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2023-03-31-accounts

Contents

Section 1

Vision, Mission and Values of Samaritans of Scarborough

Section 2

Governance 2022-23 Branch Trustees Information and Reports Branch Director, Treasurer, Publicity, Health and Safety, GDPR and Risk. 

Section 3

Operational Activity 2022-23 Deputy Director Information and Reports Volunteer Support, Training, Recruitment, Mentoring, Outreach and Fundraising. 

Section 4

Shop Report

Section 5

Charity Commission Receipts and Payment Accounts

Abbreviations:

BLT- Branch Leadership Team Diversity and Inclusion AGM- Annual General Meeting Director BD- Branch Director VS- Volunteer Support

SCO- Samaritans Central Organisation Charity SBC- Scarborough Borough Council Volunteer

EDI- Equity,

RD- Regional

DD- Deputy Director CS- Caller Support SCC- Samaritans Central

PV- Provisional

BMT- Branch Management Tool

Our vision is to be there, helping those who need us, find a way forward when it all feels too much.

Samaritans of Scarborough is a charity registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) in England on 9[th] January 2017 (1171040). It is a recognised branch of Samaritans.

Samaritans is organised into regions, Scarborough branch being part of Yorkshire & Humberside region.

The branch is responsible for raising its own funds and has a charity shop in Hanover Road.

The branch is governed by its constitution and agreements with Samaritans Central Charity.

Volunteer numbers vary throughout the year on average this year we have between 30-35 listening volunteers and around 10-15 support volunteers.

The objects of the charity are:

We aim to help people find ways of coping with their distress without choosing to die by suicide. We also seek to support those whose distress is less acute, in the hope that they will not reach the point of feeling that they wish to end their lives. Nationally, we make our support available in many ways, by telephone, email, letter, and face to face, in prisons, in schools and other educational settings. Locally, we support contacts via the telephone, online chat, outreach in schools, colleges, and universities as well as other settings including local hospitals, police fire service and public events like Armed Forces Day. In addition to this we open the branch for coffee mornings for high-risk groups such as veterans and presentations for people who may meet who are experiencing suicidal thoughts or plans.

Online chat remains in a pilot stage, due to the number of volunteers throughout the whole organisation, however Scarborough was amongst the first branches to include Online Chat on their rota. We hope to see this expanded throughout the organisation in the coming year and we intend to train more branch volunteers to help meet demand.

Through the pandemic we could not see callers face to face, our Central Office team have run pilot schemes to establish how we can return to running this safely. Following discussions, Scarborough branch have decided not to return to face to face contacts in branch, we do not have enough volunteers to support the new structure required.

The branch provides a service primarily intended for the benefit of persons in Scarborough and the surrounding area. However, it also works with all Samaritans branches to ensure 24-hour availability of the service across the UK.

Samaritans does not charge anything for the service provided. There is a free phone number 116 123.

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The trustees have given due regard to public benefit guidance published by the Charity Commission and consider that the activities described within this report demonstrates how the charity fulfils its responsibilities to provide benefit to the public.

Samaritans of Scarborough, Samaritans House, 40 Trafalgar Street West, Scarborough, YO12 7AS

Samaritans Shop, 13 Hanover Road, Scarborough, YO11

Website: http://www.samaritans.org/branches/samaritans-scarborough

The Trustees declare that they have approved this report

L J Bowman, Chair

Date

…........................

…...........................

Governance

Branch Trustees

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Trustees meet every 6 weeks as part of the BLT.

New trustees are recruited for the skills they can bring to the board and are appointed by a voting system at the Charity’s AGM.

Lyndsey Bowman Director and Chair of Trustees Elizabeth Lorton-Gilbert Vice Chair and Treasurer Dorree Gallie Publicity Rachel Penn Shop Liaison Dale Penn GDPR and Risk, from October 2022 Heidi Walker Branch Secretary Matt Neal Resigned October 2022

Treasurer’s Report

This year has been Samaritans of Scarborough’s 50th year and lots of events were planned to celebrate this.

The Summer Ball in July was a very successful event bringing in £5791.22 of donations, with the hard work of all those involved in fundraising we had a very successful year of fundraising.

April brought a team of new volunteers in the shop and the takings have improved considerably from last year with a total of £14,207. Although this is a great improvement, we have spent £11,008 on keeping the shop open. This amount includes rent, utilities and over £2000 on essential electrical works. The shop has always been a great source of income for our branch, and we would like it to continue this way. Currently the branch is supporting the shop and slowly, thanks to those volunteering there we are turning this around.

