Our mission
Relief of poor persons resident in the ancient parish of Arnold.
That is the charitable object the Charity Commission has on file for us. It is one short line and it has not changed since 1964. Everything we do on this site is, in one form or another, an answer to it.
Charitable object · on file at the Charity Commission
Relief of poor persons resident in the ancient parish of Arnold.
Filed under registration number 220057. The trust operates as a parent body with linked constituent charities; the full constitution is available on request from the office at 73 Arnot Hill Road.
How we think the work works
A small, slow theory of change in three quiet steps.
We are wary of grand theories of change. We are equally wary of pretending we do not have one. The three steps below are the way the trustees actually talk about our work — at quarterly meetings, in trustee correspondence, and at kitchen tables across the parish.
Step 01 · See
A neighbour notices.
Almost every grant we make begins with someone who already knew the household — a parish welfare worker, a head of year at Arnold Hill, a district nurse, a churchwarden, a neighbour. The trust does not advertise for cases. We are pointed at them.
Step 02 · Sit
We listen first.
A trustee or befriender visits, sits, has a cup of tea, and writes the case in the household's own words. There is no questionnaire. We carry a single sheet of paper and a soft pencil. The household is read their words back and can ask for any of them to be removed.
Step 03 · Settle
A small grant. Quietly.
Where the case fits, the chair plus two co-trustees agree a small grant under standing authority and a folded letter is delivered the same week. Larger grants wait for the next quarterly meeting. The household is never asked for thanks and never asked to perform anything in return.
Six rules we hold to
The standing rules of a parish trust, written down so we can be held to them.
These are the rules our chair pins on the kitchen wall before every quarterly meeting. They are not, in themselves, especially original. They are kept on the wall to remind us not to drift from them.
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01 · Bound
Only ever the ancient parish.
If a household is outside the historic ecclesiastical boundary, we say so kindly and point them to the right body. The trust does not stray.
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02 · Small
A small grant in the right week beats a large one in the wrong month.
Almost everything we do is a grant of under £250 paid out under standing authority within five working days. Speed is the kindest part.
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03 · Quiet
No fanfare. No photograph.
We do not photograph people receiving help and we do not publish a household's name without their written blessing. Our stories on this site are quoted with consent.
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04 · Trust
A household's own words are enough.
We do not ask for proof of income. We do not ask for receipts. We do not ask the household to justify itself to us. We trust the person who pointed us at the case.
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05 · Stay
Friendship over throughput.
We would rather know one household well for four years than count a hundred we never met. The Sunday Doors partnerships average 4.2 years.
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06 · Be findable
Open paperwork. Filed on time.
Our trustee minute book is open to the parish. Our accounts are filed on time, every year. Our policies on conflict of interest and investment are published.
An honest paragraph
Something we tried, and got wrong.
Between 2017 and 2019 the trustees ran a pilot called Open Mornings, a Saturday surgery held twice a month at the back of Daybrook parish hall. The idea was that people could walk in and ask for a Winter Doorstep grant in person, without needing a parish worker or a school welfare lead to make the introduction. It was meant to widen the door.
It widened the wrong door. The households we already knew did not come. The new households who did come were almost all from outside the parish boundary, and we had to send most of them away with the address of a more appropriate body. The few parish households who did walk in told the trustees, afterwards, that sitting in a queue and asking out loud was the part they had been trying to avoid. We closed the pilot in October 2019 and went back to the doorstep model.
We mention it because it is the kind of thing a small parish trust ought to be honest about. The trust gets things wrong. The chair and the secretary, between them, have approximately one major rethink a year. We try to write them down.