Agenda item

To receive a presentation from Gill Gibson, Charity Manager and Ian Graham, Treasurer, Surrey Heath Age Concern.

Gill Gibson, Charity Manager, and Ian Graham, Treasurer, gave a presentation in respect of the work of Surrey Heath Age Concern.

Surrey Heath Age Concern received a grant of £10,000 from Surrey Heath Borough Council; a figure that equated to approximately one third of the group’s total budget.  The charity employed three part-time members of staff working a total of 38 hours a week. 

The Group’s main objective was to enhance the lives of older people living in the Surrey Heath area.  This was done through three main activities: a visiting and befriending service, the provision of the Rainbow Café in Camberley and Tea and Chatter sessions. 

The Visiting and Befriending Service used a network of volunteers to provide companionship and reassurance to older people living in the Borough.  Volunteer befrienders were carefully matched with their older person and received training before they started making visits.  Volunteers were expected to make at least one one hour visit a week to the person they were matched with and visits could be made at any mutually agreed time including evenings and weekends.  In addition to providing companionship, befrienders also fed any concerns that they might have back to Age Concern to ensure that problems were dealt with appropriately.  The service was provided free of charge and was heavily oversubscribed.

The Rainbow Café in Camberley town centre was run by a part-time manager supported by 36 volunteers.  In addition to offering snacks and drinks to the over fifties the café also provided free monthly ‘Tea and Tech’ sessions so that older residents could learn new computer skills.  It was reported that the café currently managed to cover its costs and takings had doubled since the recent refurbishment.

In May 2015, monthly Tea and Chatter sessions were set up to enable older people to socialise on Sunday’s and help counter-act loneliness.  These sessions attracted up to 45 people a month and Age Concern was working with the housing associations to make use of under-utilised communal areas in residential homes so that the scheme could be expanded.

Arising from Members’ questions and comments the following points were noted:

·         Managing the activities of the volunteers was particularly resource intensive and the waiting list for the volunteer befriending service had been temporarily closed to new applicants to ensure that the service was provided to an appropriate standard.

·         The majority of those using the Rainbow Café were in their 80s and 90s.

·         It was clarified that Surrey Heath Age Concern was independent of the national Age Concern organisation.

·         It was suggested that experiential marketing would help raise awareness of the services offered.

·         The possibility of Age Concern using Tringhams minibuses on Sundays to transport people to its tea and chatter groups would be explored outside the meeting.

The Committee thanked Surrey Heath Age Concern for their update and commended them for the work that they did.