Focus January 2015 final master

January/February 2015
CSV-RSVP’s Monthly Newsletter for Co-ordinators, Organisers and Volunteers
A Message from Is
Hello everyone,
hospitals across the country, concerning
their inability to cope with the increased demand on their services from, in particular,
people who are vulnerable and isolated.
Last week Oonagh Aitken our Chief Executive was invited meet with Sir Jeremy
Heywood, Cabinet Secretary and Una
O’Brien, Permanent Secretary at the
Department of Health and various
other civil servants from the DH and
the Cabinet Office, to discuss how the
voluntary sector could help relieve
the pressures on the NHS. Also present were the Chief Executives of
RVS, Age UK, Carers UK, the British
Red Cross and Alzheimer’s UK. This
was followed up on Thursday by a
round table at ACEVO to draw together a report to go to the Cabinet
Sub-committee.
A very belated Happy New Year to all of
you, as we march, far too quickly it would
seem, through another year!!
Thank you everyone who has contributed to
this edition of FOCUS for sharing with
us some of your Festive Season Activities. It would seem a good time was
had by all!!
I am pleased to say that we have begun the year on a high note with
some successful funding bids:
• One Small Step – a project befriending isolated and vulnerable older people in Stockton
has received 3 years funding
from the Lottery
•
RSVP Scotland – we have received 3 years lottery funding
to further develop our work
with volunteers in schools and
hospitals and our handy man service,
as well as to set up a new Befriending
Service
We are pleased to be involved in
these discussions and believe that we
have much to offer that could be of help. As
we all know these things move slowly!!
Watch this space.
Kind Regards
I am sure we have all been watching, with
dismay, the serious situations in some of our
Is
INSIDE: Pages 2 & 3—Scotland News Page 4—North East and WW1
Page 5—Coventry in the Spotlight Page 6—Update from Barnet, London Page 7—TWIGS at the
Royal Hospital Chelsea Page 8—Citywise Activities
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SCOTLAND
get together, have a cuppa and a biscuit and
also raise a few funds by having a raffle. The
ladies who attend have a fabulous sense of humour and are great company.”
Glasgow Knitters
Rita McKechnie and her team of Glasgow Knitters were delighted to receive this thank-you letter from the Senior Charge Nurse in the Special
Care Baby Unit at Southern General Hospital:
Dunblane Knitters
On behalf of the staff and babies of the Special
Care Unit we would like to send our sincere
thanks for the beautiful knitting you donated to
the neonatal unit. We truly appreciate all the
effort and hard work that is involved in knitting
these items.
We can’t believe that your group of knitters has
knitted over 22,000 hats over the last 4 years.
They will be very useful to the babies that come
into the unit. Once again, many thanks for giving your continued support to our unit. It is very
much appreciated.
Janet Henderson organised a splendid Christmas Coffee Morning just before the festive season in Dunblane’s Victoria Halls, and everyone
had a good time. Janet had put a lot of effort
into organising quizzes and gifts for the volunteers which included individually boxed hand
made cup cakes. Christmas music played, a delicious buffet was provided and the volunteers
were thanked for their work over the year. A
special thank you to Janet took place with Dave
Budd presenting a bouquet of flowers and a
short speech of appreciation for Janet’s hard
work organising the coffee mornings.
Alloa Knitters
The Alloa Group Organiser is Linda Strachan
and volunteer Irene
Kelly lends a very valuable hand. All the ladies have done a fantastic job producing
1756 items which went
to many good causes in
December.
As RSVP
Scotland Development
Manager Dave Budd
says, “Their regular
Above, fun at the Dunblane coffee morning—below, a
beautiful knitted Nativity scene
coffee mornings are a
fantastic opportunity
for the volunteers to
Some of that
amazing Alloa
knitting—from
scarves to hats,
from wrist
warmers to puppets. The range
of the 1756
items is extraordinary!
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MORE SCOTLAND
Forth Valley Award
from NHS Forth Valley, one of six awards given
for different aspects of work and commitment. A
delighted Roy can be seen here—third from the
left on the front row—with all the happy winners.
Good news from Rosemary Fletcher, Volunteer
Organiser at the Forth Valley Royal Hospital,
about an award for Roy Gordon. Roy is an
RSVP volunteer in the Emergency Department
there and recently received the Volunteer Award
wrote “To Mrs Rudge and
Banchory
team, just to say thank
you very much for the
kind donation of teddy
bears. Very much appreciated—they will be put
to good use.”
