Annual Report of the Dengie D-Caf 1[st] October 2019 – 30[th] September 2020
A. Reference & administration details
The Dengie D-Caf was established as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) on 19[th] October 2015, registration number: 1164014
Address for correspondence: 15 Chapel Road, Burnham-on-Crouch CM0 8JB
B. Structure, governance & management
Trustees: Cristina Franchi, Chair, Kirsty Finch, Secretary, Alexandra Southcomb, Treasurer
Under our governing document, we are required to have a minimum of three trustees.
This year turned out to be a year of two halves. From October until February trustees were able to meet regularly as well as keeping in touch via email & text. Once the first lockdown happened contact was via text and email only which continued for the rest of the year. Trustees agreed a COVID 19 policy in March 2020 to ensure the health and safety of our members and volunteers. The Dengie D-Caf is a small, local charity that is volunteer led and run. We have no paid staff.
The Chair of trustees organises and runs the monthly The Dengie D-Caf dementia support group session. The Chair reports back on the sessions, and the trustees approve applications received for membership (all of which to date have been approved), applications from individuals wanting to serve as volunteers, activities being undertaken to promote awareness of the organisation and of people living with dementia in our area, relationships, referrals and requests from other professionals and charities working locally, and expenditure. Trustees review training needs and update policy documents as required, and the Secretary renews the website registration and files the annual return to the Charity Commission.
The monthly meetings for members were suspended in March 2020 and were replaced by weekly phone calls and from May 2020 an extended monthly newsletter. Shopping was done regularly for two unsupported households who for some reason were not included on the shielding list and this continued until May 2021.
The Dengie D-Caf continues to be a member of The Maldon & District Community Voluntary Services (MDCVS) which enables us to publicise our group throughout Maldon and the Dengie peninsula, to make use of their Disclosure & Barring Service service for new volunteers and to keep ourselves updated about developments locally and nationally. The Dengie D-Caf is part of Connect Well in the Maldon district, which both publicises the support we offer as well as enabling us to accept referrals from other members.
The Chair is the main point of contact and responds to telephone calls and messages. As well as existing members, The Dengie D-Caf is contacted by people
wanting more information about dementia. They are signposted to local services as appropriate and sent information leaflets supplied by Dementia UK.
The Chair ran the monthly meetings, assisted by two regular volunteers in October. In November 2019 a new volunteer, who also planned to fundraise for us for the next year in her role as Senior Ladies Captain at Burnham Golf Club, and an apprentice from the local Burnham Surgery attended. They became regular volunteers from December 2019 until March 2020, when meetings ceased due to the pandemic. In addition the Senior Ladies Captain arranged for two fellow members to provide refreshments for the meeting between November 2019 and March 2020 including for the Christmas party. A local singer, who has been a regular visitor and supporter of The Dengie D-Caf for some years, continued to attend each month to lead the singing part of the session, which is usually the last half hour.
Kim Cordes, Service navigator for local healthcare Provide, attended regularly. NHS established a new post for an NHS dementia Nurse for mid Essex and Sara Lyndon attended a couple of meetings and was replaced by Melanie Rolfe in March 2020, NHS support worker Martin attended between October 2019 and March 2020 when he informed us he was leaving.
Amy Melton of United in Kind came to the 2019 Christmas party to meet us all and subsequently helped organise our first dementia friendly screening at the local Rio cinema in March 2020. She kept in touch during lockdown organising donations for goody bags for our members in the summer of 2020, which the organiser and the two main volunteers delivered in a socially distanced manner in August 2020.
In March 2020 we welcomed a work experience student from the Sixth Form of Ormiston Rovers Academy, the local secondary school. He was planning to study medicine and was interested in working with people living with dementia. The school had agree he could attend our monthly meetings for the rest of the academic year. In reality he was only able to attend the one meeting before we locked down.
C. Objectives & activities
The Dengie D-Caf aims to promote a good quality of life by supporting people living with dementia, their carers, family and friends.