The branch expenses are predominantly health and safety checks and utility bills. This year the branch contribution was considerably less than last year at £9065.00.

Financial Summary

Financial Year End(FYE) Income Spending
31st March 2023 £40,379.00 £46,905.00
31st March 2022 £21,678.00 £50,006.00
31st March 2021 £62,518.00 £46,905.00

Elizabeth Lorton-Gilbert Treasurer

Scarborough.treasurer@samaritans.org

Reserves Policy

“Samaritans of Scarborough can hold designated funds amounting to 18 months of running costs, which currently amounts to £70,000 There are also funds of £60,000 held in investments, which will be made available for the purchase of a new shop or if we need to build or find new branch premises. The £60,000 will also be available for emergency repairs that may occur.”

The reserve levels are reviewed every 6 months by the BLT and agreed at the branch AGM.

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Director’s Report

As I am now in my second year as Branch Director it is great to look back and see what we have already achieved as a branch and what we need to work on to improve.

The BLT has changed since we began in February 2022, in June Elisa stepped down as DD for training and mentoring due to her decision to move abroad, Elisa was replaced by Colin as training DD and myself as lead for mentoring. Colin’s role as CSDD was becoming redundant due to SCO moving this area to a central hub and as he was already supporting the training team this felt like the ideal solution. Libby, our Vice Director took on the leaders training and leading the leader’s meetings as part of her role, leaders meet every 6 weeks, we aim to include some training and/or updates at every meeting to keep the team up to date. October 2022, Matt stepped down as trustee alongside taking some time off, the trustees co-opted DaIe Penn, who specialises in GDPR and risk, a very welcome addition to the team. In early February 2023, Maria, our recruitment DD was taken poorly and had to step down from all Samaritans roles, we have not found a suitable replacement for this role, so the BLT work together to keep everything running smoothly. In late February 2023, Paula, our outreach and fundraising DD stepped down but continued to lead the outreach diary and write grant applications as well as remaining a listening volunteer. All the changes seem to have had little effect on the team and branch, so we feel confident moving forward with the current team.

One of my main goals in my first year was to see a significant improvement to the rota commitment, our RD asked us to produce a rota policy for the branch, so we have clear guidelines for our volunteers to follow. This was cautiously received by volunteers initially but, I feel, it has now become an accepted document within branch. The document includes clear guidelines for volunteers including the commitment we expect from our volunteers as well as volunteers off rota and what support they can expect when they return. This policy will be reviewed annually.

In January 2023, Ruth and I held a 1:1 zoom meeting with every volunteer in branch, we provided each volunteer with their personal statistics for 2022. This was a very time consuming but worthwhile task and alongside the rota policy, has certainly had the desired outcome as we have seen a lot less duty closures and more consistent commitment from volunteers meaning we are supporting our callers more effectively. We plan to repeat the process in January 2024.

November 2022 saw the start of our QOF (Quality Outcomes Framework). This process, which every branch completes, is a good opportunity to review our branch and see where we need to improve. There were many positives, but we established the following areas to work on…

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All of our actions were signed off with Vivienne Sheader, Regional Quality and Development Officer by 31[st] March 2023.

As part of the QOF we are asked to develop a branch vision, after much discussion we agreed ‘Our vision is to be there, helping those who need us, find a way forward when it all feels too much.’ This vision is written into our monthly newsletter and documents such as this annual report.

This year has been full of opportunities to meet people from other regions and branches, the main one being the 3-day Leadership Conference in Birmingham that Libby and I attended with around 400 other Samaritans. I think Libby will agree we found this extremely informative, it inspired us to make changes to enhance our branch. We saw the benefits of delivering lived experience talks and followed this up at our AGM in October with guest speakers from the LGBTQ+ community delivering their stories to our volunteers, this was extremely well received, and volunteers felt much more confident talking to people in this community and understanding the difficulties they face.

In November we held an armed forces and veterans presentation for our volunteers, this included four of our volunteers who have served in the armed forces telling their stories and experiences, this was also supported by a video of the talk we received at the Birmingham Leadership Conference, kindly sent to us from SCO for the purpose of this presentation, this video was incredibly emotional whilst being informative, providing a much needed insight for our volunteers to better support callers from our armed forces community.

