2023-12-31-accounts - Amble Foodbank

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AMBLE FOOD BANK ANNUAL REPORT for the ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OCTOBER 2023

Introducton

This is our second annual report. Amble Food Bank (AFB) became a registered charity in October 2021 (Registered Charity Number 1196268). It is also now registered with HMRC and donors are able to Gift Aid their donations. It continues to have its base at Trinity Methodist Church on Percy Street, Amble.

AFB is run by a group of 18 volunteers, five of whom are trustees. We are a voluntary organisation serving the Amble and its surrounding communities. Three of the trustees have specific executive roles:

Terry Long - Chair Lynne Morelli - Secretary Colin Scammell - Treasurer

All volunteers coming into contact with clients have gone through Disclosure Barring Service (DBS) checks, and volunteers also regularly refresh their safeguarding awareness training, along with any other relevant training (see ‘Safeguarding’ section). In addition there are two named Safeguarding Designated Leads who have also undertaken specific Designated Person for Safeguarding Adults and Children training. We make it our duty to care about the welfare of our clients, and there have been a few occasions when we have had concerns about individual clients that we see on a regular basis and we have referred them to the One Call team to be assessed by them.

Our clients live in the Amble, Warkworth, Hadston and Broomhill areas and receive a food parcel on a fortnightly basis. Deliveries go out every Tuesday and Thursday morning, 51 weeks a year. The total number of clients fluctuates, depending on clients’ individual circumstances, but it can vary between 50 and 100 (see ‘Data’ section).

AFB has robust referral and review policies. Clients can be referred through a number of channels. These may include Northumberland Communities Together, a GP, social worker, health visitor or school. Clients sometimes self-refer. No individual or family is refused a food parcel, but after receipt of their first one, clients are requested to acquire an official referral – usually via Northumberland Communities Together, unless they have a key worker. All clients are reviewed on an approximately 3-4 monthly basis and require a fresh assessment and referral in order to continue receiving a food parcel. Records of all clients and referrals are kept in accordance with GDPR.

Food parcels are designed to supplement an individual’s, couple’s or a family’s general food shopping. They contain staple ambient goods such as pasta, rice, cereals, pasta sauce, and a variety of tinned items, such as soup, meat, fish, vegetables etc. They will also receive toiletry items if these are available. We always find out if new clients have any specific dietary requirements or allergies. Occasionally we will receive a referral informing us that they have scarcely any food in. In this instance they would receive an enhanced parcel containing fresh goods. All food is stored at our base. We were inspected by Environmental Health at the start of 2022 and received a five star Food Hygiene rating and were deemed to be “a well run food bank.”

We rely on the local communities for donations of food to AFB. Members of the public can donate food items at Amble Co-op, Hadston Co-op, Amble Tesco Express or they can purchase a pick-up bag from Amble Morrison’s. AFB works very closely with all supermarkets, and volunteers collect this food several times a week. In July 2023 Morrison’s Amble ran a Food Bank Awareness Day whereby they helped to raise the profile of AFB. A number of our volunteers helped with this, handing out leaflets and engaging with customers. As a result we had four full trolleys of shopping donated by its customers.

AFB has also signed up to the Neighbourly scheme and we have linked up closely with Aldi in Alnwick and shop weekly from them. Being part of this scheme has enabled us to sign up as a ‘backup collector’ and we are able to collect fresh surplus items should the ‘primary collector’ fail to pick up. Fresh items from here, the weekly Co-op Food Share scheme every Sunday (where the Co-op donates any fresh surplus items to AFB and we deliver to clients in need that day) and from HMP Northumberland Farm Shop all help to enhance the food parcels that our clients receive.

We also have collection tins at the Co-op, the Farm Bakery, The Boat Shed Gallery pod at Amble Harbour Village and the HMP Northumberland Farm Shop. Local schools and churches regularly collect food items that they donate to AFB, especially around Harvest Festival. Recently Heatherdale Care home in Broomhill have also started to collect food donations for us in conjunction with Iceland Morpeth. There are also some small local businesses and organisations who donate food to AFB, including Amble Women’s Institute and the Coastal Crafts Club. The local communities were especially generous around Christmas 2022 when we received in excess of £3000 in December alone.

We have also been fortunate to receive generous donations from a number of north east businesses through their community funds. Most of this has been spent on lunch items (bread, spreads, drinks, fruit, squash etc) to help our families feed their children over various school holidays. We continue to do this throughout every school holiday and parents have been extremely grateful to receive these. We have also received a second grant from DWP via Northumberland County Council. In addition we are fortunate to receive some one off monetary donations to our bank account and some individuals have set up standing orders (see ‘Finances’ section).

In July 2023 a music event was held at the Harbour Village on the harbour. A number of local musicians played for free and a total of £326.07 was raised.

Since June 2023 we have been working in partnership with the Farm Shop at HMP Northumberland run by the charity The Oswin Project. This is a great cause that creates chances for individuals with criminal records through training and employment and helps to give them a sense of achievement from learning and working. Every Friday we receive any unsold fresh produce from the farm shop. This may include baked goods such as bread, cakes and pastries and also fruit and vegetables (grown in the prison market gardens by prisoners), plus sandwiches. These then go out to our clients. Feedback has been extremely positive since this collaboration started.