The Dengie D-Caf dementia support group members meet on the first Wednesday of every month. The main aim is to provide a safe, welcoming space and to actively listen and engage with all members. Activities are chosen by the group to reflect their interests and histories and to promote living well with dementia. We provide support and information to carers as well as to those living with dementia.
We raise awareness and increase understanding of the many issues that can affect people living with dementia, their carers, families and friends.
D. Achievements & performance
The Dengie D-Caf monthly session, for two hours on the first Wednesday of the month, took place at Burnham Town Council (BTC) Offices from October 2019 until
March 2020, apart from the November 2019 meeting which had to meet at the United Reform Church due to Remembrance Day preparations at BTC offices.
There have been six sessions between October 2019 and March 2020 plus one cinema outing in March 2020. In addition a few of us attended a tea dance at a local residential home in October 2019. During the year we were in contact with 25 members. Between 11 and 17 members attended the monthly sessions with an average of 14 per session.
During the year, six members moved in to residential care. Pre Covid 19, two members passed away and during the pandemic three members passed away.
We had two regular volunteers, who worked alongside the Chair who organised the sessions, plus three supporters, two who provided refreshments and one who organised the singing. An apprentice from the local surgery attended four sessions and a work experience student came to one session. In addition we welcomed 17 visitors over the year including from Provide, NHS Dementia Service, United in Kind, Carers First, Missing Person’s Liaison & WPCs, the Mayor, fundraising supporters from the golf club & the W.I. We had an average of three visitors per session. From October 2019 to March 2020 the Chair wrote a monthly column in a local magazine distributed to 12,000 homes locally. (Sadly, the magazine folded during the first Lockdown.) Notices were posted in the local press and on town notice boards publicising our work and signposting people to services. This generated some additional contacts with people telephoning for information and leaflets.
Some carers attended the whole session, some took the opportunity for some time for themselves. Members were regularly consulted as to the content of sessions and a session plan and a monthly newsletter was prepared for each session. This year we also instituted a reminder phone call the day before the session.
At the October session we had our AGM and reminisced about the past year and enjoyed a large cake presented to us as the prize for best community project in Burnham in Bloom 2019 for the flowerbed we tend outside BTC offices. We made Christmas cards and gift tags to sell in aid of the local campaign SEAN fundraising for a specialist dementia ‘Admiral’ nurse. As always we did our chair exercises at the beginning and finished the session with singing. In November, we had a lot of visitors so carers were able to talk to a representative of Carers First as well as hear about The Herbert Protocol for missing persons from local WPCs. Members of the NHS dementia service were in attendance. Local supporters from the Golf Club and the St Lawrence W.I. came to meet us. We made more Christmas cards and gift tags to sell in aid of SEAN. It proved to be a lively session. At the Christmas party in December we had a visit from Santa Claus and Mrs Claus, aka Mayor Wendy Stamp, and were entertained by Jane English, who gave us Christmas stories and led us in the carols.The Dengie D-Caf again provided personalised Christmas presents for members. Jae Bray and her colleagues at the Golf Club provided all the refreshments and Amy Melton from United in Kind came to meet us.
The January session was used to brain storm and share ideas about activities and outings for 2020. We put together a potentially very exciting programme and also
agreed that we were going to focus our singing on musical theatre and aim to build up a stable of songs based on our favourites. We started with a selection from the Sound of Music. In February local artist Jean Weber joined us and assisted by her daughter led us in a watercolour workshop and members created some beautiful cards. On two previous occasions Jean and her husband Lionel have invited us to visit Jean’s studio and spend time in their garden during Burnham Art Trail so members were pleased to see Jean again. Jane led us in reprising My Favourite Things and Climb every mountain from The Sound of Music before moving on to favourite songs from My Fair Lady.
In March we brought the spring indoors and planted up flowerpots with a selection of flowering bulbs and primroses. We decorated jam jars with glass paint and filled them with daffodils. Members all went home with a jar or flowerpot or both. We reprised our favourite songs from The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady and added some songs from Oliver to our repertoire. Jane began to talk hopefully about arranging to record us at a future date.