The highlight of 2022 was our 50[th] Birthday Summer Ball, which brought together 100 people to celebrate our branch of Samaritans and raised £5791.22. This was a fabulous night with everyone involved making it a huge success.

----- Start of picture text -----
Our guest of honour
Other guests included former Samaritans, was our patron, Lady
Heather Ayckbourn.
current Samaritans and people who
support our charity. A great evening was
had by all.
The team of organisers for
The ball tables were themed in
----- End of picture text -----

The ball tables were themed in Samaritans green with lots of informative literature including a

booklet we produced especially for our

January 2023, we took time to thank our volunteers for their hard work by holding an afternoon tea, prepared and served by the BLT. All volunteers, support and listening were invited, we had a

Branch afternoon tea, January

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fabulous afternoon socialising, as we did before the pandemic, the feedback was nothing but positive, we hope volunteers felt valued and appreciated, as that was our aim.

Throughout 2022, Libby and I worked with SBC, North Yorkshire Police, Fire Service and other organisations to improve suicide prevention in Scarborough and our surrounding area. As part of this task, we put up new signs at two high risk outdoor

Prevention signs on Crisis signs on Spa Bridge. approach to Spa Bridge.

locations, Spa Bridge and Glen Bridge, in addition we added prevention signs on the approach to these sites. The signs were funded by SBC, the sign locations were agreed between Samaritans of Scarborough and SBC.

Overall, 2022-23 has been a challenging year with various obstacles but mostly it has been a successful year with great achievements. Looking forward, our main aim is to continue to build our volunteer numbers to enable us to extend our rota incorporating a conscious EDI focus on recruitment. EDI has become a big part of the Samaritans Organisation, and we plan to extend this further into branch over the next year.

Of course, none of this could not happen without the support and dedication of the BLT who all do the most fantastic job, so a massive thank you to all of them!

The biggest thank you really does go to the volunteers at Samaritans of Scarborough who each give up their time freely to support our callers, thank you to you all for everything you do for our callers, branch, and each other.

Lyndsey Bowman Branch Director

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Health and Safety

Overview

  1. The safety situation at Samaritan House remains in a secure position. That at the Shop is now much stronger, with the electrical work finally finished and most of the fire safety work complete. The biggest issue remains the condition of the door between the shop and the kitchen area at the rear.

  2. The Risk Assessments for both locations are maintained in the form of a Safety Survey. Both were reviewed and re-issued in February 2023.

  3. The Legionella & Water Safety Audit and the Fire Risk Assessments for both the Shop and Samaritan House are due for review in September 2023. No issues are anticipated at Sams House; however this is the opportunity to discuss the way forward for the outstanding fire related matters at the Shop.

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Samaritan House

  1. There are no outstanding issues, and all routine checks and external servicing are in date.

Samaritans’ Shop

  1. The electrical safety work has now been completed. All other servicing requirements are in date, as is the routine safety check programme. There remains three significant areas outstanding from the previous Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) undertaken back in 2021, which are listed below. There is some discussion about the cost / benefit of implementing all of the final recommendations as they are not legally mandated and may be excessive. With current mitigations in place, the plan is to wait for the reassessment in September 2023 before committing more funds to the rented premises (with the exception of point a which will continue to be prosecuted).

a. Fire door – The state of the internal door between the shop and the kitchen, where the surrounding gaps are far too great, remains an issue. Intention is to revisit the self-help option, using Shop Staff and their connections.

b. Inter-linked smoke alarms – The FRA recommended an extension of the hard-wired smoke alarm system to the upper floors, primarily to alert someone working upstairs of a fire alarm on the ground floor. G2 passed this to NTL who have yet to provide a quote. The current mitigation is for someone on the ground floor to raise a loud vocal alarm in the case of fire, and for personnel working upstairs to ensure they are not wearing earphones or listening to loud music.

c. Emergency lighting – The FRA recommended that this be fitted over exits to enable escape. However, the intention is to question this at the review FRA in September 2023. The Shop operates only in daytime hours, and there is a big window overlooking a well-lit street. Torches are available in the kitchen area for emergencies.

Follow-up Questions

  1. Please refer any questions arising to the Health & Safety Officer.

Steve Witty Listening Volunteer Health & Safety Officer

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Publicity Report

In the last few years, Samaritans of Scarborough have built up an excellent rapport with local media including local newspaper, The Scarborough News, plus several local radio stations, This is the Coast, Greatest Hits Radio, Scarborough Radio and Coast & Country, who have responded to our press releases. We have been able to further our publicity with interviews covered by a variety of volunteers to grab attention.

