Our six standing programmes
Six small commitments. Each one named, dated, and explicable to the parish that funds it.
Almost everything we do sits inside one of these six programmes. They have been refined over decades — some, like the Wassail Fund, are forty years old — and the trustees review the full set each spring. The descriptions below are how the trustees themselves describe each programme in the minute book.
01 · Befriending · since 2014
Sunday Doors.
A fortnightly visiting round for sixty-four older neighbours across the ancient parish of Arnold. Each befriender holds two doors — two households, visited on Sunday afternoons between 14.00 and 17.30. The visits run all year, including August, including the week between Christmas and New Year.
The brief is plain: put the kettle on, read the post, ask after the children and the cat, notice anything that wants mending. Befrienders carry a single-sheet log to record anything they think the trustees should know — a boiler making a noise, an arrear letter on the kitchen counter, a low cupboard.
- Beneficiaries 64 older neighbours · 18 pairs of befrienders
- Geography Killisick · Daybrook · Woodthorpe · Redhill · Front Street
- Supported by St Mary the Virgin · Gedling parish welfare
- Average tenure 4.2 years per partnership
02 · Fuel grant · since 1971
Winter Doorstep.
A small, named fuel grant of between £80 and £200 paid out between November and March to households flagged by parish welfare workers, school welfare leads, district nurses, churchwardens, or a neighbour with a sharp eye. Each grant is paid as a paper grocer's voucher or, on request, as a direct payment to the household's energy supplier.
No application form. No proof of income. No interview. The household is contacted by a trustee on the same week, asked only what would help most, and the grant is folded into a single sheet of typed paper and delivered the next day. We aim for the median time from referral to delivered grant to stay under five working days. In 2025–26 it sat at four.
- Grant size £80 to £200 · median £85
- Target 2026 180 households · £14,400
- Window Nov to spring thaw
- Supported by Gedling Borough Council welfare team
03 · School-uniform grant · since 1996
First Bell.
A late-summer grant of up to £120 per child, paid in the last fortnight of August to families with children entering the parish primaries — Daybrook Junior, Killisick Junior, Woodthorpe Infant, Robert Mellors Primary — and the two parish secondaries, Arnold Hill Academy and Redhill Academy. The grant covers shoes, a coat, a PE kit, and the bits a family would rather not have to apologise for in week one.
Referrals come from the school welfare leads each July. The trust does not see the children's names — only the school, the year group, and the bank details for the bursary route the school routes the grant through.
- Grant size Up to £120 per child
- Children helped 78 last year · 92 the year before
- Window 18 to 31 August
- Supported by Arnold Hill Academy · Redhill Academy welfare teams
04 · Christmas relief · since 1985
Wassail Fund.
Ninety hampers delivered door to door in the week before Christmas, in partnership with the Mothers' Union at St Mary's. Each hamper carries a fruit cake, tinned soups, a tangerine, a tin of biscuits, a small toy if there is a child in the household, and a £40 grocer's voucher. The number has been ninety since 1985 — when the Mothers' Union packed the first cohort in the parish hall — and the trustees have argued, gently, against expanding it.
The hampers are wrapped in plain brown paper. They do not carry the trust's name. They do not carry a Christmas card with our logo on it. The volunteer driver who delivers each hamper hands it over, says a kind word, and moves on.
- Hampers 90 · stable since 1985
- Voucher per hamper £40 grocer's voucher
- Window Third weekend in December
- Supported by Mothers' Union, St Mary the Virgin
05 · Partner grant · since 2018
Parish Pantry.
A standing quarterly grant of £600 to the food larder at St Paul's, Daybrook, and a smaller £200 monthly grant to the Arnot Hill community fridge run from the back of Arnot Hill House. The grants cover fresh produce, nappies, and the small running bills — the freezer's electricity, the rota's mileage, the kettle.
We do not run the larders ourselves. We do not direct them. We pay in, and we ask the volunteers who run them for a short half-page report each quarter, which the trustees read and file in the minute book.
- Annual grant £4,800 across both partners
- Households reached 142 per month in 2026
- Supported by St Paul's Daybrook · Arnot Hill Community Larder
- Geography All four parish wards
06 · Emergency household repair · since 2023
Quiet Repair.
A small discretionary fund for an emergency boiler call-out, a replacement cooker, or a new fridge for a household where the alternative is doing without. Quiet Repair is the newest of our standing programmes — the trustees added it in 2023 after noticing how often the Winter Doorstep applications mentioned the same broken appliance.
The fund pays the supplier or the engineer direct. The trust holds a short list of three engineers in the parish who will accept our purchase order and will be at the door within twenty-four hours. The household never sees the bill.
- Grant size Up to £600 per household
- Repairs in 2025 22 boilers · 8 cookers · 6 fridges
- Response Engineer at the door within 24 hrs
- Supported by Three local engineering firms (on quiet agreement)
