NEWS AND REPORTS

Reports and Updates about the activities of the Fund

St Ives Secret Gardens 2024

Another successful year! The annual fundraising event of the Secret Gardens of St Ives took place over the weekend of 22nd to 23rd June 2024. A wonderful £3,015 was raised from ticket sales, refreshments and donations. These proceeds were split with the St Ives Foodshare project and the St Ives Community Fund. The Foodshare project, who do valuable work in rescuing food from supermarkets and redistributing it to those in need, (website https://kevrannastives.co.uk>foodshare), is based at St John’s in the Field Church at the top of St Ives near the Rugby Club.

Twelve Gardens opened their gates this year on what was quite a long route. These included a Vibrant terrace with a Latin-American feel at the top of the town, near the productive Community Orchard which also took part. Tiered gardens in the middle of town provided a contrast of planting as well as different views out over the bay. At Hain Walk some immaculately landscaped gardens were very popular.

The Trustees are very grateful to the garden owners who worked hard over the weekend, to the volunteers who helped out and to the committee members – Marina, Alison, Devinder and Tamsyn – who made it happen.

Next Year 2025

The date next year will be 21st – 22nd June 2025. We welcome anyone who is interested in opening their garden or would like to volunteer. Please contact email tamwill@hotmail.co.uk or ring 01736 795695.

One owner commented on their experience this year ‘I was surprised and delighted at how much I got out of inviting people into my garden’. A volunteer in 2023 enjoyed his experience of welcoming people to Talland House garden. ‘ it was an opportunity to make new friends’.

St. Ives Secret Gardens June 2023

The annual fund-raising event of the Secret Gardens of St Ives took place over the weekend of June 10th and 11th. A wonderful £2,700 was raised from ticket sales, refreshments and donations.

Twelve gardens opened their gates this year. Amongst the new ones was a quirky wildlife haven behind Salubrious House and an immaculately landscaped garden up the Belyars. Talland House, childhood holiday home of Virginia Woolf, was a popular draw with people keen to see how gardeners Polly and Nick are replanting in the spirit of Woolf’s writings.

The trustees are particularly grateful to the garden owners who worked so hard, the volunteers and to the committee – Marina, Devinder, Alison and Tamsyn – who made it happen.

Anyone who is interested in opening their garden in the Summer of 2024, please email tamwill@hotmail.co.uk or ring 01736 795695. It’s an opportunity to meet all sorts of interesting new people and many old friends..

Annual Report of St Ives Community Fund for 2023.

Towards the end of 2022, the trustees were overwhelmed with the number of applications from individuals in need of financial help – so much so, that we decided to change our system of working. In future applicants needed to have the backing of a professional person, be it a social worker, doctor, religious minister or a representative from St Ives Foodshare, for instance. This change had become necessary for security reasons but also as a way of avoiding the need to ask applicants for complicated paperwork which is something we have always tried to avoid.

The change in policy combined with the need for a new website and so the first part of 2023 was kept busy with setting that up. After a few initial hiccups, the website is now running efficiently and at minimal cost, with one of our trustees managing it.

As usual, grants of only modest amounts seem to make a big difference to people. One person, through a family support worker, applied for £150 to pay the administration fee for a Debt Relief Order. The support worker reported back to us that the applicant was crying when she got the money who in turn wrote to me that she was ‘beyond grateful for this help’. A seventeen year old needed help when she moved into an unfurnished flat and so we gave her £200 for essentials; and a family received £459 to buy beds for their children. Applicants are also directed to other sources of help.

The fund has continued also to support community groups. We gave a grant to the annual Kite Fest which is run by the local library. As a rule, we are not keen to spend money on events, preferring to support something more sustainable and long-lasting in effect. But the staff were using this festival to go into schools and access those children who would not normally attend the library or get to hear about such things. £500 was also donated to the Christmas Hampers which are organised by the Salvation Army for those in need.

The Fund could not operate without the generous support of people who make donations and standing orders, and those who benefit are genuinely amazed and delighted that there is such a resource to help them. A big thank you to our donors and supporters. Our annual fundraising event of Secret Gardens of St Ives was again a great success, raising £2,700 this year.

Annual Report of the St Ives Community Fund 2022

2022 was a busy year for the Fund which was hardly surprising given the economic climate. The trustees dealt with nearly 50 applications from individuals in need of financial help, and gave £1000 to the local Foodbank. Most of the applicants were simply struggling with everyday costs, especially as energy prices rose. Some had problems while they waited for Universal Credit payments to come through; a few had broken appliances which they could not afford to replace; and we gave two newly-homeless men the money to catch the train to a place where they had found work. As with previous years, we welcomed referrals from third parties such as a Family Support Worker, a Social Worker, the Social Prescribing Officer at the surgery, the Community Orchard and the local Food Share project. As one recipient wrote, even a small amount was ‘more than enough to make a big difference’.

Most of the applications came during the winter months, and such was the number of applications that in the month leading up to Christmas that the trustees decided to review the way in which we help people. Faced with an application, the trustees have always tried to differentiate between financial difficulty and genuine hardship. Given that we are a small fund run by volunteers, the onset of applications became unmanageable and we realised that we were being expected to plug the failings of the benefit system and the cost of living crisis for an unmanageable number of people. Some applicants were making repeat applications rather than coping in a more sustainable way. We have always seen our grants as giving people breathing space in a specific crisis, so that they can seek out
other forms of help, but that did not seem to be happening. As such at the end of the year, the trustees decided to tweak policy and in future to accept applications only through a third party. This way we hope that we can use our limited resources in a more purposeful way to help those in genuine need. Our policy of asking for very little paperwork remains the same so that help can be as swift as possible. The intention is to make the fund even better known to different agencies.

Alongside this, we are launching a new website. Our old website was embarrassingly out of date and difficult to manage so this will make a real difference to the way in which the Fund functions. Also we have now produced a sheet with information about other sources of financial support. We have always tried to point applicants in the direction of other means of help but it will be useful to have one at hand to distribute. It will be regularly updated.

Every year we hold a public meeting at which the Annual Report is presented. This year the speaker was the Social Prescribing Officer at the Stennack Surgery, Dave Nathan, who enlightened the audience with the ways in which his work helps people to become ‘healthy’ through social interaction, physical exercise or mental stimulation. This year Dave has applied to the Fund on behalf of a few people, be it to stock up on food or to set up digital help for someone who is confined to her house.

The Fund could not operate without generous donations from individuals and businesses, including ever important standing orders, for which we remain very grateful. One couple donated their £400 Government Energy Grant and wrote to the local paper encouraging others to do the same. This year our treasurer applied but failed to get a grant through the National Grid Fuel Poverty Award. Our most important fund-raising event of the year remains the Secret Gardens of St Ives and this year it raised nearly £3000. So many people get pleasure from exploring the town in this way so thank you to the gardeners who opened their gates to the public and to the volunteers who helped. The date for 2023 has been fixed for the weekend of June 10-11th.