Press releases and posters throughout the year have included the following:

Our biggest event of the year was Samaritans of Scarborough 50th Anniversary Ball which resulted in lots of publicity via posters, letters and invitations to local companies to either buy tickets or donate prizes for our Grand Raffle. What a huge success this proved to be, most of Scarborough knew about it due to the media coverage sharing of the event. This event also generated 2 new volunteers for our branch!

We ended 2022 with a choir singing for us in the town centre in December, this was a great event to raise awareness of our local branch as we were able to give out publicity materials and chat to people about the service we offer. In addition, we raised some funds for our branch!

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2023 began with our annual Brew Monday event, this year we opened the doors to branch with a coffee morning which was publicised via all media platforms and posters. We extended this a step further and hosted a second venue in Whitby which was publicised on a smaller scale but still a success.

Of course, we must mention the shop volunteers that create wonderful eye-catching window displays which in turn creates awareness and publicity for our branch and organisation. They do a fantastic job and always aim to tie into a current theme, such as a Pride window in June, this also enhances our commitment to EDI.

Thank you to everyone who helps with publicity, it really is team effort!

Dorree Gallie (Maureen) Publicity Trustee

GDPR and Risk Management Report

GDPR & Risk Officer

I was appointed GDPR & Risk Officer in June 2022. As well as having previous experience working in the GDPR & Risk field, I have several recognised Data Protection and Information, Security and Risk qualifications.

Overview

1.The period up to March 2023 was used to review the Data Protection process and update the security risk assessment. Most aspects of Data Protection were up to date as we use the policies provided by central office, however, a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) was required to ensure we had captured any privacy risks to any personal data we process.

  1. The security risk assessment was discussed and accepted during the BLT where all risks were found to be within risk appetite.

  2. A risk review is on every BLT meeting agenda, this is a running document that we update to match need, as and when. The risk document is completed by me regularly.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the BLT for making me welcome on the team and the volunteers for observing the GDPR requirements without hesitation.

Dale Penn GDPR and Risk Trustee

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Operational Activity

Deputy Director’s

Deputy Director’s meet every 6 weeks as part of the BLT.

The DD’s have changed throughout 2022/23 and a lot of the areas are now run by the BLT.

DD’s hold team meetings twice per year for training and discussion.

Training Elisa Jewison until June 2022
Training Colin Lumsdon from June 2022
Mentoring Elisa Jewison until June 2022
Mentoring Lyndsey Bowman, from June 2022
Outreach and Fundraising Paula Craggs, until Feb 2023
Outreach Education Elizabeth Lorton- Gilbert, from Feb
2023
Outreach Other BLT, from Feb 2023
Fundraising BLT, from Feb 2023
Recruitment Maria Williams, until Feb 2023
Recruitment BLT, from Feb 2023
Volunteer Support Gillian Harper (Ruth)
Caller and Leader Support Colin Lumsdon, until June 2022, now at
Central Hub and no longer in branch.

Outreach

What a great start to a new year of getting out into our community, having been on hold for the last 2 years, all those volunteers involved in our outreach programme have gone above and beyond.

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We began with our Mental Health Awareness talk to employees of the local MIND, all of whom found it very interesting and informative. We used this talk throughout the year to members of the police force and PCSO’s, employees at Scarborough Rugby club, the ladies’ freemasons in Helmsley and to staff at the local job centre.

Our volunteers come from all walks of life which helps us to engage with different members of the public. Steve 2 works at Morrisons, and he managed to arrange for Samaritans of Scarborough to have a table of our awareness merchandise and engage with customers a couple of times throughout the year.

Morrisons Information

Maureen and Colin organised for us to use a space in Scarborough Library to help raise awareness and encourage members of the public to come and volunteer with us. Maureen and Paula attended Brook Square Surgery’s open day.

Our local branch has always had a good relationship with the local further educational establishments in the area and this year we have been asked to attend freshers’ fairs and other events they hosted. Libby, Lyndsey, Rachel, Paula and Steve at some point attended Scarborough 6th Form College, Scarborough TEC, Coventry University and Whitby 6th Form College.

We have also managed to make use of the space in our branch and hosted a coffee morning on Brew Monday and in November, for Armed Forces Veterans. Both events were well attended and those that were there were pleased to have been able to engage with others.

