PCC - guidance for new (and old) members - Part 2

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Copyright and Public Performance licences

PCC members need to ensure that their church activities, and the activities of groups using the church hall, if there is one, comply with the law of copyright.

There is widespread ignorance of what copyright actually means. When a new licence (PPL) came into operation on 1 January 2012 an advisory notice from one diocese (in December 2011…) suggested that when a church buys a set of hymnals it also acquires the copyright in the contents. That is dangerously misleading nonsense. All that comes with a set of hymnals is the implicit permission to perform the contents during acts of divine worship (including weddings and funerals.) And even though the words and music of a hymn may be centuries old, there is copyright in the typographical layout of all printed material, including pages in the hymn book.

So – lock up your church photocopier until you’ve acquainted yourself with the finer points of copyright law.

This is a good start –

http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/

and I’m afraid it gets worse.

Which of these statements is true?

1)     we can show a DVD of The Sound of Music at an MU meeting without having to bother with stuff like licences

2)     we can watch telly by hooking up a wi-fi tablet to the computer projector in the hall  without having to bother with stuff like licences

3)     we can video a concert in church and sell DVDs to raise funds without having to bother with stuff like licences

4)     When we’ve got broadband in the hall we’ll be able to look at YouTube videos as well as watch programmes on I-Player without having to bother with stuff like licences

5)     We can have as many concerts in church and hall as we like without having to bother with stuff like licences

6)     We’ve got all the licences we need. They cover the church hall across the road as well as church itself.

7)     I own a book of Pam Ayres’ poetry, so I can read some of them at WI.

8)  We’ve got a local authority entertainment licence, so we can put plays on in the parish hall.

None of them is true, of course.

1)     Showing a commercial DVD in public, whether or not the audience has paid to come in, needs several different licences.

2)     You’d need a church video licence AND a TV licence

3)     Not if any of the music performed is still in copyright. Again, licences are needed.

4)     No you can’t. You’d need a TV licence and a church video licence

5)     No you can’t. You’d need both a PPL licence and a PRS licence. You’re allowed  six concerts/recitals a year without further payment or reporting back. Any more than that and PRS will deem your church or hall a Concert Venue, and then you’re in the business of reporting what’s been performed and paying the due fees, which go up as your audience size increases (so you need to count your audiences as well.)

6)     No. Separate licences are needed for hall and church if they’re not physically linked, because some licences are premises licences, not event licences.

7)     No you can’t, at least not without Pam Ayres’ permission or the permission of her agent(s), and you can expect to have to pay a fee.

Read this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2007/dec/17/freeversegettingcopyrightw

8)     Oddly enough you can’t. To perform straight plays (as opposed to putting on musical shows like Gilbert & Sullivan comic operas) you need a special licence from your local council. It’s an historical anomaly; a hangover from the bad old days of theatre censorship (in 1737 Robert Walpole, then First Lord of the Treasury, got so miffed with always being satirised by playwrights that the lord Chamberlain was given the power to vet every play before it could be staged and to demand whatever changes he saw fit

Fortunately, most of the licences a church might need are managed by a single body – CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing International)

http://www.ccli.com/Global.aspx

and this is a quick link to which licences your church might need

http://www.ccli.co.uk/licences/guide.cfm

Other useful sites are

http://www.prsformusic.com/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.ppluk.com/

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Thank you for reading. If you’re a new PCC member this is probably everything you need to get started, and all in one place, too!. If it has helped you, please pass the link on and help other new PCC members learn the ropes, or download the article and modify it to your heart’s content, without the risk of my chasing you for breach of copyright. And if you can suggest more useful  links, please do, via the Comments box.

PCC - guidance for new (and old) members - PART 1

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PCC MEMBERSHIP - EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW (almost)

I have just finished my three-year term as a member of my church’s Parish Church Council and I ain’t going back. At no time during those three years was I given any guidance in my duties and responsibilities. Mine is a PCC whose agenda arrive by e-mail  the day before  the meeting, or in the past have been left at the back of church for members to pick up, and they are agenda whose biggest item is often AOB.

The governance of the Church of England since its establishment has been finely balanced between collars (some with crosiers) and ploughboys, and as a ploughboy myself I bridle rather when collars treat me like a mushroom. I suspect that the principle of keeping the PCC conveniently in the dark is more common in small rural parishes than in minsters and whopping great churches with colossal catchment areas and Sunday Schools 800-1,000 strong, like Henry Francis Lyte’s.  And I acknowledge that one of the difficulties of attracting  people onto a PCC is that if you tell them too much you’ll frighten them off.

