Fire alarms should be tested weekly by the building users. Any fire alarm system should be tested and serviced by a competent person annually.

Escape/emergency lighting should also be tested weekly, to ensure that the LED lights show that the batteries covering emergency egress are charging.

Each month the lights should receive a short test to ensure they illuminate correctly when the power is disconnected.

Every six months they should be tested for at least a duration of one hour in order to check the life of the rechargeable batteries. Every 12 months they should be tested for the full designed battery life, usually three hours.

Either as a DIY project or with help from local builder arrange for all gutters (especially valley and parapet gutters), rainwater pipes and gullies to be checked and cleared after trees have shed their leaves.

And if children play anywhere near your premises don’t forget that a tennis ball is just the right size to block a flat roof rainwater outlet unless it has a protective grille over it.

Hedges and bushes can enhance church buildings with an attractive setting, a splash of colour through stunning blossoms and beautiful aromas. However, unkempt or overgrown hedges and bushes can also detract from church buildings. They can often block natural light into a building and become out of scale with their setting, frustrate or even prevent easy access on foot and, where they are too close buildings, even give rise to dampness.

In broad terms hedges should ideally not be cut back between March and August, as this is the bird nesting season.

So, if you do have any hedge cutting work, then plan to do it now in February or wait until later in the summer. Moreover, careful pruning/cutting back can be helpful to the health of a plant.

At the start of a New Year it is a good idea to make sure all the essential paperwork, including certificates, are in place and where inspections are needed to keep this up to date, that these are put in the diary in good time.

One important matter to address is that of the servicing and inspection of gas boilers. This work should be carried out annually so that the certificate of inspection remains current. The inspection work should be done by a Gas Safe registered and qualified engineer.

The Christmas and New Year celebrations of the last few weeks may already be becoming a distant memory, but what do you do with your Christmas lights, the extra emergency chairs, the artificial Christmas tree or the stand for the real tree and all the other items that put in an appearance? Are they in the storage cupboard/room/attic? What happens normally is that things are initially put away in a calm and orderly fashion, but as the storage area fills up and people tire, then they can become frustrated and in the end storage is simply chaotic. It is likely to lead to things being damaged and is inherently unsafe in a number of ways. Chaotic storage or over-storage is avoidable. Now is a great time to make a resolution to turn over a new leaf and deal with this once and for all!

 

Church Growth Trust suggests three possible steps to take:

First – de-clutter. Storage space is often taken up by equipment that is broken, faulty or not used anymore. Resolve to remove all this sort of equipment NOW and to be sensible about it. For example, you could decide that if an item has not been used for two years then it should be removed.

Second – deal with what is left that needs to be stored NOW. Plan the storage area, maybe including some shelving, so that anything needing storage has a place. This may initially be trial and error, but keep going! Make a plan and put it on the wall of the storage area so everyone knows what goes where. Make sure that in the case of chairs, for example, there are clear ground rules for stacking height. If there is not enough space, do not shove everything back as before with a shrug of the shoulders! Deal with the issue and work out what you need to do. This will vary with the circumstances, but deal with it NOW.

Third – keep following through. Regularly check that the plan is being followed and that the storage area is tidy. If not, act. Then next Christmas, the tree, the lights and the decorations will be where you left them, intact and usable.

Be it Christmas or Easter, both are good times in your church calendar to review your Fire Risk Assessment.

Many churches have organised events such as Carols by Candlelight, Nativity plays and Christingle services this Christmas season and with God’s blessing many new people of all ages will be drawn to and enjoy these seasonal church gatherings. Your guests may be unfamiliar with the layout of your church building and not know where the facilities are, but more importantly will not know what to do in the event of an emergency.

We encourage you to review your Fire Risk Assessment in light of these special events in case an emergency should occur. This will provide you with confidence and be in control of what to do, how to do it and who will be involved should an emergency arise. The assessment may lead to you reviewing how you communicate to your guests at any of these events what to do in the event of a fire or emergency. In this way, there will be no panic should anything happen. It is also a good opportunity to ensure you have trained persons in charge of these events.

Church Growth Trust has produced a pack to help you prepare a Fire Risk Assessment and can be downloaded here.