----- Start of picture text -----
Veterans Coffee Morning
November 2022
----- End of picture text -----

Using the Mental Health Talk and our branch space, Lyndsey had the idea of inviting people to us to deliver the talk, this included staff from Carers Plus, MIND, Social Services, Foster Carers, the hospital, amongst others. So far we have delivered three talks to around 30 people, although we were expecting more to attend this has been a great opportunity for us to speak with others from different organisations and network for future dates. We hope to continue with these open-door events.

In March Steve, Libby, Bridget and Maureen attended a Mental Health Awareness event organised by local MIND at Scarborough Town Hall. Paula and Pete attended Scarborough

----- Start of picture text -----
13
----- End of picture text -----

Annual Report 2022-23

Fire Station open day in August. Both events went well, and we had another opportunity to engage with the public.

In September Lyndsey, Tan, Liz and Maureen attended an event for the LGBTQ+ community, where they had a stall and let people know that we are there for them, when they are finding life difficult.

LGBTQ+ Event at Scarborough Old

Lyndsey sent out letters and Samaritans leaflets to GP surgeries and hospitals in Scarborough, Whitby, Malton and Pickering, this was to offer leaflets for patients and talks for staff.

A huge THANK YOU to all volunteers who have

helped facilitate attending all the above events, we continue to remind our communities that we are here and will help the best we can.

Elizabeth Lorton-Gilbert On behalf of the Outreach Team

Fundraising

Fundraising is a huge part of our yearly calendar and we do focus heavily on bringing funds into branch to enable us to run and maintain our service. This year we pushed fundraising further as 2022 was Scarborough branches 50[th] Birthday.

We started off the year by sending letters to around 500 local businesses, asking for raffle prizes to use at our events through the year. We were very fortunate and received a vast amount including a diamond neckless worth £1000 to use as our star prize for our 50[th] Birthday raffle. The letter drops also raised awareness of Samaritans of Scarborough, leading to publicity opportunities and talks throughout the year.

Our first event of the year was in April where we had a fabulous day of Lazer Combat in Dolby Forest, the day’s entrance fees were donated to branch by the owner of the attraction due to his wife, Cath, being one of our listening volunteers. Everyone had a fabulous day and we raised £570. This event was open to Samaritans volunteers, family and friends.

Our next big event was our attendance at the national Armed Forces Day on Scarborough seafront, we had a tombola and cake stall which raised £504.

July was an incredibly busy month starting with Filey Golf Captains Day (£557), 50[th] Birthday Ball (£5,791.22), Sarah Millican collection (£696) and our 24/7 seafront walk (£175). We closely followed this in August with our annual golf tournament raising £2243!

In October we held a Ceilidh which was very well supported, we raised £983, everyone had a fabulous time, we plan to do this again in the future.

From September to December, we were fortunate to be chosen as the Lincolnshire Co-op community champion, we were pleased to receive £743.66.

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2022 saw the start of our recycling programme, volunteers bring in recyclable items from our list and we send it off to earn money for branch. This is in its very early stages, so we have yet to see the rewards.

In addition to these bigger events, we had various small fundraising opportunities including the sale of Samaritans Christmas cards, an Easter hamper draw for volunteers, town centre well-being choir, brew Monday cake sale and collection pots which helped make it a fabulous year for fundraising.

The BLT would like to thank everyone who has helped with events, donations and prizes, we really appreciate the support you have given to our branch.

Lyndsey Bowman Branch Director on behalf of all Volunteers

Recruitment

Recruitment in branch is currently a team effort from all the BLT and all have input and suggestions to improve this area of work. Recruitment is probably one of the biggest challenges our branch faces.

This past year has seen 39 interviews completed for both listening and support volunteers, a further 11 interviews were scheduled but either cancelled or did not show up.

The BMT has continued to prove effective in setting up interviews and training, we look forward to SCO developing this tool further.

Since April 2022 we have had various opportunities to recruit volunteers, the first being in April 2022 when we had a stall at Scarborough library focused entirely on recruitment, this generated lots of interest but unfortunately did not produce any volunteers.

Also, in April 2022 I was interviewed for That’s TV, Greatest Hits Radio, This is the Coast Radio, Coast & Country Radio and the Scarborough News, for every interview I was able to promote our need for volunteers both listening and support.