Wonderful to hear again from
Sue Rudge (seen here in jolly
Christmas mode!) who runs the
knitting project at Banchory in
Aberdeenshire.
Sue and her team have delivered beautiful knitted goods to a
wide range of destinations over
the last year, including Aberdeen Neo Natal Unit, Montrose
Maternity Unit, Homestart Banchory and the Banchory Ambulance Station. Goods have also been
sent to Malawi and the New Hope Trust.
Everyone is grateful and appreciative of all the
hard work done by the knitters. Aberdeen Neo
Natal said, “We would like you to pass on our
Sue says that it is hard to
single out any one of her
volunteer knitters, but
goes on, “I would like to
mention that one of my teddy bear knitters is
well on her way to making 1000 bears!” At the
time of writing Sue has received 770 teddies
from her—and here’s a picture of the 700th!
“This lady isn’t always in the best of health,” says
Sue, “but carries on and is a true inspiration.”
Sue was delighted earlier in 2014 to attend a celebration in Edinburgh of 50 years of CSV-RSVP,
and like other organisers was presented with a
certificate for ‘Outstanding volunteering contribution to the work of CSV’. As Sue says, “It is so
thanks for the recent donation of knitted teddies,
hats, blankets and cardigans delivered to the
Unit. It is fabulous to be able to hand them out
to the babies. I hope you ladies enjoyed knitting
them too!”
rewarding to have efforts acknowledged and that
is why I would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to
all the knitters for their generous time and effort.”
Staff and patients of the Banchory Group Practice
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seum, and subject to funding they are hoping to
have knitters in costumes creating items from
patterns from WW1 such as scarves and balaclavas, as well as creating items within their own
groups. The idea is that this would form part of
an exhibition at Beamish which could also tour
County Durham.
Tyne Tees TV
Early in December, RSVP had a piece on Tyne
Tees TV promoting the vital need of befriending
particularly during the winter months, and asking
for more volunteers to come forward.
Project Coordinator Trevor Redfern noted how
well it linked with Esther Rantzen’s Silver Line
publicity but with the added bonus that Silver
Line offer befriending by phone but RSVP offer
befriending not only by phone but also face to
face.
Brighton and Tonbridge
Knitters
Monica Rose reports on how the two knitting
groups in Brighton and, recently started, in Tonbridge are really thriving and are now meeting
weekly!
In addition Monica has made contact with Dr
Shelly Deane who is involved with Brehon Advisory, a UK based organisation working ‘to stimulate economies and create employment in the
Middle East and North Africa’, among many other
objectives including involvement in the Syrian
refugee crisis. Dr Deane regularly visits Iraq and
Sudan and will be delivering RSVP teddies and
clothes to the needy, and in return will be bringing wool for the knitters. Monica is really pleased
with this arrangement and is looking forward to
contributing to a book which Dr Deane is preparing on the whole teddy phenomenon!
North East News
North East have had a very busy year with their
very successful WW1 pop up exhibition which
took place in the summer and moved around to
various locations including being part of the
Durham Light Infantry two-day event on Castle
Green in Durham last September. Now, as Ashleigh Gibson and Angela Foster say, “If you
would like the pop up exhibition to be displayed
or used for a talk, please contact us on
[email protected].”
The latest news is that following consultation
with volunteers another Heritage Lottery application relating to WW1 has been suggested, this
time based around the importance of knitting.
Research showed that knitting was an incredibly
popular pastime then to help the boys at the
front. This helped to combat trench foot and to
keep the soldiers warm in the trenches in winter,
as they were issued only three
pairs of socks.
Apparently
men,
women and children all joined
knitting
groups
during the war
similar to the RSVP
knit and natter
groups now across
not only the North
East but also the
UK.
As part of this potential project, Angela and Ashleigh
have met with the
local Beamish Mu-
The ‘Grow Movement’
Rob Lever, who many will remember as our former RSVP guru on international matters, reports
that he is now involved with a charity called
Grow Movement which recruits ‘consultants’ to
mentor small entrepreneurs in Africa, helping
them to run their businesses more efficiently,
enabling them to grow and thereby increasing
employment benefiting the whole community.
