2022-03-31-accounts - Holbrooks Community Care Association Resource And Information Centre

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ANNUAL REPORT

MAKING HOLBROOKS A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE, WORK AND PLAY.

2021/2022

Holbrooks Community Care Association 115 Holbrook Lane Holbrooks Coventry CV6 4DE

www.holbrookscommunity.co.uk contactus@holbrookscommunity.co.uk

024 7663 8681

Chairman’s foreword - Alderman Ann Lucas

2021/22 started with the country on lockdown again bringing new challenges for us all.

During this time HCCA, rose to the challenge by reinventing itself to address the needs of the community and offered support to those most in need, delivering hot meals, food parcels, collecting prescriptions and many other activities during lockdown and then slowly began to bring the community together again.

The centre was able to be flexible and adapt, listening to the difficulties of local residents and making sure they were cared for, bringing in significant resources, applying to emergency funding streams and business relief funds to keep the centre operational and supplies distributed.

The centre welcomed the opportunity to work with new partners to deliver new projects Like the Holiday and food activities during the summer, and City of Culture project Theatre next door bringing quality cultural performances into Holbrooks.

This is also my opportunity to formally thank the HCCA staff and volunteers on behalf of the management committee. They work enthusiastically and professionally at all times. We are all extremely proud of them and their commitment to Holbrook’s residents.

This report details the scope of services which have taken place during this difficult year. The figures showing use of the centre speak for themselves as does the achievements recorded. I am delighted by the good reputation the Organisation continues to have both locally and across the city.

Alderman Ann Lucas

Our Aim “Making Holbrooks a better place to live, learn, work and play” We continue to do this by:

Encouraging residents to access information, advice, services, training and support To identify and target our services to those living in disadvantage To work with and encourage new partnerships to benefit the services and work of the organisation
To encourage local residents’ personal development, in a supportive environment, through experience, training and volunteering.
To perform our role as an active member of the community to deliver identified services and projects.

Part 1: Overview of the year

In the financial year 2021/22 HCCA has continued to deliver services in line funding allocations, adhering to Covid 19 guidelines. The centre was closed to the public at the beginning of the year apart from a four hour period each week to allow collection of food parcels and for volunteers to come in to collect food and other supplies which residents needed: The centre reopened in July.

HCCA radically changed the services it provided and began to deliver both hot food and food parcels to residents during lockdowns this was the driver
The centre became a hub for donations including wool, craft items, books, DVD’s and Jigsaws to help give people focus during lockdown.
HCCA Collected IT equipment from the community, which it refurbished and gave to local schools.
HCCA continues to be the Human Resource centre and continues to give a management support service to HCA in respect to the Community Centre.
Coventry Independent Advice Services ceased delivery at the centre but delivered online and telephone advice, beginning face to face sessions in January 2022.
Although HCCA continues its partnership with Coventry City Council Library Services to promote and support the running of Holbrooks Library operated in HCCA, the library was closed for a significant portion of the year with Maureen returning September. Coventry and District Credit Union shifted their work predominantly over the telephone although all their back office functions still operated from the centre.
Weekly ‘surgery’ facilities for local ward councillor were conducted over the phone or via email until September when the commenced to face to face meetings.

Our People

Our Trustees, volunteers, and paid staff have been active in all areas of the Organisation, ensuring we supported people in our community at this difficult time.

Trustees

Ann Lucas (Chair) Tawakalitu Karimu Joseph Clifford Danielle Louise Garside Debbie Jones Bethany Freya Kitchener Isabelle Osbourne Michael Brendan Duggan

Staff at HCCA during 2021/22.

Rachel Lancaster – Management Coordinator – Part Time – Full year - Contractor Emma Shiers – Funding Officer – Part Time - Full Year - Contractor Steve Frost – Administration Support – Census 21 Clare Allington Dixon – Food Coordinator - Part Time - Contractor Carlton Dixon – Food Preparation - Part Time - Contractor Mark Graham – IT support Michelle Williams - project support – from September

Volunteers at HCCA gave freely of their time to help support the delivery of services:

Events and fundraising volunteers

Lawrie Womble-Lancaster Kat Price Meridith Womble-Lancaster Garry Booth David Womble Luke Shiers

General support and administration

Ann Lucas Rachel Lancaster Maureen Lapsa Susan Ryrie Mick Duggan Dan Sabin Malcolm Laydon Viru Kansara Tawakalitu Karimu

Food delivery and food parcels

TT Karimu Raj, Bella and Gughan Dhaliwal Bethany Kitchener Kerry Yates Michael Duggan Leslie Steere Lyn Rootham Robin and Val Gloynes Lynnette Kelly Cllr Ed Ruane Balvinder Dhanjal

A Special mention to all the other Holbrooks residents who helped along with members of Holbrooks Helping Hands WhatsApp group who delivered food, donated money, personal hygiene items and food, collected prescriptions, walked dogs and generally were good neighbours to many in the community. Your efforts were very much appreciated.