In December 2022, the BLT voted to spend £1800 on a radio campaign specifically for recruitment, this was scripted and recorded for our branch, incredibly ‘ear catching’, this ad went out on Greatest Hits Radio (GHR) for 4 weeks, as well as being added to GHR website and social media.

At regular intervals we advertise for volunteers using Indeed this has generated some shop volunteer interest but doesn’t have the same reach for listening volunteers.

We feel we have done everything we can to recruit to our branch, our biggest barrier being our location in a small seaside town, which seems to be the case on the East Coast for many branches.

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Retention continues to be unsteady, but the steps taken by the BLT to improve mentoring are hoped to steady this area and help us achieve our target of 40 volunteers by the end of 2023.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped with recruitment, particularly the volunteers who interview potential volunteers.

Lyndsey Bowman Branch Director on behalf of the recruitment team

Training

Mid 2022, Elisa left the role of training Deputy Director to start a new chapter of her life living abroad. Lyndsey, BD, appointed me as the new training DD and asked me to recruit a new training team. The new training team now consists of me (Colin DD), Rik, Maureen, and Rachel all of whom help with skills practice. As we were aware trainers had holidays booked, Lyndsey asked us to change the delivery from the single trainer method to a tag team style of training, where each member of the training team delivers a section of the core training each week, this really helped the trainees to have a consistent training experience rather than different trainers jumping in and out. It proved to be effective, so we will continue to use this method going forward.

In the last year, all Core Development training went ahead, May 2022 7 trainees, September 2022 9 trainees, February 2023 9 trainees. However, like previous years, we have seen a big dropout rate with trainees leaving prior to training commencing, or part way through Core Development. When this happens, we do ask for a reason, generally the role isn’t as they expected.

At the end of each Core Development, we ask each trainee to complete a feedback form, so we know where we need to improve or adjust for the next cohort. This has proved very useful information and certainly led to improvements in our delivery of training.

In 2022, Central Office provided online and face to face mandatory training, ‘Applying Key Policies’. In total we held five face to face training sessions, (originally we organised two), delivered by the training team to all volunteers. The online training was completed with very little problem, but the face-to-face sessions proved incredibly difficult to

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complete as it was a struggle getting volunteers into branch to complete the training, this put a lot of pressure on the training team and held us back with other training needs.

Looking forward I would like to address the ongoing problems around retention of trainees and aim to improve on those figures.

Lastly, I would like to thank the training team for all the hard work and support they have put into training, it really is a team effort, and I couldn’t do it without them.

Colin Lumsdon Deputy Director – Training

Volunteer Support

The Volunteer Support Team in Scarborough Samaritan Branch is led by Deputy Director Ruth (582) and includes Lindsey (603), Rik (682), Liz (733) and Cath (847).

The team are there to support all volunteers through any personal issues as well as any Samaritan related concerns. It is important to say that much of what we do goes on behind the scenes and what is said to us stays with us unless it is of serious concern.

Things that we do – we keep in touch with volunteers who have sadly had to resign or are off rota due to illness, bereavement, or other personal issues. We offer support for PV’s when they have finished their mentoring period and to any volunteers who have experienced a difficult shift. When a volunteer resigns, a thank you card, and gift is sent in acknowledgement of their service and an Exit interview is completed by a member of

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the volunteer support team. We also like to acknowledge the special occasions in life and send cards and gifts for births, weddings etc.

In July 2022 Volunteer Reviews took place, all volunteers were contacted by one of the volunteer support team and this was an opportunity for everyone to have their say. A summary of the feedback was sent to the Director and discussed at BLT. Pleased to say there were no real issues.

During the year we have celebrated the birth of a baby daughter to one of our volunteers, as well as a few new grandchildren for some volunteers. Sadly a few volunteers have had to resign due to illness or to care for family members.

At Christmas time we decorated the Centre, wrote and sent out Christmas cards along with a Gift Voucher and an invite to an Afternoon Tea at the Centre in January. This was a thank you to all volunteers from the BLT for all their hard work, time and support. It was a great success and enjoyed by all who attended, it was nice to be meeting up again with fellow volunteers after the Covid break.

At the beginning of the year Ruth and Lyndsey contacted all volunteers personally via zoom to discuss the rota and their commitment. This proved to be very useful for a Volunteer Support point of view as it gave the volunteers an opportunity to speak about any concerns.

