Celebrating community and preserving heritage - a year in review
Friends of Abbeyfield Park (FoAP)
Chairs Report - AGM 2025
Reflecting on the last year I'm filled with a strong sense of pride and gratitude for the incredible work our community has accomplished during the last year. Filled with activity - volunteers and organisations have produced festivals, run workshops , hosted events, landscaped parkland, and run health and wellbeing activities for and in the heart of our community.
The house is home to many groups and organisations with social purpose. Anchor tenants are environmental charity Green City Action
https://greencityactionsheffield.wordpress.com/ and social enterprise - repair cafe Reyt Repair https://reyt.repair/.
GCA and RR -in partnership run a community tool bank from Abbeyfield House - a wellused local resource. Abbeyfield Park is also home to volunteer powered organisations like Abbeyfield Park Gardeners , The Step Out group, the Tigray Community Association , Abbeyfield Festival organising group, an Afghan Women's Sewin g group, annual Heritage Days working with Sheffield Civic Trust ,space for the Parkwood Springs Lantern Festival workshops. Regular art workshops are led in the Art Studio by local artists Patrick Amber with packed workshop featuring this year's inaugural Goat Walk! This year we organised Open Heritage Days in September Led by Dr Tim Neal and introduced nearly 100 new visitors to the historical mysteries and future plans for the house - with plans for more next year celebrating FoAP’s 20th birthday.
While FOAP concerns itself with the house Abbeyfield Park Gardeners have transformed the once dull grounds into a well-designed and textured green landscape created for the enjoyment of the community. This year's achievements include working with an artist and the festival group to make the shelter attractive and cutting back the overgrown hedging
on the boundary wall to create a mini orchard esplanade with GCA. Gardeners are currently refurbishing the beds at the entrance to the house to make them ‘smart and flowery’ and creating a mound bed to the left of the building. Plans for this year include replacing some of the cherry trees at the main entrance of the park.
Like the Abbeyfield Festival group things wouldn't happen without them!
Abbeyfield Food Co-op the weekly food co-op is run and managed by FoAP volunteers and provides food for 20 local households. In partnership with Foodshare this food distribution project provides extra cheap provisions and stops food waste as well as volunteers making regular donations to The Burngreave Ashram.
The Abbeyfield Community Festival group give time and commitment to organise the annual festival. It includes a very popular (fun) dog show, live music and dance, children's activities, the gardeners’ outdoor tearooms and stalls from many local groups., The event is supported by a range of local funders including the LAC, Arches Housing Association and Graves Trust. and is now a fixture in our community’s calendar. This year festival ran smoothly and successfully indicating we’ve been doing it so long it’s become a well-oiled machine! New contributors and people with ideas are always welcome to our open meetings.
Spital Hill Network
This year FOAP was asked to run this SCC ERF2 project for the Spital Hill neighbourhood. The project was in partnership with Green City Action and supported by African led organisations Clean Zone Network , ISHRAAC and Reach Up Youth , demanding and challenging with a very short delivery time frame. It generated widespread environmental activity including mosque supported litter picks raising sensitivity and participation in environmental action which remains in place. It ran training sessions with its Women and Digital group, created a business forum, produced Spital Hill Festival, and fashion and film events for young people working closely with Yemeni fashion designer Kazna Asker at London Fashion week and Pitsmoor!
The legacy from SHN has been the reopening of The Burngreave Ashram on the high street as a community hub - hosting a 7-day week programme with its free meals averaging 380 per month. .
In requiem
The year has included sadness as well as positivity. In April we unexpectedly lost Sue Atkins leader Youth Association South Yorkshire (YASY) who had become one of Abbeyfield's anchor tenants and provided youth services and training. Sue was a cherished colleague and tireless champion of the youth movement in the city and UK. Her dedication and kindness touched the lives of everyone who had the fortune to know her and her passing leaves a huge gap in the movement she championed.
F uture Actions 25/26 A bbeyfield House is a 19th Century Grade 2 listed building -which features in Pevsner -which continues to be maintained and supported by FOAP in partnership with Sheffield City Council.
But to act on the plans and ambitions we developed with Sheffield University architects - which will allow the estate to grow and develop new facilities - we need to build capacity for delivering a programme of change.