In addition to the above AFB has developed strong community links and works closely with a number of professionals who know our communities well. We work closely with the local health centre (Coquet Medical Group), Citizen’s Advice, Hadston House and local schools and churches.

We also support families who have pets in their household. We continue to work closely with the charity Alexa’s Canine Trust (ACT) who regularly donate pet food to us. Along with ACT we firmly believe that it is in the pets’ best interests to remain with their owner(s). Providing pet food for them makes this all the more likely and helps to reduce pet poverty.

We continue to have a strong social media presence and regularly post useful information for the local communities. as well as thank various individuals and organisations for their support and donations. We have built up AFB’s social media audience over the last 2 years – again this page is run solely by volunteers. We do receive a number of self-referrals and enquiries via our Amble Food Bank Facebook page. We also write an article in each edition of The Ambler, Amble’s local newsletter. This outlines recent events and achievements, any requests that we may have and we also take the opportunity to thank local communities, businesses, schools, churches and other organisations for their continued generous support.

Finally, we have also been able to support three young teenagers with work experience. Two year 10 individuals helped collect and unpack pick-up bags from Amble Morrison’s every Saturday morning for an extended period of time as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Award. Both found it incredibly rewarding and were a credit to their school and families. One other young person (aged 16) has been helping pack bags on a weekly basis. We have witnessed her flourish and develop in confidence, as well as increasingly take the in initiative with tasks. All families involved have been highly appreciative of the experience we have been able to offer their children. This will also help with future work and study programmes as AFB will be able to provide references for them.

Lynne Morelli (Secretary and Trustee)

Trustees and Roles

Trustees

Terry Long – 3 years (from October 2021) Lynne Morelli – 3 years (from October 2021) Colin Scammell – 2 years (from October 2021) Marion Long – 3 years (from November 2022) Eric Davidson – 3 years (from November 2022)

Roles

Chair – Terry Long Secretary – Lynne Morelli Treasurer – Colin Scammell

Amble Food Bank’s Constitution states that there should be a maximum of five trustees. It was agreed when the charity was set up that the following terms would be adhered to.

Thereafter trustee roles come under review and it is possible for other trustee nominations to take place. Any trustee positions coming to the end of their term will need to be reviewed and discussed at the Annual General Meeting. Marion Long took over from Ben Moore and Eric Davidson from Bill Cruickshank in November 2022.

Policies

Since the first AGM AFB has written a number of policies to guide our working practices. These were all ratified by trustees and the Chair, Terry Long. They will all be reviewed on an annual basis by the team. A Data Protection policy was written in January 2023 by Lynne Morelli. This in particular covers GDPR and personal data guidance and regulations.

Eric Davidson wrote the Health and Safety policy in March 2023 (which includes Safe Manual Handling). In line with health and safety guidance we also have accident/incident forms available to all volunteers for completion, along with a log book for accidents/incidents. Any accidents occurring on the premises of Trinity Methodist Church are logged and duplicated in the church’s own accident reporting book. We have only had one accident reported to us so far. This was all logged as above and the volunteer involved did have to seek medical attention and advice.

In March 2023 the Safeguarding policy was researched by Lynne Morelli, Mary Davidson and Sue Saltmore and then finalised by Lynne Morelli (see the Safeguarding section for further details).

Data Analysis

During the period between 1[st] November 2022 and 31[st ] October 2023 the following numbers of food parcels were delivered by Amble Food Bank. A single parcel is delivered to an individual living alone or a couple (the latter was agreed at a meeting in September 2023 with pressure being put onto our financial resources due to rising numbers of referrals). A family food parcel constitutes either a single person or couple with children in the household, or more than 2 adults in a household. Households with a large number of children (5 plus) will receive extra items on top of a standard family bag.

Numbers do fluctuate after reviews. The data below shows decreases at the points of reviews. Clients are requested to get a fresh referral approximately every 3 months and some do not return to us following this. It may be because their circumstances have changed and they no longer require a food parcel, or it may be that their lives have simply become so chaotic that they do not get round to requesting a fresh referral to us.

Month	Family Parcel	Single Parcel
November 2022	101	49
December 2022	134	48
January2023	140	69
February2023	123	52
March 2023	121	60
April 2023	68	47
May2023	86	51
June 2023	88	62
July2023	82	65
August 2023	110	87
September 2023	23	22
October 2023	66	89
Total	1142	701

Total number of parcels delivered November 2022 to October 2023 = 1843

The number of food parcels delivered between the above time span rose by 220 between October 2022 and October 2023. This is an increase of 13.5%. September and October 2023 saw an average of 6 new families/individuals being referred to AFB a week. If this continues, this will have a huge impact on our financial resources. We are also seeing an increase in working people being referred to AFB and also an increase in single people. August always sees an increase in family referrals as they struggle with the extra financial burdens during the school holidays. We did also see an increase in single referrals in August as some clients had access to their children during the school holidays and had the additional costs of feeding them for longer periods than normal.