On 11[th] March a small group of us went to the local Rio cinema for our first dementia friendly screening, which was of the film Military Wives. Nine members, three volunteers and Amy Melton from United in Kind who helped organise the visit attended. It was a great success and we hoped to repeat it in the future.
The Chair of Trustees had been monitoring articles about the pandemic growing around the world and after discussion with trustees it was decided on 16[th] March to suspend all meetings from the time being. The Trustees recognised that members were a vulnerable group. Many members are over 80. As well as dementia, some have Parkinson’s disease, COPD, chronic asthma, epilepsy, and diabetes.
The Chair contacted all members to let them know and from Wednesday 25[th] March weekly contact by phone or text depending on preference, was instituted. One volunteer formed a social bubble and took on shopping for a member living alone, with the agreement of her family. Later on he took her for her vaccines. The other volunteer provided back up phone calls to three households as well as shopping for one of them. These arrangements stayed in place for the rest of the year.
From May 2020 the Chair with the assistance of one volunteer produced an extended monthly newsletters to try and keep the group in touch with each other. Snippets of news and photos where possible were shared, as were recipes and gardening tips, nature notes and other information. There were exercises and new stretchy bands were sent out.
As the first lockdown unfolded, all households found it difficult not being able to get out and see people and missed the routine and social contact of their usual lives. For members living with dementia whose dementia was fairly advanced began to deteriorate. It was incredibly difficult for the families and carers, many of them in their 70s and 80s, as professional support in the Dengie area from either the NHS or Social Services is extremely difficult to access. We provided a sympathetic ear and suggested numbers to try. Generally it takes a year of sustained lobbying to get any
response, which is incredibly hard for families already coping with someone living with dementia.
In June we put together individual playlists for members living with dementia and ordered MP3 players via The Purple Angel charity in Devon. The Chair and the two volunteers delivered these in a socially distanced manner in July.
Amy Melton of United in Kind set up a community project in the summer to put together goody bags with cards from school children, and contents donated by local people and businesses. We visited all households in a socially distanced manner and delivered the goody bags, jigsaws and twiddle muffs in September. It was good to see people and assess how they were doing.
The Chair continued to be a member of Support an Essex Admiral Nurse in aid of Dementia UK (SEAN). SEAN was founded by local resident Julia Mells, who is a Dementia UK ambassador and was a volunteer at The Dengie D-Caf until September 2019. Dementia UK is a registered charity & provides specialist community dementia nurses, Admiral Nurses, who give one to one support to the families & carers of those living with dementia. There are currently none of these community Admiral nurses working in Mid Essex and The Dengie D-Caf is supporting SEAN and Dementia UK who are working hard to bring this specialist dementia support to families in our area. The cards we made at the October 2019 session raised £86 for SEAN. There was a successful Christmas raffle but unfortunately the large fundraising event planned for March 2020 had to be cancelled.
The Chair was also a member of the Patient Participation Group (PPG) at Burnham Surgery and attended PPG and CCG meetings for Mid-Essex between October 2019 and March 2020.
The Dengie D-Caf, had a stall at a Living Well event organised by The Burnham Surgery on 5[th] October 2019 in the Village Hall. The Chair and two of our volunteers spoke to members of the public and handed out appropriate leaflets and the Chair made follow up phone calls after the event.
E. Financial Review
Sources of funding We started the financial year on 1[st] October 2019 with an opening balance of £2344.98 , being made up of £2304.52 in the bank and £40.46 in the petty cash.
Donations received were: November St Lawrence W.I. £150, December Hillside Bowls Club £700, January Con Club £66, Ann Allen £20, February Burnham Surgery £64.96, Mr & Mrs Shuk £100, September Bev’s Bucket £130. Total received in the year was £1230.96 , of which £194.96 in cash (Bev’s bucket & Burnham Surgery) was paid in to petty cash. Expenditure was £749.42 via bank and £135.60 from petty cash. Total expenditure for the year was £885.02. Closing balance was £2690.92 , of which £2591.10 in bank and £99.82 in petty cash.