This can't be sustained by the current small volunteer team and so we have actively been
seeking partners from larger and constituted organisations who share values and are interested in being collaborators. To do this we reached out to SACMHA - a neighbouring social charity with strong historical relationships to the Pitsmoor area SACMHA- Sheffield African Caribbean Mental Health Association
SACMHA provide adult social services to Sheffield's senior African and Caribbean communities - providing lunch clubs - history cafes - and accommodation for seniors at their building Breinburg Court on Pitsmoor Road. They are interested in space in Abbeyfield House to host regular events not least because of the area’s close links with our African /Caribbean community.
SACMHA will act as active partners welcoming and supporting our plans for the future. In pursuit of this FoAP, Sheffield City Council and SACHMA this year wrote a bid to The Community Infrastructure Levy managed by SCC to pay for a contracted development worker and basic building works for ‘cafe’ outbuilding. The development worker’s role will write grant applications for the larger scale budget for the remainder of the house working directly from the architect’s report and community consultation developed by FoAP and Sheffield Universities Architecture Department. A successful bid will see that individual employed by the year end-based part-time in FoAP’s office
Current Officers This year will be the last year of charity service from the current voluntary Secretary and Chair, so we are actively inviting new trustees who are excited and motivated by what happens in their community. Both will remain in place till new officers are elected. We're confident that Abbeyfield House will remain a beacon for community action and inclusivity and , as 2026 will mark the 20th anniversary of the formation of FOAP, and we look forward to planning those celebrations with our community.
Finally a heartfelt thank you again to our incredible volunteers, anchor organisations, donors and supporters. To you we extend our deepest gratitude for your commitment and dedication and look forward to working with you in 2025/26.
Deborah Egan OBE
Chair Friends of Abbeyfield Park – 2025 FoAP Trustees 2024-25
Deborah Egan Malcolm Camp Vicky Wright Lyn Brandon David Parker-Johnstone (Resigned June 2024) Francis Feeley
Friends of Abbeyfield Park (FoAP)
Annual Accounts 01 April 2024 -31 March 2025
| Income | Expenditure | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Internet | 468.00 | Internet | 1011.45 | |
| ACF | 3200.00 | ERF Spital Hill | 55903.43 | |
| Donations | 2551.50 | Resources | 156.94 | |
| Maintenance | 170.00 | Admin/Printing | 93.79 | |
| AH Art Project | 750.00 | Sundries/Hospitality | 33.62 | |
| Swift Art Project | 1650.00 | Maintenance | 734.00 | |
| Gardeners Grant | 405.79 | ACF24 | 6798.95 | |
| Repayments | 107.11 | Gardeners Grant (R) | 405.79 | |
| Swift Project Grant | 1650.00 | |||
| AH Art Project Grant | 700.00 | |||
| Errors (1-9) | 337.86 | |||
| Total | 9302.40 | 67825.83 |
| Balance 01/04/24 | 62744.21 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Income | 9302.40 | ||
| 72046.61 | |||
| Expenditure | 67825.83 | ||
| Balance 31 March 2025 | 4220.78 |
Payments made in error
| 1 | 24.69 | repaid |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 13.00 | Repaid |
| 3 | 23.00 | Repaid |
| 4 | 15.00 | Repaid |
| 5 | 40.97 | Repaid |
| 6 | 20.00 | Repaid |
| 7 | 121.78 | Repaid |
| 8 | 25.00 | Repaid |
| 9 | 54.42 | Repaid |
Key Budget Headings
| 1/4/24 | Income | Expenditure | Balance | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FoAP | 13415.52 | 3296.61 | 2367.66 | 14344.47 |
| ERF | 44438.19 | 0 | 55903.43 | -11465.24 |
| ACF | 4000.00 | 3200.00 | 6748.95 | 401.05 |
| Bowls Club | 890.50 | 0 | 0 | 890.50 |
| Arts Projects | 2400.00 | 2350.00 | 50.00 | |
| Garden Project | 405.79 | 405.79 | 0 | |
| Total | 62744.21 | 9302.40 | 67825.83 | 4220.78 |
Outstanding Payments
i. SCC ERF Spital Hill Project £11,465.24 ( Repaid October 2025)