The Future

As we envisaged, the numbers of clients on our caseload generally continued to rise due to the current cost of living crisis (with energy and food costs still continuing to rise dramatically). More and more clients are self-referring as well as being referred by agencies such as Health Visitors, Children’s Services workers and Social Prescribers. Volunteers and trustees will continue to network with agencies who know their clients’ needs well. This

means that we try to capture as many individuals as possible who are struggling financially and are in need of support via a food parcel. At the end of summer 2023 we saw for the first time that our outgoings exceeded money coming in to us. Our treasurer is closely monitoring this situation.

We have recently recruited 3 more volunteers to Amble Food Bank and have a reserve list of people who are keen to offer their services. We may well need to recruit further volunteers if number of clients on our caseload continues to rise at the current rate.

Terry Long (Team member with responsibility for caseload management / Chair) Lynne Morelli (Secretary and Trustee)

Safeguarding Report

The Safeguarding Coordinators continue to be Lynne Morelli and Mary Davidson, to whom any safeguarding concerns should be addressed. In the case of need for immediate action, either Lynne or Mary should be informed of any referral made within 24 hours. As Chairperson, Terry Long also needs to be informed of any Safeguarding referrals made.

In the past year, team members who needed to refresh or undertake Safeguarding Training have done so. Safeguarding Training is updated every three years. New volunteers who have joined the Food Bank Team will be enrolled onto training as soon as practicable. We are awaiting confirmation of Basic Awareness Training dates from Caroline Friend, Safeguarding Training Provider, for newly appointed volunteers who have joined the team.

All team members who deliver Food Bank parcels are DBS checked. We are in the process of ensuring recently appointed team members are DBS checked. As Secretary, Lynne maintains an electronic record of each person’s date of completed Safeguarding Training and dates of DBS checks.

In the past year, 5 referrals have been made to One Call, the contact hub for all Adult and Child Social Care concerns. These included two referrals for one person to Adult Social Care, two referrals for one family to Children’s Social Care, one other referral to Children’s Social Care for one other family.

Copies of all referrals and any “Causes for Concern” are kept in a locked box in our locked filing cabinet. Lynne and Mary hold the keys to this secure box.

Prior to March 2023, we came under the Safeguarding policy for Trinity Methodist Church. This meant a separate copy of each referral (using the Methodist Form), had to go to the Methodist Regional Safeguarding Officer. In February 2023, Sue Saltmore, Lynne Morelli and I set about researching “Best Practice” Safeguarding Policies from a variety of sources in order to produce what is a fully comprehensive Amble Food Bank Safeguarding Policy document. On the 21[st] of March this year, the Amble Food Bank Safeguarding Policy was ratified by the Trustees and signed off by Terry Long, Chair Person. As with all other policies, this will be reviewed on an annual basis.

All new volunteers are given a copy of this policy to read as part of their induction to Amble Food Bank.

Information regarding details of Safeguarding Key Contacts and Statutory Agency and Emergency contact guidance is clearly displayed on the Food Bank notice board.

Amble Food Bank continues to be committed to Safeguarding, and to endorsing the ethos that Safeguarding is everyone’s business.

23/10/2023 Mary Davidson (Safeguarding Designated Lead) Lynne Morelli (Safeguarding Designated Lead)

AGM Financial Position Update 27/10/23 (Colin Scammell – Treasurer and Trustee)

	Food
	Baby				Mileage
	Toiletries	Bags	Building	Insurance	Fuel	Phone
2023 (as at 27/10/23)	£25,880.04	£674.98	£48.50	£129.10	£304.97	£60.00
2022 (Jan to Dec)	£14,485.91	£1,515.21	£0.00	£99.31	£64.41	£72.00
School lunches spend 2023	£3,346.05
School lunches spend 2022	£1,099.98
Regular Donatons per month	£966.00	Standing orders, internet banking during Sept			payments	*includes two laptops
CO-OP Donatons YTD	£253.64	Donation tins
Farm Bakery Shop YTD	£124.95	Donation tin
Bank Account
Credit as at 27/10/23	£19,262.09
Investments
Cambridge & Countes	£10,000.00	Matures 23/11/23 3.3%

Charity- Amble Foodbank Statement of accounts for the December 2023 no 1 Janua 202& 31 Income R1Ved enditure lies Mone Food su Ba RenUElectric Insurance Buildin Diesellmilea Trainin & DBS checks Office su lies Mobile Phone Total Ex enditure 31,440.37 674.98 0.00 129.10 48.50 409.37 319.20 1311.06 72.00 34 404.58 Grants Donations Gift Aid Interest on investment 10 000.00 28 532.10 2,133.15 330.00 Total Income 40 995.25 Balance at bank Cash in Hand Investment Cambridge & Counties Bank 21,525.59 0.00 20.330.00 Year start bank balance Year start cash in hand Year start Investment 23,544.24 0.00 10,000.00 Profit on ear 8,311.35 41, 855.59 Grand total 41855.59 I declare that the above is a true staternent of the tra?sactions carried out during the financial year 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023 Colin Scammell Treasurer 9 January 2024 Independent Examination Name: 141 Ji i D IV Date: t6 - 07-Zl*-