Author: Laura
//The Spring 2022 Thurcroft Small Grants are now open.
Thurcroft Big Local will be awarding small grants from £50 up to £500 that benefit Thurcroft residents. They need to support one of the three themes in the Big Local Plan- community pride, regeneration or children and young people. More information and who can apply is available on the application form.
The closing date is 5pm on Friday 13th May 2022.
//Elizabeth Parkin Centre, is going from strength to strength. The centre is attended mainly by CFC paying residents. Previously the centre has only been used for bingo twice a week but the ladies have decided that they would like to start and offer new things at the centre and build up some funds to enable them to put on new activities and fund trips out. They have decided to hold a monthly stay over after their bingo session and have a meal delivered to the centre.
After holding four successful coffee mornings the group would like to continue this but have decided to offer them fortnightly starting on the 29th February. They are going to charge £1.50 per session to include tea/coffees, biscuits, cakes in order to raise funds. They are now holding raffles too with prizes being donated by the residents. RotherFed have funded a leavers pack for the group to put them on with tea and coffee. The local Councillors have funded some raffle prizes and bought extra bingo supplies. We have got exercise and mindfulness funded through Pivotal Fitness and the Councillors. This is due to start with great enthusiasm from the residents on the 17th March. We also have a craft session booked for the 11th March in partnership with Rotherham Creative. From just 2 sessions of bingo a week this is very positive that the residents want to improve their centre and would like to offer more things.
//Margaret was referred to the friendship calls 4th January 2022 by Social Prescribing. The link worker informed that she had never managed to talk with Margaret as she would not engage. Margaret is taken care of by her husband, who is now at his wits end, as Margaret has taken herself off to bed and become bed bound. She refuses to engage with anyone including her own children when they come to visit.
Jane arranged to contact Margaret’s husband for an initial chat to see whether the friendship call service would be of any use to Margaret and whether she would engage or not. Her husband gave Jane her mobile number and a time and date was arranged for Jane to contact Margaret for an initial chat. Jane called Margaret and at first, she was reluctant to engage, however, Jane did manage to get her talking about her time working in a library, Emmerdale and Coronation Street.
Jane asked Margaret if she would be happy to take a call once a week from a volunteer just for some company and a friendly chat and she agreed. Margaret was placed with volunteer Sue, and Sue made arrangements with Margaret’s husband on the best time to call. Sue and Margaret are getting along fantastically now, and Sue has been calling Margaret for the last 4 weeks now and they are having great chats, with Sue regularly putting in reports that Margaret is really engaging and that they chat about all sorts of things.
//Bella was referred to the friendship calls project on 25th January 2022 by one of the senior clinic nurses and Ferham clinic. Bella suffers with paranoid schizophrenia with hallucinations about spiders and shadows. She also suffers with social anxiety and cannot venture out alone so always has a friend that needs to go with her. Jane did the original assessment and Bella was unsure as to whether the friendship calls service would benefit her as she felt that no one would understand her condition.
After discussion with volunteer Donna, it was agreed that Donna would call Bella once a week to see how things progressed. Donna has the experience to be able to ensure that Bella does not wander out of the boundaries of the service as she did start to ring Jane and leaving numerous messages after hours for someone to ring her back. Jane explained that the service was not a support nor advice service and that the volunteer’s phone number cannot be shared with her and that she would only be getting one call a week. This has now settled down, and Donna and Bella have reached an understanding with Bella really starting to open up and chat to Donna on their weekly calls. Donna has been calling Bella regularly now for the last 4 weeks.
//Vera has been a recipient of the friendship calls since October 2020. Vera is a lovely lady, who lives alone in council accommodation. Lockdown hit her hard as she is a very social person, but found herself shielding and also suffering anxiety about the situation. Although Vera is retired, she often visited Gambia 2 to 3 times a year taking gifts for the children out there, with Covid this has stopped. She will now make her last visit later this year, this will be her first trip back in over 2 years. Vera checks in regular on her neighbours in her block, but obviously the face to face contact stopped.
Vera really appreciated the calls and was able to access help through housing for some problems she had, she had weekly calls where she was able to sound off if needed but more importantly have a laugh and a joke with the volunteer.
More recently Vera has been able to go out more and has attended RotherFed tenant voice events, these are great for her, as she can chat to her heart’s content. She is getting out again and forging new friendships. Vera contacted us recently to say that now her confidence had returned and her anxiety reduced she felt she no longer needed the weekly calls as she was out of the flat a lot more, coming to the coffee mornings and being able to socialise has given her this re-found confidence. Vera keeps in touch as she is now more involved in tenant voice events, where she sings the praises of RotherFed and its staff (especially Carrie who Vera has a soft spot for)! It’s great to see her back to what we imagine to be the Vera that was, pre Covid. A beautiful social butterfly with a heart of gold.
//Millie was originally referred to Rotherfed back in July 2021. Millie is a lady in her 50’s who has various clinical issues, including problems with her hip, she uses a walking stick. She lives with her husband who supports her as best he can. Millie is also under mental health as she has problems regulating her emotions (a form of emotionally unstable personality disorder). She was put onto the friendship calls and was placed with a volunteer named Christine. The two of them got on really well and Millie’s confidence really started to improve, and her emotions started to stabilise. Christine then had to stop volunteering due to ill health and Jane took over until another suitable volunteer could be placed with Millie once her mental health improved.
