We publish a short news note roughly every fortnight. Stories about beneficiaries appear only with their written permission, and we change names except where the person specifically asked us not to.
Three birthdays in, our food club has a small number of parish households. a trustee, our Practical Recovery Aid programme Manager, reflects on what the first three years have taught us — and on the one rule that has changed how we set out a shelf.
"It is this: dignity is not something you add to a charity shelf at the end. It is the first decision you make about how a shelf is laid out. You put the tinned soup next to the fresh bread. You put the women's sanitary products at adult eye-level. You leave space around the till for a conversation. You never advertise that something is free."
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Heating & Warmth AidLast winter the Trust paid a handful of small heating grants — a rise of fifty-eight per cent on the previous year. Our trustees have agreed an early Winter Appeal for 2025–26 with a £3,000 target by mid-November.
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the Mobility & Equipment funda parishioner, of Tenbury, on the £218 bursary that bought a pair of safety boots and a first month's bus pass — and how the door he walked through changed the year that followed.
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Quarterly letterA short autumn letter on what we spent in Q2, who came through our doors, and what we are watching as the weather changes. The trustees signed off the Winter Hardship Appeal at the August meeting.
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GardenOur 14th annual Apple Day brings the cider press, the seed swap, the a neighbouring hamlet beekeepers, and a kitchen-table reading by the parish poet Rev Julia Curtis. Free; donations to the Practical Recovery Aid programme.
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the Practical Recovery Aid programmeWe close the Practical Recovery Aid programme for one week each August. Our volunteers get a rest, our shelves get deep-cleaned, and our growers catch up on their picking. The the Practical Recovery Aid programme reopens with a 'Welcome Back' breakfast on Saturday 6 September.
Programme note
Quiet VisitsOur counsellor on what changes when a drop-in room turns three: who finds it, who keeps coming back, and what she has learned from the seven hundred conversations she will now never repeat.
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Caseworkthe trustees's quiet Tuesday morning in the streets behind the parish ford — a paid bill, a half-cup of tea, and a Friday call-back already in the diary before she had got back to the office.
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Annual reportWe publish two versions of every annual report: a one-page plain-English summary for donors and beneficiaries, and a full Statement of Recommended Practice version for the Charity Commission.
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VolunteersThe volunteer who co-founded the Friendly Check-ins programme in 2009 writes about her 14 callers — what she has heard, what she has learned, and the one question she has stopped asking.
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