Ed Marsh

Senior Charity Adviser, Burton Sweet

Chair of Trustees, Woodlands Church Family

Ed qualified as a Chartered Accountant with a Big Four audit practice, and has over 20 years of experience supporting charities and a thorough knowledge of the sector. As Senior Charity Adviser for Burton Sweet, Ed is a respected adviser to charities and a regular speaker at charity training events, helping to train charity boards, staff and other professionals. Over half of the Burton Sweet Charities and Civil Society team’s clients are faith-based organisations and churches.

Ed is also Chair of Trustees and a Senior Leader of the Woodlands Church Family, and a Trustee of one other local faith charity.

Ed holds the respected ICAEW Diploma in Charity Accounting having gained this qualification by demonstrating his experience and ability in dealing with complex issues around accounting, reporting, tax, governance, fundraising and external scrutiny.

Josh Kingston

Charities Director, Burton Sweet

Josh is Charities Director at Burton Sweet and oversees the Bristol office and the Charities and Civil Society team. Prior to joining the Burton Sweet team in 2014, Josh worked for a medium size practice serving organisations of all shapes and sizes. He also spent six months in Nigeria with a Christian mission organisation providing accountancy support and training for local staff. Josh is a Trustee of the George Muller Charitable Trust and actively involved in his local church.

Burton Sweet offer a range of services to charities including accounts preparation, external security, governance advice and training and a range of charity-specific legal services. The team have specialised in working with charities and civil society organisations for almost 30 years, with over half of their client base being churches or other Christian charities.

Colette Bennett

Charities Engagement Manager, The Charity Commission for England and Wales

Colette has worked in a range of education, training, and equalities roles within the Public and Charity sectors. She has volunteered for numerous charities over the years, including as a trustee of a regional infrastructure charity.  She joined the Charity Commission in 2013, working to deliver training and guidance to a range of charities on registration and good governance, before moving to the Faith Charities Outreach team in 2017. She was appointed as Faith Charities Outreach Manager in 2019 and took up her current post in 2021, managing the Charities Engagement Team whose remit includes providing proactive support to Faith charities.

Giles Arnold

Chief Executive, Church Growth Trust

Giles Arnold is married to Sue with two adult children. He is a Chartered Surveyor and has considerable experience of church buildings, with a desire to see them using for the God-given purpose. He has been managing Church Growth Trust since its inception in 2010 and leads the expanding team. He is regularly meeting trustees and elders of independent churches, who are considering how Church Growth Trust can help them with their properties. He also specialises in advice for churches helping them to unravel their Trust Deeds. He has led a local independent evangelical fellowship and has a passion for discipling people in his local church, and preaching, training and mentoring. 

Church Growth Trust (CGT), as experts in church properties, aims to secure independent church properties for future Gospel use and together with occupying churches to make them fit for their God-given purpose. CGT provides professional services from trusteeship to architectural support and everything in between. It does this because its staff and trustees want to help independent churches secure their future at the heart of their community by helping to keep church buildings for their original use and fit for purpose. CGT is passionate about offering its skills, experience and practical support in a way that serves the Church and sees God’s Kingdom grow.

See CGT’s website for more information and stories of how God has used the ministry.

Amelia Glanville

Former Charity Volunteer Manager

Amelia has over 18 years of experience in mental health and homelessness services. She began her career in managing volunteers at St. Mungo’s Women’s Services, where she led creative and educational groups for vulnerable women. There she decided to recruit volunteers to enhance and expand women’s services, recognising that a strong volunteer team could increase opportunities for the women. Attendance to groups more than tripled, which resulted in Amelia being asked by St. Mungo’s to map services across the Southwest to assess client engagement in meaningful activities.

Inspired by volunteers, Amelia moved into more formal volunteer management roles, first with One25, and later with inHope. There, she designed and implemented centralised volunteer management processes, committed to ensuring volunteers received proper support, which contributed to inHope achieving the Investing in Volunteers accreditation.

Jonathan Lee

Chief Executive Officer, inHope (Bristol)

Jonathan has been CEO at inHope for the past 10 years having previously worked with the George Muller Charitable Trust and led a faith-based NGO in Cairo, Egypt which worked with refugees. In these roles and as a Church Elder he has seen and navigated some of the fantastic opportunities and challenges that the voluntary/charitable sector has. He is passionate about enabling people to fulfil their potential and collaborate in meeting the needs of the marginalised. Jonathan came to the charitable sector with a leadership track record developed in the aerospace sector and an engineering degree.

InHope has a vision of communities where everybody can reach their God-given potential, free from injustice and insecurity. Since the mid 80’s we have provided services for Bristol’s homeless community, those in food poverty and those in recovery from addiction. We meet crisis needs and empower clients to find their path to improved lives, safety and security. Out staff team are supported by 300 volunteers, and we have achieved the Investing in Volunteers accreditation. For more information, visit our website.

Nigel Davies

Trustee, Association of Church Accountants & Treasurers

Charity Consultant

Nigel is a Chartered Certified Accountant with over twenty years’ experience in the charity sector.  He is a member of the IFR4NPO Practitioner Advisory Group, Healthcare Financial Management Association’s NHS Charities Special Interest Group, and the ACCA Charity Trustees’ Panel. He is a regular speaker on charity financial reporting issues, most recently as a panellist at the Charity Finance Group 2022 Charities Conference and he writes on topical accountancy issues including the publication of three discussion papers with ACCA on developments in UK-Irish GAAP (June 2022).

Prior to taking up consultancy, Nigel was Assistant Director, Accountancy Services, at the Charity Commission for England and Wales leading the team of accountants delivering the accountancy input to policy development, external engagement and regulatory and inquiry casework.  He was Joint Chair of the UK-Ireland Charities SORP Committee (2014-2022) and co-author of the Charities Statement of Recommended Practice (FRS 102) which is the authoritative interpretation of UK-Ireland Generally Accepted Accounting Practice for charity financial reporting. He was the principal author of the 2015 ACCA Companion Guide for Not-for-profits to the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) which was the first global reporting initiative for non-profit organisations.

ACAT has been providing training and support to church  treasurers since 1995 when a change in the law required accounts to be prepared to a much higher standard.

From the start, ACAT has represented the interests of all churches equally – and that continues to this day. 

We understand that some treasurers do not possess a background in accounting and bookkeeping, while others have been steeped in finance for their entire careers. 

Our training and support is offered in the form of training courses which take place at various locations around the country, a regularly updated handbook, regular e-newsletters and an advice line.