Chairman’s Notes – November 2022

For many of us, 2022 has been a difficult year. Although the impact of Covid-19 infections has been lessened by the introduction of vaccines, the pandemic continues. Its impact is now being felt through the effects upon the global economy with some people struggling financially because of rising food and fuel prices, a lack of access to medical services, as well as mourning the loss of loved ones to the pandemic.

Alongside the stuttering economic recovery post-Covid, there has been the war in the Ukraine. The sight of refugees fleeing their homes and the shelling of different targets in that war have challenged us all to support believers caught up in the conflict both practically and prayerfully. For many of us, though, the war has impacted us only because of fuel supplies and prices, as well as other key commodities we use.

It is incumbent upon us all to remember fellow believers across the world. There are those who have no assembly building to go to because of the closure of some halls. There are those who are finding the rise in inflation an added pressure in affording the necessities of life, and we are aware of saints in certain parts of the world where simple food provision for their family is reliant upon the giving of others.

Against that background, it should come as no surprise to hear that these global economic factors are impacting upon the work of Precious Seed. Paper prices and printing costs have risen significantly in the last eighteen months. The cost of distribution is also now twice the cost of printing and rising. After some deliberation at Precious Seed Trust meetings, we have decided to make some changes to the magazine from the February 2023 issue to reduce our costs and continue to provide the magazine to you, our readers.

The changes will be as follows:

• The reduction of the cover size from 8 pages to 4 - this will remove the flaps in the cover.
• Removing the YPS magazine as a separate entity. It will become the A4 centre pages of the existing magazine.
• Removing the charts, which presently form the centre pages of the magazine. We are exploring the possibility of making these charts available online.
• Discontinuing the Book Reviews page.
• Removing the book order form from the magazine as we can no longer order books on behalf of customers because of two-factor authentication of transactions imposed by banks and credit card companies.
• Making the Question-and-Answer page one that occurs twice per year rather than in every magazine.
• Making ‘Word for Today’ an article that appears twice per year rather than in every magazine.

We apologize to those of our readers who may be impacted by these changes. As stewards of the resources that the Lord provides by the free-will offerings of His people, we feel we should do what we can to be prudent and spend those resources wisely. Similarly, may we encourage all assemblies to review the number of magazines they take so that our print numbers can be adjusted accordingly.

I would also mention that Jonathan Black is stepping down from the Trust at the end of this year. He has been with us for seven years and has made a significant contribution to the work, particularly with Faith Matters, the centre page charts, and the writing of several articles. We wish him well in his continuing work for the Lord.

We trust that, as the Lord enables, we will continue to provide a magazine which is both informative and expository in 2023 in a way that previous Trustees tried to do, and as the original magazine sought to be back in 1945.

‘Brethren, pray for us’, 1 Thess. 5. 25.

John Bennett