Norwich Foodbank: Update 215, 17 January 2025
Good morning everyone I have personally had a very busy week with 3 meetings back to back on Monday, an all-morning meeting on Tuesday and a zoom in the afternoon, an all-day meeting on Wednesday, hosting a visitor from Ramsey (Cambridgeshire I think!) on Thursday and I’ll shortly be off to an all-morning event! That’s with all the usual phone calls, emails, letters, reading, reports, staff and volunteer catch ups… Isn’t it funny how our time can be like the bus analogy – some weeks with very little happening and some weeks (like this one) with seemingly ‘everything’ going on!
Pathfinder Review
On Wednesday, we had our annual Pathfinder review, which started off with a compliment from Trussell staff that Norwich foodbank is seen as ‘strong and independent’ within the network of foodbanks, in the activities / progress / vision we have – such a lovely way to start the time of reflection and future planning. Katherine, Keir and I shared successes and challenges from the past 12 months – of which there were many including:
Successes – the regular meetings we have convened of our advice and support partners to aid team-work and to ensure we’re kept up to date on specific clients and when there are changes to services; engagement with MPs ahead of the pre-election hustings and a foodbank specific question being asked at all 4 we attended; the clients we have met and spoken to to get their stories and start to build a ‘lived experience’ group – and we have our first meeting this month!
Challenges included: engaging with MPs (yes, we saw it as both a ‘success’ and ‘challenging’!); the steep learning curve of joining the OLM (Organising and Local Mobilisation) programme with Trussell which was our first step into the world of campaigning and led to us to employing Jon as our Volunteers and Campaigns Coordinator just over a year ago (this was most definitely also on our ‘successes’ side because campaigning is a new area for us and the programme and a new member of staff have provided us with so many opportunities and a great steer in the right direction); ensuring help beyond food (i.e. advice and support) is consistently offered and given to clients within centres, on the phone, by email and by referrers as we know it can hit and miss for a huge variety of reasons.
Some of these will improve / evolve over a long time and need more of a drip-feed approach and others will be building to an event or a series of dates and so moving a challenge to a success will look different in every instance. It has shown me (again) the incredible importance to build in regular time to reflect, play devil’s advocate and tease apart possible solutions or ideas.
Interesting Article!
The ‘Directory for Social Change’ produces a regular e-newsLetter I get and I read an interesting article in the new year which I share here. It relates a little to the piece above but standalone is still a really good way to think and go forward into 2025.
Norfolk Anti-Poverty Alliance: Norwich launch
You may remember in the 194th update (28th March 2024 ), following the Bishop’s Breakfast event, the notion of a Norfolk-wide Anti-Poverty Alliance was shared. This idea was developed by NCAN (Norfolk Community Advice Network) and we are pleased to be a part of this alliance, alongside many Norwich and Norfolk charities, Norfolk county council and MPs. There is an official Norwich launch event at the end of next month: Wednesday 26th February, 5–7pm, in The Hostry at Norwich Cathedral, and a non-Norwich event (i.e. ‘wider Norfolk’) will also take place but the date is to be confirmed. This event will explore what is going on / wrong in Norfolk and what we can do as an Alliance to end poverty in our county. A couple of us are definitely attending and we would love to extend the invite to you too so if you are interested and able: sign up here
Multibank
A couple of you shared the Radio 4 Food Programme with us last week, which was highlighting the Multibank concept, spear-headed by Gordon Brown. The programme can be listened to here and there’s also a piece in The Guardian here. The concept is as follows: ‘A Multibank is a clothes, bedding, baby, hygiene, toy and furniture bank all rolled into one. Companies have the surplus goods people need and local charities know the people who need them. The Multibank initiative connects the two to reduce the effects of poverty.’ I first heard of this after a few of you told me about adverts on Sky, asking for financial donations, over Christmas. I don’t know enough about it yet to have an informed opinion and currently it is ‘only’ operating in 6 specific areas in the UK (Scotland, Manchester, Wales, London) but it has already grown from being purely in Scotland to the whole of the UK, with national backing from businesses, celebrities and the public. There is no mention of food and so I’m pleased at the apparent lack of duplication of provision. My hope is that it could be something Trussell nationally will look at (and, if appropriate, partner with at that level) and then we can look at a more local approach in time. Another ‘watch this space’…
Matchstick Norwich Cathedral
You may have seen this on the BBC news homepage as I did, but there was a recent article showing the finished product of a 5 year project, building a model of Norwich Cathedral out of matchsticks! Nothing to do with foodbank, but Norwich-based news I thought you may enjoy!
GOOD NEWS
We have the stats and feedback on our Christmas ‘Giving Tree’ project, organised entirely by Rachel We received requests from 8 separate referrers and, thanks to donations of presents and money – including from some of you! – we were able to provide 197 gifts to children and parents. We were thrilled that so many people gave to our appeal and received some really wonderful feedback from three separate referrers:
Referrer 1: ‘I just wanted to say a huge thank you from us all for the support you have given our families this year. The presents you so kindly donated to our families have given such joy and are so appreciated.’
Referrer 2: ‘I just wanted to say a massive THANK YOU for arranging the gifts, they were amazing and one family was quite simply lost for words. The impact these gifts will make is incredible and I am personally so very grateful for all you do’
Referrer 3 for one specific family: ‘I am moved by your generosity and goodwill. I am writing to pass on heartfelt thanks from the family you helped on Friday 20th December 2024. You may remember that school made a last minute SOS request for help for a family in order that the children could have a Christmas. Today the father of the family came to see me and gave me such intense heartfelt thanks which was very moving. He has specifically asked that I pass on his thanks to everyone involved in helping with the food, household items and presents. I don’t think I have ever received such a heartfelt thanks in all my years at school supporting families. Your good will and hard work for our families is beyond measure. Personally, thank you for helping me on that day, to in turn help this family. I really felt that you had got it all covered. It was an immense relief.’
Happy Friday everyone and thank you for all you do.
Hannah