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SWIM FOR ABINGDON

ACWT have persuaded the White Horse Leisure Centre to run a special Abingdon event Swim for Abingdon. All proceeds will be for Abingdon Charities Working Together so it will really help all small community charities in our town.

Date – Saturday 27 September 2008

The event will start at 6 o’clock for 6.30pm to allow swimmers to do up to 5Km.

• Challenges of different distances

• 200 lengths (5km)

• 100 lengths and

• 60 lengths

• Aimed at both individuals and teams

We want families to come as a team – you could spilt 60 lengths between you so everyone has a challenge to suit them.

More sporty individuals can go for the longer distance.

Other groups can enter teams and even compete for times and amount of sponsorship!

We need entrants and volunteers to help encourage more swimmers and supporters.

There will be a party / buffet for participants afterwards starting at 9pm until 10.30pm, with extra tickets on sale to supporters and friends.

We will be contacting lots of local groups to ask them to join in – but do please contact us. (01235 520404)

Up-date from the LOCAL YOUTH MENTORING SCHEME (LYMS) (7 February 2008)

We are working hard to support vulnerable and disadvantaged young people aged 10 to 14 in Abingdon and Berinsfield. We used previous donations to help run our highly cost-effective mentoring projects, supported partly by the local authorities (Vale of White Horse District Council and South Oxon DC) and other donors such as Children in Need and The Children’s Fund in Berinsfield. 

By using volunteers as adult mentors to provide weekly contact with the young person for a year we are providing value at least twice the cash funding required.

This is our 7th year of operation but a critical one for future funding. 

Our reserves of start-up funding dried up some time ago, while our attempts to secure new funding, especially for the Abingdon project have not kept up, despite a very welcome £10,000 from Abingdon Town Council in 2007, and continuous support from Vale of White Horse District Council. Most of our funders have a policy of gradually reducing their support and we so have reduced costs as far as possible. 

This pattern is very common for small charities and we have been trying to address this for the last 2 years. 

However, good news, which we heard only in December, is that our application to The Children’s Fund for 2008/09 has been successful and enable the Berinsfield project to continue. 

South Oxon District Council – despite budget cutbacks - has indicated funding for 2008/09 of £2,325, but this will not be confirmed until at least February 2008. 

The volunteer adult mentor/young person relationship continues at least for one year. LYMS Management Committee would not be responsible to start a programme with a young person if we cannot guarantee being able to continue support for the full period. Therefore, we have arranged with our partner, the Oxon Youth Mentoring Service (OYMS) to suspend activity in Abingdon in December 07 – we hope for no more than 6 months. 

All donations received via ACWT for LYMS will be held specifically for the Abingdon project and will help to maintain service in future.

Thank you again to our volunteers and our supporters

Penny Clover
Volunteer fundraiser and previous youth mentor on the scheme 

Increasing public awareness (3 Aug 2007)

This new site hopefully will increase public awareness of Abingdon Charities Working Together and as a result enable it to increase the amount of money it raises for the five charities concerned.

Raising public money

Abingdon Charities Working Together will continue to seek to do this primarily through Payroll Giving and Gift Aid. For, where successful, donations given in either way should ensure a steady income through the years ahead.

Why is the raising of local money necessary, when the National Lottery was set up purposely for the raising and distribution of money to "good causes" throughout the United Kingdom? Government and other funders such as local authorities, are concentrating on the types of groups that can deliver "public services". This means that around 90% of smaller charities, including those working with local people, are ineligible.

Olympic Effect - if you wish some idea of this, type in the words "loss of funding from National Lottery because of the 2012 Olympics". It should bring you up in excess of 35,000 results, but the first 2 or 3 pages alone will be enlightening.

As a result, other grant funders are seeing a massive increase in demand of the monies they have for distribution. For example, the Local Youth Mentoring Scheme (one of our five charities) has previously successfully applied for grants from BBC's Children in Need. This year the rejection letter told of a record amount of £64 million being raised and that this would be spent over two grant rounds. In November last year, £32 million was available, for which £94 million of applications have been received.

Therefore it is surely essential that if our five local charities are to continue, then as much local money as is possible, must be raised within the Community that benefits directly from their work. So Abingdon Charities Working Together is now renewing its efforts to find local support. A small amount of money each month, through either one of the schemes mentioned, from those that can afford it, will help.

You can view the forms concerned on this site by clicking on the Giving link.

If you would like more detail please e-mail or phone.

We shall continue to update this website, particularly the News page, on a regular basis, and will be pleased to have your comments and suggestions.

Thank you and do please help.

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