As Deputy Director of Volunteer Support, you are on-call 24/7 so quite demanding but I couldn’t do it without the support of my team – thank you all.

Ruth Harper Deputy Director Volunteer Support

Mentoring

Mentoring was identified as an area needing updating during the first six months of the new BLT. The BLT felt we were not doing the best we could for mentees and following a regional meeting session focusing on mentoring in Samaritans, we decided to over hall the process.

Firstly, we had a mentors meeting to ensure all mentors had a say in the improvements and agreed how we should structure the mentoring sessions using the Bradford hub method and Samaritans new mentoring guidelines, to ensure we are giving the best to our mentees.

We decided to use mixed mentoring, which means, mentees will have sessions one and six with their lead mentor, sessions two-five with any mentor. We felt this would give a much broader learning experience by pooling the skills of many mentors for our mentees to benefit from. Each mentee is expected to complete a minimum of 6 duties with an option to do more duties if the mentors feel this is needed, in addition each must complete at least 1 night duty before progressing to PV. We feel these changes have made it much easier for our mentees to get on rota and maintain one duty per week, as recommended to keep their skills up to date, as well as mentors having less pressure on them to accommodate a single mentee.

The mentoring process has now been added to the training, it is now presented to potential volunteers as 12 weeks of training, 6 weeks with face-to-face trainers and online modules followed by 6 consecutive weeks of mentoring.

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In addition to this we now provide each trainee with a mentoring pack at the last face to face training session, this includes information relevant to our branch and organisation, who’s who in the BLT, who does what in branch, mentoring process document, volunteer support contact information, volunteer agreement, self-care cards and various other things that make our mentees feel welcome and supported.

Following mentoring, volunteers become PV’s and this area has also been tweaked to ensure our volunteers feel fully supported during this time. We ask each mentee’s, lead mentor to maintain regular contact and step back in to resolve any difficulties our PVs are facing. We also ask for a minimum of 60 hours listening to include the late duty commitment and full completion of face to face and online modules for embedded training.

We began this new system, in part with September 2022 cohort and in full with the February 2023 cohort, so far the feedback has been incredibly positive and we plan to continue with future cohorts.

The BLT feel we are now supporting our volunteers fully throughout their Samaritans journey to full volunteer and member of Samaritans of Scarborough.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our mentors, each one gives so much time and effort to mentees and I am incredibly grateful for their patience and skills in supporting new volunteers to our branch.

Lyndsey Bowman Lead Mentor & Branch Director

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Shop Report

The shop has seen yet another year of significant change. With the return of volunteers to the shop and the introduction of new shop staff it has gone from strength to strength. The shop is now open regularly and keeping regular hours. The shop turnover is also generating a significant contribution to the branch.

The following actions have been taken this year to ensure the shop runs as smoothly as possible and returns to being an asset to the Branch:

· Shop guidance/new volunteer induction pack created.

· Policies and information on how to run the shop have been produced.

· Training list and forms/checklist for each volunteer to complete were created

· Stock rotation sheets and pricing information for volunteer use. The pricing policy is in the shop files for us to use.

· Role descriptions for volunteers’ Key holders/shift managers.

· The roles have been added onto 3 rings for the day manager for each shift. The day manager opens and/or closes the shop and is the person who makes the decisions on shift and completes the cashing up.

· A new 3 rings site has been created solely for shop use.

· Weekly task planner/stock rotation was changed to donation sorting as of the 7th February 2023 this ensures a 5 weekly stock rotation to maximise product exposure.

· New rails and storage have been installed making better use of the space upstairs.

· A new safe has been purchased and installed.

· Both Electrical cupboards have been updated to meet the required standard.

· The shop has also been used to advertise our cause and encourage recruitment through poster and leaflet campaigns.

The shop windows have had the following themes this year which has worked extremely well in bringing in customers:

· Easter/Prom

· Prom

Annual Report 2022-23

20

Please see some examples below:

----- Start of picture text -----
Christmas
Wi d
----- End of picture text -----

Summer Holiday

Wi d Pride Window Moving forward the plan is to build on the success of this year and consolidate the successes we have achieved. Some minor improvements to the shop floor were discussed this year but as yet no decisions have been made on how to improve the current use of the space.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the wonderful shop volunteers for their hard work and commitment to the shop and Samaritans of Scarborough.

Rachel Penn Shop Liaison Trustee

Annual Report 2022-23

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22 Annual Report 2022-23

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