Rotherfed started doing some coffee mornings at Thrybergh Parish Hall. Millie was invited and she came along to her first one on 9th November. She was very nervous and had to be met at the door and her husband had to wait in the car park in the car throughout the session in case Millie felt overwhelmed. Millie was placed at a table with some other Connex people who had a lot of confidence, and this put Millie at ease. She was constantly checked on during the session by staff to ensure that she was okay. This had a tremendous impact on her self-esteem and her confidence so much so that she decided to attend more events like this.
Millie has attended three events now and is comfortable walking into the room on her own and sitting chatting with those that she has previously met and strong friendships are now being forged. Millie’s husband no longer has to wait outside and just drops her off and comes back later to fetch her. Millie has asked to be invited to all of RotherFed’s events and is also willing in time to become a council tenant volunteer as well. She has also now been placed with another volunteer and they are getting on really well.
//We hosted a coffee morning on Wednesday 23rd February which was open to all Rotherham residents. The coffee morning was mostly aimed at the Connex participants to get them out and integrated into events in the community. Present were many people from the befriending service we provide, as well as some volunteers who make the calls to these people. A lot of the service users really enjoyed putting faces to the voices that have supported them throughout their time on the service.
Also, in attendance were 24 council tenants, and providers from around Rotherham who offer services to Rotherham residents. RotherFed projects Energy Know How, and Heart of the Community joined us as well as South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue, and South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership.
The event was well attended, with 51 people connected to RotherFed attending. 18 people managed to get energy advice from our team, and 8 visits by green doctor were booked in as well as winter warmth packs, energy saving lightbulbs and thermostats given out. As well as this, good connections were made with other community groups like the Sudanese group, who were in attendance. Above all, old friends and strangers got to connect face to face which so many people said they were so excited for!
A participant on the Connex project said, ‘I wouldn’t have dreamed of coming to something like this a year ago, but I’m so glad that I’m involved now and can’t wait for the next’.
//I helped J with their Virgin bill. They had the full package that they didn’t really utilise. They were paying £96 per month but it was going up to £104 and they just couldn’t afford it any more. All they use is the internet and phone and only watch freeview channels. I spoke to Virgin and they could change the contract with zero penalty because J had received a letter to say the prices were going up, so they are entitled to leave the contract. They were told that 500mbps internet and talk anytime would be £57 a month. Looking online the same package is £51 so I queried this. They said this is because new customers get a ‘welcome’ discount. I was cheeky and asked why existing, loyal customers couldn’t have a ‘thank you’ discount for staying with them? Their answer………. just because, that’s how it is!
I remembered Martin Lewis saying that you could always cancel the contract and change it into someone else’s name. I did a bit of googling and found a lot of people have done this too. After a discussion of the pros and cons J decided to give it a go and has given 30 days’ notice. The contract ends on the 26th March.
B went online and saw that they offer up to £50 reward for referring a friend. She contacted her friend to submit a referral form, the email came through and she proceeded to set up the account with 500mbps and talk anytime for £51 per month and a £35 set up fee. She did this in less than 10 minutes. (The thing to bear in mind is that they do a credit search which may not be right for some individuals). The old connection will cease on the 26th March and the new connection will start on the 27th March.
Virgin will send out packaging for J to send the old equipment back. They will need to send new equipment for B. They will also have to pay out £50 to B and £50 to her friend (B will still be £15 up after the set-up fee.) The household will be saving £7 per month over 18 months. In total over the 18 months contract they will have saved £141 (18 x £7) + (£50 – £35) = £141.
The thing that we couldn’t understand; for the sake of £7 per month, Virgin will have spent a fortune on postage as well as an engineer visit for installation. It just doesn’t make sense.
//Energy Know How and Making Our Money Go Further came together to provide some training into our services to our RotherFed volunteers. We ran two remote training sessions on the 7th February 2022. We had over 20 people attend the sessions to give them a small introduction into Energy Know How and some tips when looking out for referrals when speaking with the residents of Rotherham.
We discussed community groups we have worked with already and groups that would be interested in what we had to say, as well as offering the attendees their own telephone call for some 1-2-1 support around their energy usage and bills. There was an open discussion around the current energy market and we explained what has been happening across the energy network with providers going into administration.
Energy Know How can support anyone in Rotherham with any of the following:
We finished both of sessions with a friendly quiz about ‘The Robinsons’, an average family of four who wanted to know how much money they could save by making small behaviour changes in the household. This showed that they could be saving up to £604 a year if they made changes to their usage by doing things like only filling the kettle with what you need and by switching off appliances instead of leaving them on standby.
//Keith rallied his community members to donate clothes to SHILOH in Masbrough. The charity supports individuals dealing with being homeless and therefore is host to the homeless community traveling through the area on a regular basis. Keith was delighted to have such as good response from his friends and neighbours as they managed to collect 15 bags of clothing.
“I saw an appeal from the SHILOH Charity in Rotherham. I mentioned this to Carol and knowing how much clothing we have, we decided to go through our wardrobes and see what clothing we didn’t want. We filled three bags. Whilst talking to a number of Group members, Carol mentioned the appeal to others and that was it. all of a sudden bag of clothing came from everywhere. John and I went out to collect from a number of group members and other friends and neighbours donated. What a wonderful gesture from some really nice people knowing that these people thought about others who are less fortunate than themselves. Although our group are still in voluntary ‘lockdown’ we still keep in touch with each other, and we all know that we are there for each other should help be needed. We don’t ask for much, but we enjoy helping others. We ended up sending 15 bags of clothing to SHILOH. Now we are coming forward with suggestions for the Royal Celebrations in June which again shows just how united we are.”
