We have ended the year with some incredible activity which has brought us many messages of thanks from Clients, relating to Christmas Parcels, Utility Payments, Befrienders, Home Visits and from our Ukrainian friends. We have not only been helping our Seniors with increased attendance at coffee mornings but our younger residents too through some vital work from our Wellbeing teams. A year to be proud of.
We also helped with funding for the Salvation Army and their Christmas Day lunch and a special lunch for pensioners at Batford Memorial Hall as well as a music license for St John’s Church to enable them to put on free concerts during the Winter. Most recently we have taken over the running of the Southdown Methodist Church Halls and our Bookings Team are getting ready to start booking in new hirers.
This year will undoubtedly present us with some additional challenges as the cost-of living-situation continues. However, the Trust’s Care Fund enjoys reacting to these situations and we remain as always “Here to Help.”
We are making progress with the Seniors Fair in April with a great response from a large number of community groups which, along with some commercial businesses, will provide a good mix of services and activities for seniors to view.
As a result of increased food prices our spend on Christmas Parcels was considerably higher this year. We successfully delivered 128 parcels – 12 items in each bag - to Senior Clients and a further 12 to Home Visit Clients. We have received several thank-you notes.
Seniors Outings is always less active over the Christmas period. We can look back on a busy 2022, the Jubilee tea party, Westcliffe day-trip, a boat-trip on the Ouse Tea party and 2 mini trips to Dunstable Downs. We anticipate an equally active 2023.
With Hall Bookings, all of our regular hirers have settled back in after the Christmas break, however, we were forced to make increase rents for regular hirers at the beginning of the year. The most exciting news has been the Trust’s acquisition of the former Southdown Methodist Church Halls at 130 Southdown Road, Harpenden in January. All regular hirers at the original Trust Centre – 90 Southdown Road - will be given first refusal on the new enhanced hall space, either to move their exiting classes from No. 90 or to book additional classes. The existing regular hirers at the Southdown Methodist Church Halls (No. 130) are set to continue. The Hall Bookings Team is looking forward to the opportunity offered by this significant increase in hall letting capacity for the Harpenden community.
The Home Visits Team is growing and this will give us greater coverage within our current areas of activity. The team has been reacting to some amazing donations this year and has been performing a Santa delivery of various treats. The High Street Methodist church raised £2,200 to help families with and extra gift of £50 Sainsburys vouchers this year delivered to our Clients to buy some little extra treats for Christmas. The Salvation Army provided us with an array of children’s toys to give to our clients and Tesco also provided us with some lovely toys collected at their two stores in Harpenden so Santa did come early to many of our Home Visits Clients. This is on top of the regular round of home visits.
Wellbeing Friends continue to accept clients following a referral made by the GP/Social Prescriber. Things were quieter over Christmas but have picked up into January. We aim to close wellbeing referrals after 3-4 months as if the client hasn’t found the right activity for themselves with the help of the wellbeing friend or MIND by then, it is usually that they need a different sort of support at that time or are simply not yet ready. MIND in Mid Herts, which we also support, has added art & crafts alongside board games at the drop in café. The Frazzled Café continues with a steady demand. The Memory Lane Café continues to be a great success with an average 14 couples per week and a growing programme of activities. Arts on Prescription (AOP) is another success whilst the Youth Talk counselling sessions have made a promising start.
Library Support (now part of the Wellbeing Team) has been operating now for some 3 months and the feedback from the Hertfordshire Library Service has been effusive in its praise and thanks, being delighted and most impressed with the very seamless and smooth operation and functioning of our volunteer team running the Library Express service on a Wednesday afternoon. Volunteers are trained to use the library kiosks and other IT and door alarm equipment. Library users have quickly realised that the Express Service is available on Wednesday afternoons. Customer numbers are very good, averaging around 100 customers each week, with one week an amazing 171.
Befriending has remained quite active. We are still having a high level of requests for support with Blue Badge applications which we started to cover last year; each application takes about 2-3 hours and we helped 25 people in the period we operated this service in 2022.
The Transport Team are very busy! The team are currently transporting 26 clients to four different events: the Tuesday and Thursday coffee mornings, the Memory Lane Café and Arts on Prescription.
Nick Luckett
Chair, Care Fund
01 February 2023