As Rob says, “We have a need for many more
consultants. The vast majority of Grow’s existing
consultants are younger people in their 30s or
40s but I am sure there is a huge pool of older
people who would be ideal for this kind of role,
and I thought there might be some synergy between Grow and RSVP to provide the volunteers
which Grow needs and give volunteers a new
and challenging opportunity.”
Interested in knowing more about these opportunities and what is involved? Please contact Rob
on [email protected]
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Coventry
RSVP Project Manager Lesley Hawkins reports
on two thriving projects in the Coventry area:
The Friends and Co. group was launched on January 21st and more than 30 people including CSVRSVP staff and volunteers, together with staff
from Whitefriars and the Community Development Team, turned up to support the event.
As well as a great opportunity for people to get
together for a party this was a really good
chance for volunteers and staff to network and
talk about more new activities they want to set
up. So watch this space for progress on a new
IT mentoring group being set up at Eric Inott
House!
ERIC INOTT HOUSE
In September 2014 CSV-RSVP Coventry in partnership with Coventry social landlord Whitefriars
took an RSVP Roadshow around various sheltered housing schemes in the city to speak to
residents and encourage them to set up new
activities within their schemes.
In one such, Eric Inott House, two residents Pat
Moss and Sheila Hemmings, and their friend
Mary Hicken who lives nearby, decided they
NAN’S KNITTING GROUP
Nan’s knitting group meets at the Salvation Army
café once a fortnight in Coventry City Centre and
have been doing so for about ten years. This
year they were asked by the Centre if they would
knit a Nativity scene—which as you see is superb! This is now being used to tell children the
Christmas story and they are going to ask one of
their other volunteers to build a wooden stable
for it so that next year it can be displayed in the
Centre’s foyer.
Mary, Pat and Sheila
Table top games, darts, food
and good company!
wanted to set up and
run various activities
to encourage other
residents both from
inside
Eric
Inott
House and out in the
local community to
get
together
for
darts, board games,
bingo, chat and food.
So was born the
Friends
and
Co.
Group and the Eric
Inott Hard Rock Café.
Lesley wondered whether other groups around
the country knit items as educational tools to
help children read and understand? It doesn’t
have to be a religious theme—it could be favourite classic stories. “It might be interesting to find
out,” said Lesley.
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busy people. As Joy and Jody Hyland said, “It
Barnet, London
would seem that our people aren’t happy being
idle!”
There are currently 40 volunteers who are active
in 25 schools across the borough with several
schools asking for more volunteers. Schools are
identified on an individual basis to accommodate
the needs of the volunteers, making the match
convenient and mutually beneficial. Some of the
volunteers have been reading in the same schools
for almost 20 years—imagine the generations they
have sent on their way! One reader said she was
reading at the same school that she attended as a
child and that her children had also attended.
Most volunteers felt that their reading times were
the high points of their week—some attend the
school two or three times! Also the volunteers
were very responsive to the needs of their
schools, often adapting to provide other support
services from maths tutoring and art instruction to
helping the children get changed for swimming
lessons.
Of those who have retired from the reading programme, there were few who didn’t miss the
schools and, most importantly, the children. Several said they still run into children they have read
with in the neighbourhood and are still greeted
warmly—another advantage of reading locally.
There were some volunteers who had had less
rosy experiences and the biggest problems
seemed to be with staff turnover and fitting into
the busy life of a modern primary school. For
RSVP members, this is often a time that they look
forward to weekly, whereas teachers have a hugely busy daily schedule and this is only one or two
periods on a day. As Joy said, “It is important
Another excellent newsletter from Joy Wyndham
about the multitude of events taking place in Outer London North in the period leading up to Christmas. Here are just a selection of their superb activities.
WORLD WAR 2 MEMORIES
Two members of the World War II Memories team
went to Goodwin Court, along with programme
coordinator Janet Friend, to share their war-time
experiences. About 20 residents gathered in the
common room to listen to the presentation and to
examine a variety of articles from that time. Both
women had very clear memories of life before and
during the war. Pam spoke about the family she
was evacuated to and showed some photos of
them, while Jean spoke about being evacuated
with her entire school and volunteering to do work
in a laundry as part of the ‘war effort’.