So – self-taught in the business by necessity – here’s what I put together in my three years – the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the PCC. I’ve done it because two virgin members of our PCC who are close friends said ‘help!’

If you readers diocese-wide or even worldwide spot any factual errors please leave a comment and I’ll correct them, but I don’t answer accusations of heresy, sorry – it’s not a word you’ll find in the New Testament, or the Old, for that matter.

Let’s now get serious. Sunday best, please, and leave your clogs in the porch.

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THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE PCC

An excellent basic introduction to the PCC is -

http://www.chichester.anglican.org/documents/diocesan-booklets/being-pcc-member/

and another, here in A5 booklet format (but can be downloaded as two A4 pages)

http://www.liverpool.anglican.org/userfiles/file/Church%20&%20Society/PCC_Leaflets/PCC_MEMBERS_Leaflet_A5_booklet.pdf

PCC members are trustees of a charity – their parish church. More information about the responsibilities of PCC trustees here

http://www.parishresources.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Trusteeship-local-print.pdf

PCCs were established by the Parish Church Councils (Powers) Measure 1956. This legislation is still in force and has been amended several times. This link is to the current state of the Measure and its amendments

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukcm/Eliz2/4-5/3/contents

This is the Enabling Measure for the set of regulations governing the PCC known as the Church Representation Rules, a vital tool for every PCC member who wishes to know about, so as to work within, church law. The Rules are available in printed form, published by the CofE at £8.99 [2013 price] or, if you don’t have ethical objections, from Amazon at £6.40 [again 2013 price]. The Rules are also available online, in their 2012 edition, at

http://www.churchofengland.org/about-us/structure/churchlawlegis/church-representation-rules/church-representation-rules-online.aspx

Appendix II of the Church Representation Rules is where the real detail is to be found.

[comment – look at Rule 6, the AOB rule. No item that isn’t on the agenda proper can be discussed unless three-quarters of the members present at a meeting agree. This is the highest degree of majority ever required in the conduct of PCC meetings, and it is there to protect members (trustees) from any attempt to slip contentious items in via AOB, which is always taken at the end of a meeting when members are tired and want to go home. If the chair of a meeting appears to intend to introduce such an item without invoking Rule 6, any member can invoke it by raising a Point of Order with the chair, and the chair isthen  bound to seek the necessary three-quarters majority]

[comment – a new PCC is elected at every parish annual general meeting in April and may hold its first meeting immediately for the purposes of appointing officers and co-opting up to two members. Newly elected members of deanery synod should note that their term of office does not begin until after 1st June. If a deanery synod meets in April or May it is the 'old' members who are eligible to conduct business.]

[comment – it is the duty of parish secretaries to inform diocese of any changes in PCC membership, including changes of address, at any time and not just after the parish AGM. Parish secretaries also need to inform their deanery synod secretary of such changes, because for convenience diocese will ask for details of members and their addresses from the deanery synod secretary.]

Another invaluable vade-mecum for PCC members is the

 Handbook for Churchwardens and Parochial Church Councillors (this isn’t a link.)

It’s only available in print, for around £10. There is an excellent section of advice for parish secretaries on how to minute a meeting, and the advice should be heeded. Employment law, copyright law, and neglected bits of church law can all too easily bring a PCC into conflict with legal authorities, and secretaries (and PCCs) need to bear in mind that in such circumstances minute books might be called as evidence in a courtroom.

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PCC members look after church finances, and need to exercise wise stewardship of funds. Not building up unnecessarily large reserves is part of stewardship –

http://www.parishresources.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/parishreserves.pdf

Fund-raising and proper management of funds and appeals for funds are governed by

Charity Commission  rules, which have the force of (civil) law. Here they are (go to section F9 for the details)

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/cc3.aspx

and more detailed guidance for charities that want to raise funds by trading -

http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Publications/cc35.aspx

(and note that Charity Commission guidance notes are not longer available in print form, but only as downloads in PDF format.)



Thank you for reading. If you’re a new PCC member this is probably everything you need to get started, and all in one place, too!. If it has helped you, please pass the link on and help other new PCC members learn the ropes, or download the article and modify it to your heart’s content, without the risk of my chasing you for breach of copyright. And if you can suggest more useful  links, please do, via the Comments box.