauren.

You will see that each of the forms includes fields for you to write additional explanatory notes where necessary, in the same way that you might need to write manuscript notes on a hard copy.NB: All fields can be accessed for input of information by using the ‘tab’ key on your keyboard to jump from field to field.

Nothing here changes the substance of the procedure you will (or should!) have previously followed using paper copies of the forms but merely streamlines the steps involved. The existing procedure can still be followed by those who need/prefer it, who should contact Opuene in the first instance.

November 2011  (based on guidance notes given by email 23 April 2010); revised October 2013