The audience supplied some of their own remembrances of hearing bombs drop and doodle bugs
whirring overhead, waiting in air raid shelters and
working in the Officers’
Mess.
Handling the gas
masks, ration books, clothing coupons and identity
cards that were on show led
some people to recall their
own war-time childhoods.
Those who had not experienced the war were interested to learn more about
everyday life during this period in Britain. For example,
the weekly ration for one adult was one egg, two
ounces of butter, two pints of milk, one ounce of
cheese and three rashers of bacon! This seems
unbelievably scant now, but Jean related that it
was a real improvement on what poor people
could afford prior to the war, so that many people
actually became healthier on rationing.
This was a really successful afternoon which it is
hoped to repeat in schools and residential homes
across Barnet in the coming months.
that we continue to concentrate on the benefit to,
and relationship with, the children as they are the
focus of this effort, and that we try not to worry
about whether the teacher makes a special effort
in our behalf.” Staff turnover also often causes
disruption to an established routine, but is increasingly part of the school scene. However the hope
is to keep a long-term view and be a source of
stability to children as teachers may move on.
As Joy said, “It was great to chat with so many of
our volunteers about a variety of these issues and
we look forward to seeing as many as possible at
our annual gathering in February”.
SCHOOL READING PROGRAMME
This autumn efforts were made to personally contact every volunteer who is reading in schools as
part of the RSVP programme, to talk about their
experiences. Not only does this account for a
large number of calls, with between 50 and 60
individuals to contact, but an almost equal number
of repeat attempts to reach some of these very
Barnet have also been terrific in developing projects and taking care to monitor when schemes
face problems. When issues arise as with their
Dial–A-Ride scheme, they are quick to examine
the matter and find a solution.
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TWIGS
Dee Hoy has and the TWIGS Garden Club have had a very busy 2014 and this month launched their
second club, Twigs of Oakdale—we wish them every success!
Dee reports that how their knitted poppies campaign has continued to raise funds and she reports on a
very special day in the summer when she and her husband visited the Royal Hospital Chelsea to hand
over money raised.
As Dee says, “A day which my husband and I will remember with great fondness was when we went to
the Royal Hospital Chelsea to deliver the monies raised in their honour. The total raised at the July
event amounted to £180 of which £90 went to the Hospital and £90 to the Royal British Legion.”
As the pictures show they attended the Sunday Parade followed by a wonderful choral Sunday service,
and then went on to the mess room to have lunch with two of the Pensioners who attended the July
Twigs event. Dee added, “Thank you letters have been sent by the two charities in respect of our ef-
forts and I would like to say a big Thank You to all members for their very hard work in achieving this.
Well done!”
Last summer saw TWIGS’ Geranium Competition which despite some ‘horticultural mini mishaps’ fielded some beautiful blooms as this
picture shows. Congratulations to the three
winners pictured here on the right—John,
Sylvie and Joan!
Hackney’s Red Route
Cafe
The thriving Red Route Café , run by CSV
and right next to our Hackney HQ in London,
is looking for volunteers, ideally anyone with
experience of customer service, cooking, or
barista work. If you know of anyone who might be
interested, please contact Rachel on [email protected] or Matt on [email protected]
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Citywise
limitless value in appreciating how music impacts
and affects our lives.”
Sue King and Elaheh Rambarzini, Development Officers for the pan-London RSVP Citywise
project, report on various on-going schemes and
issues.
But while he sets up this project Alan is also preparing for another journey—the next London
Marathon on 26th April. As Alan says “Taking
part in the London Marathon will not only be a
personal challenge for me—at the same time I
will be raising funds for Age UK’s invaluable services for older people.” Alan of course would
KNITTING AND BETTY
Calling all London Knitters!
It was with great sadness that we said farewell to
Betty Bryden at the beginning of the New Year.
We wish her well in all her future endeavours (we
know she will not be taking it easy for too long—
see also page 9).
welcome any contributions to his run on:
www.virginmoneygiving.com/AlanGodwin1932
TAEN
TAEN (the age and employment network) have
produced a guide for older jobseekers. This is
based on their ground-breaking 50+ Works
online guide for employment advisers who work
with clients aged over 50.
Citywise will attend the launch of the guide in
February when the confirmed speaker will be
Esther McVey MP, Minister of State for Employment, and we will report back.