Partnerships During the last year the HCCA has worked with the following partners:

Coventry City Council

Holbrook’s Ward Councillors Ann Lucas, Rachel Lancaster and Joe Clifford

Council Departments:

Community resilience team Culture and Leisure City Development Directorate Coventry City Council’s Community Development Team Coventry City Councils Library Service

Community Partners

Cardinal Newman School West Midlands Police President Kennedy Secondary School John Shelton Primary School Holbrooks Community Centre Feeding Coventry Network Tesco - Arena Morrisons – Holbrooks Parkgate Primary School Holbrooks Primary School Coventry Social supermarket

Other Partnerships

Coventry and District Credit Union Coventry Independent Advice Services Coventry Foodbank Urban CIC Gloria and Lil’s at the Parkside Café Evan’s cash and Carry Purple planet packaging St Luke’s Church Papp’s Café Feeding Coventry Network

Funding Partners

Coventry City Council – Library grant Coventry city council – Business grants Charities aid foundation Heart of England Community foundation Amazon Western Power 29th May Charitable foundation Communities in action Asda stores Nuneaton Good things Foundation Coop European Social Fund

ONS - Census

A special mention should also be given the support received from the Right Honourable Taiwo Owatemi, Member of Parliament for Coventry North West, who has helped to source funding donations, deliver parcels and given letters of support to the centre.

Part 2: Main Activity Report.

Credit Union

Coventry and District Credit Union continue to use the centre as their headquarters in the city, where they provide ethical lending, budgeting support and both a face to face and online service, all regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Over the past year the credit union has received over 200 enquiries from which 60 new members joined the organisation.

HAF children’s activities

The centre applied for funding to Coventry City council to deliver four weeks of summer activities for children and young people both at the community centre and HCCA and to do 2 trips to the seaside. The rationale for this was based on the evidence gathered from responses to a community consultation with families which took place before the bid was submitted.

Response from local people was fantastic with people booking children on for many of the activities which included:- Cooking classes, Dance, Photography, Pottery, Yoga, Arts and crafts & street art The trips to the seaside on the 2nd of August to Weston Super Mare and the 31st of August to Skegness, locations chosen by the families themselves.

Breakfast food parcels were given to all of the children who attended and Holbrooks Morrisons agreed to provide fruit for all the children attending the summer scheme for the five week duration.

The centre tendered a second bid which was successful for the HAF funding for Christmas activities and successfully delivered a varied program of events at Holbrooks community centre including arts and crafts, Christmas Party – With Father Christmas in attendance - and a Pantomime. These events took place from 21st to 23rd December 2021.

The centre was also successful in our bid for the HAF Easter funding to run the following activities: - Trip to the Bradford Science and media museum including a visit to the IMAX theatre – 14th April, Two theatre show sessions with workshops – 12th April, Two arts and craft sessions - 13th April

HAF events and activities included a focus on healthy eating and good food choices and all meals complied with the DFE standards.

Advice

After a break of almost two years Coventry independent advice services is once again delivering welfare benefit and debt advice appointments from Holbrooks community care association. An adviser, Lorelle, is based at HCCA from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM every Tuesday going forward. The centre can undertake direct referrals to this service and are starting to publicise access to this to the community.

Moving forward it is envisaged that this service will be split between HCCA and the Community Centre in the future to gain maximum coverage of the area.

City of Culture

HCCA supported COC to deliver two large events in Holbrooks park, the first one on Saturday the 14th of August which was a full day festival , with live bands, DJs, a glitter ball, food provision. This was a ticketed event managed by the City of Culture. The turnout for this event was over 2000 local people and was attended by the worshipful lord Mayor of Coventry Councillor John McNicholas. The event was licensed by Coventry City Council and the police were fully on board.

The second event was Ernie's journey, a circus theatre show followed by a workshop where children can had a go at some of the activities. The shows ran between 9am – 5pm on Monday 23rd August 2021

Due to the success of the summer theatre shows we have been given the opportunity to host two further events, one in February half term, The Time Machine, and the next during the Easter holidays – details to be confirmed. HCCA will provide all the administration support for these events, and they will be held at the community centre.

Library

Maureen Lapsa has started back as the HCCA librarian, and things slowly returned to normal with Rhyme returning in the new year. The library had a number of beautiful new books donated before Christmas and we were able to give these out to families who came in for Hampers before Christmas and a little extra surprise. Many said they were going to hide them and give them as Christmas presents.

Maureen managed four different summer reading schemes for both adults and children at the centre. The centre had more children than ever take part in the library summer scheme on the theme Wild world adventures. 67 children took part more than double the number than in previous years.

Hampers

HCCA Participated in the feeding Coventry Christmas ‘Cook at Home’ hampers which were paid for by HAF, in total 153 hampers which included fresh fruit and vegetables, butter, cheese, and non-perishable goods were handed out from the centre on the park. Each pack also included a full recipe book and all the ingredients were in the pack to enable families to cook nutritious, tasty, healthy meals. For each pack given out the centre received £1.50. These packs could only be given to families in receipt of free school meals. Anything left over was added to food handed out in the week before Christmas.

