Over the year 2022/23 we are grateful to have had the on-going support of our volunteers :
Home Start South & East Belfast Committee & Staff 2022/23
Chairperson Joanna McQuillan Management Committee - Rosemary Clarke (Vice Chair) Eileen Anghel (Treasurer) Breda Connolly Marion Khosravi Linda Kirk Kathryn (Safeguarding Advisor) Scheme Organiser Eelco Westerhuis (Secretary to Trustees) Secretary Jacky Sinclair Family Support Worker Michelle Boyde Registered Office 140 Albertbridge Road Belfast BT5 4GS Auditors O'Hara Shearer 547 Falls Rd, Belfast BT11 9AB, United Kingdom Company Number NIO20434 NI Charity Number NIC106093
Contacting us:
Home-Start South & East Belfast 140 Albertbridge Road Belfast BT5 4GS homestartsebelfast@gmail.com Telephone: 07375642866
Breda Connolly Carol Holmes Phyllis Grier
Katherine Holmes Eileen Anghel Elaine Jones Tadela Wallace Joanna McQuillan Sandra Boyde Rosemary Clarke Paddy Donnelly Nualla McParland Pamela McDowell
Marion Khosravi Noemi De Rosa
Linda Kirk
Home-Start South and East Belfast annual report and accounts 2022-2023
Chair’s Report 2022/23
My first year as Chair of Home-Start South & East Belfast has been challenging, but also very rewarding. Like all voluntary organisations, post covid we are struggling to attract volunteers, both for home visiting and to help in the children’s shop. As home visiting is at the core of the service we provide, recruiting volunteers must remain our main focus.
As ever, funding has also been an issue over the past year. In September 2022, Surestart South Belfast advised that they were withdrawing our funding, thus leaving us with a service to East Belfast only. As a result, some strategic and operational changes were made. We started to explore the possibility of moving our office and shop accommo-
dation to Connswater Shopping Centre which had some vacant units, in order to reduce our operational costs.
Eelco and Jacky both agreed to reduce their hours to 3 days per week and we are very grateful to them for this. At the same time the Committee agreed that Michelle’s role should be changed from Family Support Worker to Organiser Working to a Senior, to provide Eelco with some extra management support and as succession planning.
On a positive note we heard early in 2023 that Bullhouse Brewery had chosen us as their partner charity for the year, with - - some fundraising events organised for 2023 2024. We also received increased funding from the Black Santa sit out, who visited our offices to make a short promotional video about the work we do. Personally I would like to thank Eelco, the Committee and especially Eileen for their ongoing support and advice over the past year, and Jacky and Michelle for their - continuing hard work. Lastly, we wouldn’t be a Home Start charity without our volunteers, both visiting families and running the shop, whose number we can hopefully increase over the next year.
Joanna McQuillan (Chair)
Manager’s Report 2022/23
Treasurer’s Report 2022/23
My first year as Treasurer has been a learning experience. As stated by the Chair, the funding situation has been difficult and may not improve as charities compete for government resources. Eelco has assisted the Committee in the strive for minimal expenditure, prompting the move from the Albertbridge Road premises to Connswater Shopping Centre. Different opportunities for fundraising have been explored with some success. Income from the charity shop has been welcome and should improve in a new location with greater potential for footfall. The drive to recruit volunteers in areas other than home visiting could reduce operational costs. Thanks to all staff and volunteers for their efforts and support.
Eileen Anghel (Treasurer)
ACOUNTS 2022/23
Income 2022/23 Expenditure 2022/23 Salaries/PAYE £ 58,018 Belfast Trust £34,525 Core Costs £ 20,365 Sure Start East Belfast £20,414 Sure Start Inner City South Belfast £ 7,741 Total Costs £ 74,675 Charity Shop £ 2,485 Cathedral Trust/Black Santa £ 1,000 Home-Start UK £ 2,250 Total £68,415
This year continued very much as the previous year had predicted, the cost of living reaching impossible levels for many and daily reports of people having to chose between heating and eating or similar choices. While we are not a provisioning organisation but rather a prevention and early intervention we had to acknowledge that if basic needs are not being met then people are much less likely to accept higher level supports.
We have continued to provide pathways to food banks, white goods and anything that may help families save money they can then use towards basic household needs. As a result of the economic crisis the Children's Charity Shop has also continued to be a very important resource for many families.
Over the year we worked with just over 35 families at different levels of need and we have tried to respond as appropriately and empathetically as possible in managing their needs in what is a continuously changing environment.
As we move forwards we can see that our work is still essential and needed but will have to consider how a changing environment will affect our work in both content and method to keep it viable to families as well as financially to the organisation. Eelco Westerhuis (Scheme Organiser)
Charity Shop Report 2022/23
The Children’s Charity Shop in many ways reached an apex in providing resources for families that really needed them. Our sales were also boosted by some bulk buying through representatives of the Black Santa appeal who in turn donated them to vulnerable families in need.
We are regularly amazed at the kindness of people as they donate good quality clothes and toys that then are absolute essentials for many of our customers. And of course to combat as best we can the current cost of living increases we have not increased any of our prices.
Family Support Worker’s Report 2022/23
This year families continued struggling financially therefore, we needed to help them with their finances before we could provide emotional support. We were able to help with food bags from the food bank, and refer families to store house for food vouchers. We also helped with clothes and toys from our shop and any baby stuff that was needed prams etc.
We were able to help a number of families with vouchers towards school uniforms through the Scaffolding Project.
At Christmas 10 of our families received food hampers from Store House that provided everything they needed for a Christmas dinner. We also received bags of toys from collections held by a number of supporters. We are continuing to look at additional funding to assist and support families with reducing gas and electric bills. We are still continuing to recruit new volunteers to support families.
Due to increased costs and tighter funding we are looking at new premises in Connswater Shopping Centre where we hope to increase shop activity and run a small parent and tots group offering access to basic advice and allowing mums to meet others for additional peer support.
Michelle Boyde (Family Support Worker)
And a big thankyou to the all the shop volunteers who make it a great and pleasant shopping experience.