Betty worked ceaselessly for many years for
RSVP and on a personal note was a fount of
knowledge and provided much welcome support
when we started work on the Citywise project,
for which we give our heartfelt thanks.
Betty will be much missed but in her indomitable
spirit of carrying on we would like to invite all
London-based knitters to get in touch so we can
see how we can help you to continue producing
the wonderful knitted items you have so generously given to needy children over the years.
SMARTWORKS
Smartworks provide high quality clothing, styling
advice and interview training free to unemployed
women with a confirmed job interview. Citywise
have signed up as a referral partner and have
already sent one of our volunteers to a consultation with them. She was very enthusiastic about
the service they provided. There are currently
two offices in London, North and West. They
also have an office in Edinburgh and are about
to open one in Manchester.
We do have some money towards your costs including for wool and if anyone is near enough to
Hackney there is the possibility of facilitating a
knitting group in the Red Route Café which is attached to CSV’s Hackney office.
If you would like further information contact
Sue—020 3780 5910
Elaheh—020 3780 5931
Email—[email protected]
If you have any female volunteers who have a
job interview and would like a good quality outfit
to wear (clothes are donated by retailers and
professionals) please refer them to Smartworks.
The process is very simple. If the volunteer is
successful in getting the job Smartworks will offer a follow up appointment where they give
them four more items of clothing to wear at
work.
For more information go to
www.smartworks.org.uk
NB—there is a male equivalent called
Suited and based in the City of London.
ALAN’S MUSIC THERAPY
Volunteer Alan Godwin is beginning his journey
back into the world of paid employment by becoming an organiser with the Citywise project.
Alan is starting a local music therapy project
which will bring together isolated older people to
listen to music together and through it to reminisce and enjoy its impact.
As Alan says,
“Listening to songs which they have chosen can
inspire, excite, console and bring joy. There is
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Christmas Fun!
Contacts
Is Szoneberg
Director of Volunteering
Operations
Kim Oliver
0131 622 7766
[email protected]
RSVP Central Support
0203 780 5875
[email protected]
Natasha John
02920 464004
Business Development/Regional [email protected]
Manager, Wales
Dave Budd
Scotland Development
Manager
Verna Chung
Maria Cotrini, Organiser of Camden Networkers, shows us some of the great events over
Christmas involving Networkers. Above, a party
in sheltered accommodation with entertainment
and Santa impression provided by volunteer
Roberto Ishii—lots of fun!
Below, volunteer telephone befriender Christine
Mouli (left) attended the Metropolitan Police
lunch for volunteers at New Scotland Yard and
invited along Eric (second left). Eric—aged 93
and a holocaust survivor—is also one of the
RSVP telephone befrienders.
He was very
pleased and had a great time. Everyone, police
and volunteers, really loved him! Also pictured
centre is Camden Chief Commander.
01786 475800
[email protected]
Regional Manager, London
0203 780 5908
[email protected]
Emma Thomas-Hancock,
[email protected]
Regional Manager, SE & SW 01273 688117
Carol Reynolds
NE and Yorkshire Projects
Manager
Paul Haylock
Head of Finance
Laura Bell
Head of Communications
and Marketing
Kate Higgs
01642 231 560
[email protected]
0203 780 5892
[email protected]
0203 780 5876
[email protected]
0203 780 5886
Interim Head of Fundraising [email protected]
Goodbye to Betty
We were all very sorry to say goodbye to Betty
Bryden who recently decided to move on from
CSV and pursue volunteering in other areas.
Betty was a powerhouse volunteer organiser,
known to everyone,
and for so many years
was the driving force
behind the development and pursuit of so
many RSVP activities
and events that it
would be difficult to try
to list them.
Betty was always the
most cheerful and
helpful person, supportive and positive,
and we miss her a lot
around the office. We wish her all the best with
her new volunteering.
FOCUS Editor:
Colin Mason
CSV-RSVP
The Levy Centre
18-24 Lower Clapton Rd
London E5 0PD
0203 780 5925
[email protected]
Lookout for the next FOCUS at the end of
March!
RSVP (Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme) is part of
Community Service Volunteers (CSV). CSV is a registered charity
in England and Wales no. 291222 and in Scotland no. SCO39171.
CSV is a company limited by guarantee no. 1435877.
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