Annual Report of the Dengie D-Caf 1st October 2020 – 30th September 2021
A. Reference & administration details
The Dengie D-Caf was established as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) on 19th 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 was the year we continued to live with lockdown and the impact of Covid 19 on our vulnerable membership. Trustee contact was primarily via text and email. Trustees had agreed a COVID 19 policy in March 2020 to ensure the health and safety of our members and volunteers and we continued to operate under it. The Dengie D-Caf is a small, local charity that is volunteer led and run. We have no paid staff. The Chair co-ordinated the volunteers
Pre and post Lockdown, 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 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.
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 normally 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. The monthly meetings for members had been suspended in March 2020. Our members were left isolated at home, mostly with no contact with anyone outside the home. During the year of pandemic, we had to be imaginative in meeting our objectives and we built on our existing relationships with our members to continue to support them and their families. We used regular weekly phone contact and phone calls could be up to an hour long. Where carers used digital media we were in regular email and text contact. We sent out an extended newsletter. Members were encouraged to contact us for a chat whenever they needed to.
The newsletters encouraged living well with dementia during the lockdowns by eating healthily, continuing with exercises, including chair exercises. They reflected the changing seasons and recommended light jobs in the home and garden as well as seasonal recipes. Members were encouraged to send in photos and to share recipes and snippets of news, as well as gardening tips and nature notes, which were collected on the weekly phone calls. Updates about living with Covid 19 and information from local groups and dementia charities were included as appropriate. There were word puzzles, word searches and quizzes and seeds to grow on the windowsill.
Two volunteers did shopping regularly for two unsupported households who for some reason were not included on the shielding list and this continued until May 2021.
We were unable to have our usual Christmas party in December 2020. We sent an extended newsletter at the beginning of December. We bought personalised presents and put together goody bags for the members and their family carers. In addition Amy Melton of United in Kind organised community goody bags so we were able to distribute a second large goody bag which included second hand books, knitted & crocheted blankets, toiletries, Christmas food and cards and decorations made by the local schools. The Chair and three volunteers distributed these from the doorsteps the week before Christmas, maintaining Covid protocols. We also offered the option of a hot Christmas dinner ordered from a local café on another date and the same group of volunteers delivered these. It was good to see members on these occasions and to be able to assess how they were doing.
Normally we aim to raise awareness and increase understanding of the many issues that can affect people living with dementia, their carers, families and friends. The Chair continued to post in the local monthly magazine and one volunteer posted on the Facebook page regularly.
D. Achievements & performance
Members were cautious coming out of lockdown in the summer of 2020 so we began monthly meetings with a couple of outings to outdoor venues where we were the only visitors. 17 of us visited Stow Maries World War I aerodrome in June, and 14 visited Keeway Garden, an NGS garden, in July. There was no outing in August as members were cautious about going out in the school holidays. In September we were invited to have a private visit to Burnham Museum where the local exhibits prompted many reminiscences.
All three outings were hugely popular and served to build members’ confidence so that we were able to plan to restart indoor meetings in October under strict Covid protocols re cleaning of venue, mask wearing, spacing out members and lots of fresh air. Our previous venue had been the Burnham Town Council chamber in their offices but these closed to the public in March 2020 and have not reopened. The Chair made contact with the Vicar and Churchwarden at Creeksea church in September re using their Church Hall for monthly meetings, and it was decided to try meeting there from October 2021. (It is outside the scope of this report but it proved to be a popular choice and meetings are booked in there for the foreseeable future.)
During the year, two members passed away. It was not possible to recruit new members during the pandemic but we did still respond to requests for information and signposting by phone and on our Facebook page. We had a total of 20 members made up of 8 people living with dementia, 5 family members/carers and 5 bereaved carers. Our members were mostly in their 70s and 80s. As well as dementia, some had Parkinson’s disease, COPD, chronic asthma, epilepsy, and diabetes.
We had two regular volunteers, who worked alongside the Chair throughout the year plus two supporters, who rejoined us once we started meeting again.
Amy Melton of United in Kind kept in contact through the year and organised Christmas goody bags. There was no other contact from any local agency or charity and people living with dementia and their families/carers living on the Dengie struggled to get any kind of service.
E. Financial Review
We started the financial year on 1st October 2020 with an opening balance of £2690.92, being made up of £2591.10 in the bank and £99.82 in the petty cash.
A total of £1030.77 in donations was received : including in December the Reynolds family donated £175 in memory of their grandmother, Hazel Bradley donated £15, Sid (Burnham Bowls) donated £20, local funeral director Paul J.King
made us their Christmas Stars in memory charity and donated £95 in January 2021, in April Hazel Harber donated £200, in July Vera & Rusty Oates donated £100, Pat Mullins & Annabelle Warren donated £20 and in September Burnham Day Centre donated £180.77. Sadly they were one of the small charities which did not survive the pandemic.
Total expenditure for the year was £936.64 , made up of £453.86 via bank and £482.78 from petty cash.
Closing balance was £2785.05 , of which £2588.01 in bank and £197.04 in petty c a sh.
Burnham Town Council continued to support us by printing out the newsletter and any other printing we needed, and this was done in a socially distanced manner.
Our main expenditure this year has been for postage for the newsletters and cards, birthday, condolence and Easter cards, envelopes, seeds, insurance, Christmas presents, Christmas hot meals, and in the second half of the year the outings to Stow Maries and Keeways and plants for the D-Caf community flowerbed .
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 both adapt to the conditions imposed by the pandemic and to manage the transition out of lockdown so as 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: 12[th] June 2022
D Caf Accounts October 2020 to Septemebr 2021
| Opening balance |
£2,591.10 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income | |||||||
| Date | Description | Source | Amount | Refresh | Stationary and Postage |
Insurance | Gifts |
| Total Oct | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
||||||
| Total Nov | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
||||||
| Donation | £16.28 J.Reynolds £175.00 |
||||||
| Total Dec | £175.00 £0.00 £0.00 £16.28 £0.00 |
||||||
| £16.12 | |||||||
| Total Jan | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £16.12 £0.00 |
||||||
| Donation Donation |
Paul J King £70.00 Paul J King £25.00 £16.12 |
| Total | Feb | £95.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | March | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | April | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | May | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | June | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | July | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
| £16.12 | ||||||
| Total | August | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 |
Donation Burnham Day C
£180.77
£16.12
| Total Sept | £180.77 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £16.12 | £0.00 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yearly Total | £3,041.87 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £161.36 | £0.00 | |
| Income | £450.77 | |||||
| All income |
| Balance | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Payments | |||||
| Outings | Workshop supplies |
Mobile top up |
Website | Maldon CVS | |
| £0.00 | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
2,591.10 £ |
|||
| £0.00 | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
2,591.10 £ |
|||
| £0.00 | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
2,749.82 £ |
|||
| £0.00 | £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,733.70 | |||
| £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £2,812.58 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £2,796.46 |
| £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £2,780.34 |
| £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £2,764.22 |
| £232.50 | |||||
| £232.50 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £2,515.60 |
| £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £2,499.48 |
| £10.00 | |||||
| £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £0.00 | £10.00 | £2,473.36 |
£50.00
| £50.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 |
£2,588.01 |
|---|---|
| £282.50 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £10.00 |
£2,588.01 |
| Expenditure thru Bank Year end Petty Cash Total funds |
£453.86 |
| £2,588.01 | |
| £197.04 | |
| 2,785.05 £ |