Today is Just Giving Tuesday. It is a day of global giving, a chance when everyone can do something to support the good causes that mean so much to us all. At West Norfolk Befriending we value all our supporters and volunteers and realise that without them the charity wouldn’t function. However, in order to provide our befriending service to the socially isolated, elderly, local community it is essential that we receive donations. The service itself is free to the client but we rely on grants and donations to offer this service. We are a small team, and your money will directly impact the people we support.

£15 funds one face to face befriending visit

£40 funds a client attending one of our social events

£150 funds birthdahy cards for all our clients each year

£300 funds telephone befriending support for an older person for a year.

There are a number of ways you can donate. We welcome cash or cheque donations sent to our office. Or you can donate online through a number of portals. You can also set up a monthly donation to help us even more.

🔹Just Giving https://www.justgiving.com/wnbefriending

🔸WN Wins https://www.westnorfolkwins.co.uk/…/west-norfolk…

🔹Amazon Smile https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/chpf/homepage?orig=%2F

🔸 easyfundraising https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/wnbefriending/

🔹Please get in touch if you are interested in fundraising for us. Maybe you would like to organise a coffee morning or set yourself a challenge to support our work. Get in touch and we can support you in your fundraising efforts.

Alternatively, you can donate your time and become a valued volunteer and enable us to increase the number of isolated people we could help.

Last week we celebrated our 20th Anniversary with an event at Thaxter’s Coffee Shop. We invited our volunteers and clients to celebrate with us along with members from our board of Trustees. Our guest of honour was the Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk, Kathryn Buscall who stepped in to represent our Patron, Lady Dannat, Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk. She made a speech about the importance of combating loneliness and commented ““I had a wonderful time on Tuesday and couldn’t have been more pleased to meet you all”. Our chairman stated in his speech that over the 20 years West Norfolk Befriending has been offering the befriending service we have helped over 2000 isolated older people.

Thaxter’s Coffee Shop did a wonderful job of providing sandwiches, cakes, scones and refreshments to everyone. We also had a special commemorative cake made by Val Gooding of King’s Lynn Sugar Craft group which the Deputy Lieutenant kindly agreed to cut with the help of one of our past clients.

It was an afternoon spent with much warmth and conversation. It was good to see so many of our volunteers and clients having fun.

We are seeking a new Treasurer to join our Board of Trustees to help oversee and guide everything that West Norfolk Befriending does.

The Treasurer plays a major role in terms of organisational decision-making and developments.

Whilst experience of managing budgets and analysing financial data is not essential it would be helpful in the role of Treasurer.

Please download the role description for full details and instructions of how to apply.

We will be celebrating Befriending Week 1-7 November and will be thanking all of our invaluable volunteer befrienders who give up a little of their time every fortnight to make a difference to the life of a socially isolated, elderly person. Befriending can make a real difference to the life of both our clients and our volunteers and the feedback we receive proves this. We are always happy to receive applications for new befrienders and in times like these, where donating financially isn’t always an option, donating the gift of time can be just as important.

James Wild completed the London marathon in a time 3hrs 37mins 15s. He was officially England’s 2nd fastest MP in the race!  At the last count he has raised £1132.50 so far for West Norfolk Befriending. This will go a long way to help keeping our services going.

Last week, we held our AGM. Our Board of Trustees, staff and volunteers came together to review the year, approve the accounts and elect and re-elect members of the board. It was lovely to meet in person (with cake!) after two years of virtual AGM’s on zoom.

We’re delighted to present our Annual Report for this 2021 – 2022 year.

We are delighted to have been awarded funding to explore wills and legacy fundraising at West Norfolk Befriending. This would be a new source of funding for us and would help to ensure the longevity of the charity. It would help the financial sustainability of our work supporting socially isolated older people.

Through this project we will work with a fundraising consultant, connect with local businesses and engage the community. Supported by Norfolk Community Foundation through Your Big Idea.

For the first time since the pandemic we gathered clients, volunteers, staff and trustees together to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee.

It was a lovely day, the music was lovely and what a nice room!

A client

Thank you to the Norfolk Community Foundation for supporting this event through the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk’s Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Fund. Thankyou to the The Filling Station for the yummy sandwiches, scones and cakes. We were treated to a wonderful performance by Heacham Songsters with lots of opportunity to sing along.

So many of our volunteers helped with giving lifts, making tea and setting up and packing up the hall – we couldn’t have done it without you, thank you!

Thankyou to Your Local Paper for some lovely photos and write up. We’re already looking forward to our next event!

Recently, Pippa May, West Norfolk Befriending’s Chief Executive was delighted to attend the weekly session of Heacham Songsters and be presented with a cheque for £300. This donation will be used towards our next social event for all our isolated clients.

We are always delighted when a local group has raised money to support our vital work with socially isolated older people and their unpaid family carers.

The Heacham Songsters are Back in Business

For many years the Heacham Songsters have been presenting concerts to local community groups in and around the area, including residential establishments etc with any donations handed at year end to local charities.  We were not functioning during the covid pandemic but now we are raring and ready to go again. If your local community group etc would like us to present a concert for you, please telephone Peter Francis on 01485 534031.  Please leave a message if there is no answer.

December is always a busy month for us here at West Norfolk Befriending. Here’s a little round up of what we’ve been up to for Christmas this year.

Thankyou to our super volunteer Dot and her grandson Ben who decorated our tree in the Dersingham Christmas Tree Festival – we love the homemade decorations and look at that star! The festival was at St Nicholas’ Church from 3rd to 23rd December.

We received 70 handmade & finely decorated Christmas cakes generously donated by our friends & supporters at King’s Lynn Sugarcraft Club. We have now personally delivered a cake and other goodies to each of our clients – it’s a huge job and one we love! There’s even more photos of the cakes in this Lynn News article.

We were delighted to be able to have a small Covid-safe volunteer meeting. It was lovely to see each other and celebrate a successful year of befriending. Our volunteers have been making doorstop deliveries to our clients. They received a christmas cake (donated by King’s Lynn Sugarcraft Club), packet of tea (donated by Morrisons King’s Lynn), mince pies, crackers and biscuits (donated by King’s Lynn Tesco), puzzle book, small tin of shortbread, pen and notepad from Lily.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2022.