Monday 2 November 2015

Churches Together in Felixstowe AGM Reports

Here are the AGM reports for the Churches Together meeting on Wednesday 4th November.  They make encouraging reading about what God is doing through many of our local Christian organisations.  The Town Pastors report is in their Newsletter which is also on this blog.


Walton Parish Nursing
Walton Parish Nursing has continued to grow and develop and now has over 60 regular clients and 16 trained volunteers.
We have continued to run the chair based exercise class once a week and visit many clients in their homes. Furthermore, WPN gave a talk during the churches unity week and were blessed by more volunteers and a donation to buy equipment, and other talks have been given to the Catholic women’s league and at the University Campus Suffolk to group of training district nurses.
After finishing running the baby weighing session at The Oaks children’s centre, WPN commenced a health drop in at the Laydens community café in Langley Avenue. This is a huge success; we are able to offer health advice, weight management and blood pressure checks to all ages.
Moreover, our second healthy hearts course in March was well attended and also in March we were able to meet the Methodist president of the conference, Rev Howcroft, during his visit to Felixstowe.
In April, the East of England Co-op adopted us as one of three charities for their ‘green token scheme’ and we have since received a cheque for £500 - half the possible amount.
In addition, we have received training in dementia, mental health, diabetes, bereavement and loss.
In August, WPN was delighted to welcome Wendy Hubbard, who is an occupational therapist to the team. This appointment means that Wendy and Lorna now cover Monday to Thursday each week in serving the community of Walton.
Also in August, Lorna was interviewed by Jon Wright on Suffolk Radio during his health slot.
What is more, links have been built with St Elizabeth Hospice, the social work team based at Queens Road and the dementia Felixstowe action alliance.
WPN is continuing to build links with the community, as we reach out to all ages to support people with their health - physical, emotional, social and spiritual. 
 Lorna Bellamy, Parish Nurse

BOOST


Thank you to all those who have championed our work over recent months.

We have successfully completed our first year of Academy Chaplaincy at Felixstowe Academy, showing what can be achieved by creatively linking schools and churches.

Ofsted, after taking a good look at every aspect of our provision towards the end of the summer term, rated our chaplaincy provision as providing ‘excellent support’ (June 2015) for which we are extremely pleased. In education it is one of the biggest endorsements we could have hoped for.


With a new principal, and a year of experience under our belt, we are looking forward to another year of opportunities and challenges at Felixstowe Academy and beyond. The number of other schools enquiring about wanting this type of provision is overwhelming!

Josh has started a part-time PhD exploring the role of chaplains in state-funded academies in the UK. This is a 5 year project which Felixstowe Academy are supporting and this shows our commitment to Academy Chaplaincy, this local partnership, and our future work too.
We do need greater financial support to keep this work running day-to-day and to develop it further. We have narrowed our costs down to one salary (no building, no rent, no equipment), and our trustees are very proud that this is one of the best value ministries in the UK
 

We would ask individuals to consider supporting this project by giving £10 per month to help support the 1,300 students, and the staff too, at our local academy.
 

For further updates do take a look at our new website, www.boostfelixstowe.org.uk, where you can sign up to our regular newsletters.


The Hope Trust

It’s been a busy few months since we lasted reported to CTiF in May.
Our new cookery classes are underway and it is wonderful to hear people share how they have tried out the new recipes they have learnt here, in their own kitchens – a welcome change to ready meals, or so we’re told! Referrals from the local Physio team, Community team and Adult Social Workers have also allowed us to reach out to people who suddenly find themselves needing what hope trust can offer – a chance to make new social connections, to get out of the house for a few hours and meet new people, possibly even making new friends along the way. It is so encouraging to hear a group of older people sharing the story of their life both in the past and in the present; as they share stories of how they spend their time, we watch happily as they extend an invitation to people they have known for a long time, or just met that morning, to join them – it’s great to see new connections being made so naturally.

The work in the residential homes also continues with the busy run-up to Christmas being planned. In addition to all the services being taken into the homes, each residential home will be asked if they still have the hope trust Christmas DVD that they can make use of at any point during the holiday season.

The charity has successfully become a new Charitable Incorporated Organisation, and whilst none of our clients would have noticed any changes, for the charity itself there has been a lot of work taking place behind the scenes including updating headed paper and all advertising to show our new charity number.

The support of so many local churches, and individuals, means that hope trust can continue to offer most of what it does free of charge; our sincere thanks to all who make this possible.

Please keep on under-pinning our work with prayer – we know it makes such a difference!

Paul and Sheila Taylor 01394 272592 info@hopetrust.org.uk www.hopetrust.org.uk

FELIXSTOWE LISTENING SERVICE (FLS)
As we approach the end of our fourth year, we are all too aware and very grateful for the many ways in which God has blessed our work. In the four years we have been able to provide a safe and caring place for people who are experiencing life difficulties to share their story in confidence and explore their way ahead. However, we are also aware that there are a great many more people out there in the community who would benefit from meeting, one-to-one, with one of our trained listeners or counsellors and we continue to invite the local churches to work in partnership with us by telling people the support which we can offer.

We are delighted that we now have ten local churches represented on our volunteer team. Our Christian faith is what motivates us and sustains us in what can sometimes be stressful, although always very fulfilling work. We are always very pleased to talk to church groups and congregations about FLS. As part of Inspire Counselling & Training, we can also help to arrange training in pastoral care, listening skills and a range of subjects related to mental health wellbeing.

Our main challenges for our fifth year are to ensure a more secure financial foundation for our work, which currently is very reliant on fundraising, and to work towards having our own premises. We would be very interested to hear from any other Christian group which could be interesting in sharing premises.


Margaret Bale
FLS Team Leader
Tel. 07896 326459