In addition to these hampers HCCA also contacted all schools in the area asking for a list of families they thought needed extra support over the Christmas. Focussing on the families who could not access the cook at home packs, in total we received 72 nominations from local schools and put together hampers for those families ourselves. The centre also gave out hampers to our regular users in the week before Christmas bringing the total given out to 88.

At the end of the week there were some fresh vegetables and mince pies left over once all families who attended the activities had received a bag, so these were donated to Queens Road Baptist church who were cooking hot meals all through Christmas and new year for the vulnerable and they came and collected the surplus and put it to good use. Nothing was wasted.

Thank you to those who helped to collect food, parcel up bags and deliver hampers the time you all volunteer is much appreciated.

Food parcels

We are still giving our food parcels out to families that come into the centre every Thursday between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. Donations gratefully received. On average we are supporting 12 families a week plus several elderly residents from the Everdon Estate. We also have regular visits from local primary school staff who collect items for families.

Community Digital skills pathway

Good Things Foundation is working in the West Midlands delivering Digital Skills Pathway Projects, funded by the UK Government through the UK Community Renewal Fund. It aims to test a model of digital skills support in local communities in the North of Tyne, West Midlands, and Great Manchester.

HCCA was recruited, as one of 30 organisations per area, to develop and test a scalable digital skill and support pathway working across the community sector and the FE/Adult Education sector. We hoped to gain valuable insights about the interventions that are required to join up community organisations, with adult learning providers and with the Further Education sector to engage those residents who are digitally excluded. In summer, HCCA worked with an external evaluator to produce a detailed report highlighting key findings from these projects. The project ran from February 2022 – June 2022 and aimed to :

support 6,200 people across to overcome barriers to getting online
provide over 3,000 devices and data packages for those residents experiencing digital poverty
Support 2,000 people to access adult education to help them reach their potential and progress onto further learning

Thanks to the support they received, beneficiaries were able to go online to access health, care, and other services, to have a voice in decisions that affect their communities and to connect with others to make a positive difference to the wellbeing of those taking part in the project.

Other activities

Wriggle dance company delivered Dancing Jukebox Gems, toured Coventry, stopping off in Holbrooks to take residents on a trip down memory lane, through fun dance, live music and song, bringing a slice of happiness to the homes of many.

Delivered In Roland mount, Cottage farm road and on the Everdon Estate residents got to have a sing along and dance with the show from the comfort of their own home. Wriggle also delivered a cross generational piece of work, dancing trough the ages, with residents and primary school children form Barford school aimed at capturing their memories of World War II and sharing their knowledge with the children.

The centre ran a free uniform giveaway of outgrown but not outworn school uniform over the summer alongside the HAF activities, as well as a book sale and tombola stall.

The lateral flow testing team from Coventry city council started to run a test centre outside the Hcca each week helping resident to complete Covid tests and initially were based at Hcca on the first and third Thursday of each month from November. This then increased to weekly and moved inside due to the cold weather.

The centre received a large donation of slightly past their sell by dates snacks, (Crisps and biscuits etc) from Coventry Big Bargain Centre. These have all been given out to the community.

A further community trip to Blackpool was organised in the October half term, the trip was blessed with good weather, and everyone enjoyed seeing the illuminations.

The centre also became a collection point for donations to support those affected by war in Ukraine.

Finance

HCCA accounts are independently audited and a full statement of account can be found at appendix A. Detailed below is a breakdown of funds specifically awarded to support residents in Holbrooks over 2021/2022.

The centre stated the year with £66137.70 in the bank a massive increase on the £14,000 the previous year. This is wholly due to the hard work of both Emma Shiers and Rachel Lancaster, who have spent many hours writing funding bids, and now the centre’s finances are in a far healthier state. Total income for the year was £66,494.35

The Future

Looking forward to the future our work will be focussed on making the centre more financially stable, providing opportunities for residents to access quality advice services, maximise income and to increase digital accessibility. We will also work with all agencies in the city to ensure there is a food hub in Holbrook, making sure no one goes hungry or without personal hygiene products.

It is an aspiration to further develop the building and garden area to expand services and look towards making the centre more financially stable, increasing the area of the garden and introducing a café to serve the park behind the centre which will generate income.

Conclusion

The centre continues to listen to its community, identifies gaps in services and aims to provide good quality services to meet the needs of its community.

It is testament to the hard work of long term volunteers and local residents, coordinating a response to support the community in very difficult times, bringing local people together to make a real difference; they have made Holbrooks a better place to live, learn, work and Play.

1011-1011 A YEAR IN PICTURES 11.4 If

Registered Charity no: 1059903 Holbrooks Community Care Association 115 Holbrook Lane Holbrooks

Coventry CV6 4DE

www.holbrookscommunity.co.uk contactus@holbrookscommunity.co.uk 024 7663 8681

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