Burnham Town Council allowed us to meet in the Council Chamber free of charge and provided printing support. This ceased for a bit during the first Lockdown and we had to do our own printing of the monthly extended newsletter. BTC then set up a socially distanced way of doing this and resumed printing out the newsletters.
Our main expenditure this year has been for materials for workshops, Christmas presents, insurance, the cinema outing, and for printing cartridges, paper and postage for the newsletters. Unfortunately due to Covid 19 we were not able to have the workshops and outings that we had originally planned for April to September so we ended the year in a better financial position than we had anticpated.
Our reserves policy for the next financial year will be to continue to hold £1500 to cover one year’s insurance and basic running costs.
F. Declaration
Overall it has been a challenging year for The Dengie D-Caf and our members and the trustees are satisfied that in this time we have managed to adapt to the conditions imposed by the pandemic to continue to meet our aims and objectives.
The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees report above.
Signed:
Full name: Maria-Cristina Franchi
Position: Chair Date: 28.07.2021
D-Caf October 2019 to September 2020
| Opening balance |
£2,304.52 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income | |||||||
| Date | Description | Source | Amount | Refresh | Stationary and Postage |
Insurance | Gifts |
| £3.50 £5.00 £15.49 £14.78 |
|||||||
| Total Oct | £0.00 £3.50 £19.78 £0.00 £15.49 |
||||||
| Donation | £9.50 W.I £150.00 £9.00 £32.13 £3.50 £8.73 £3.20 £7.00 £22.15 £16.50 |
||||||
| Total Nov | £150.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £111.71 |
||||||
| Donation | Hillside 700.00 £ £16.28 |
||||||
| Total Dec | £700.00 £0.00 £0.00 £16.28 £0.00 |
||||||
| Donation Donation |
Con Club £66.00 £16.12 Ann Allen £20.00 £1.69 |
||||||
| Total Jan | £86.00 £0.00 £1.69 £16.12 £0.00 |
||||||
| Donation | Mr&Mrs Shuke £100.00 £16.12 |
||||||
| Total Feb | £100.00 £0.00 £0.00 £16.12 £0.00 |
£5.00
£16.12
| Total | March | £0.00 | £5.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | April | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| £7.60 | ||||||
| Total | May | £0.00 | £0.00 | £7.60 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £42.00 | £16.12 | |||||
| Total | June | £0.00 | £0.00 | £42.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £12.82 | £16.12 | |||||
| Total | July | £0.00 | £0.00 | £12.82 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | August | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | Sept | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| Yearly Total | £3,340.52 | £8.50 | £83.89 | £161.36 | £127.20 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income | £1,036.00 |
All income £1,230.96
| Balance | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payments | |||||
| Outings | Workshop supplies |
Mobile top up |
Website | Maldon CVS | |
| £43.75 £55.76 |
|||||
| £0.00 | £99.51 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
2,166.24 £ |
|||
| £0.00 | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
2,204.53 £ |
|||
| £0.00 | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
2,888.25 £ |
|||
| £0.00 | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,956.44 | |||
| £31.40 £35.53 |
|||||
| £0.00 | £66.93 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,973.39 |
| £7.00 £26.15 £58.88 |
|
|---|---|
| £0.00 £92.03 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,860.24 |
| £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,844.12 |
| £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,820.40 |
| £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,762.28 |
| £110.00 | |
| £0.00 £110.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,623.34 |
| £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,607.22 |
| £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,591.10 |
| £0.00 £368.47 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,591.10 |
|---|---|
| Bank Expenditure Year end Total expenditure (including petty cash) Year end + Petty Cash |
£749.42 |
| £2,591.10 | |
| £885.02 | |
| £2,690.92 | |