| Description | Minutes, memoranda, correspondence, reports and draft notes with references to the value of different areas of work in the UK and overseas and suggestions for reductions in expenditure; including reports on Wigram House, 6 Salisbury Square, overseas missions, medical work etc, the idea of making savings through transfer of responsibilities to local churches and transfer of work to other evangelical societies. Largely comprising the report of the Ways and Means Committee for the Executive Committee 12 October 1938; committee papers A-P, including the 'Report of the Secretaries on the Expenditure of the Society' (A); an incomplete sequence of minutes 23 May 1938-22 September 1938 (missing 3 June 1938) and papers and correspondence on reduction of expenditure further to the Report of the Ways and Means Committee. The papers include a circular letter, dated 7 November 1938, from General Secretary, W. Wilson Cash, futher to the resolution of the General Committee 26 October, in which he advises that the Secretaries are to prepare plans for a £25,000 reduction in expenditure, making reference to the country having 'recently passed through a grave national crisis, when we stood on the brink of war' and donations having been given as a thank offering for peace and a typescript memorandum entitled, 'C. M. S. Finance' prepared by the Secretaries for the Executive Committee 10 January 1940 outlining plans, and steps already in place, for CMS finances further to the onset of war, 5 January 1940.
A special Sub-Committee on Economies was formed by the Secretaries and met December 1937-March 1938; after consideration by all of the Secretaries, the report of the Sub-Committee was presented to the Executive Committee March 1938. The Executive Committee 11 May 1938 appointed an ad hoc committee to consider the Secretaries' report on economies (also referred to as the Report of the Secretaries on the Expenditure of the Society); the ad hoc committee presented an interim report to the Executive 25 May; on the recommendation of this report, the Ways and Means Committee was appointed to investigate the Society's financial position, to consider the Secretaries' report on expenditure, to advise on measures to be taken and report to the Executive Committee for the guidance of the CMS Estimates Committee. The Ways and Means Committee looked for possible immediate savings and improvements in administration and then reviewed the whole work of the Society before reporting their findings at the Executive Committee 12 October 1938. |