NOVEMBER NOVEMBER - A MONTH TO REMEMBER!
The first good news of the month was a terrific grant of £25,000 from the Postcode Society Trust that was made possible thanks to players of the People’s Postcode Lottery. We are enormously grateful, as are our vulnerable beneficiaries – so BIG thanks to the People’s Postcode Lottery players!
Then – we were thrilled to hear that our application to pitch to The Funding Network was successful!
The Funding Network is a small charity that connects brilliant non-profits with donors that share their vision of a fair, inclusive and sustainable world. Since 2002, they have been doing this through crowdfunding events, raising more than £17m for 2,400+ non-profits across the world. And now we are going to be one of those charities!
Hammersley Homes has been selected to pitch for £10,000 on 3rd December! Please join us for this FESTIVE CONNECTOR from 5.45pm-9pm at the Macquarie HQ, at 28 Ropemaker Street, London, EC2Y 9HD. It would be wonderful to see lots of our friends and supporters there to cheer us on!
This is a live crowdfunding event hosted by The Funding Network. There will be a drinks reception and canapés, and a fantastic group of people looking to empower small charities. Come along and help us reach our target! If you can’t make it in person, you can watch the Livestream and join in that way. Register to attend here.
Our next excitement is the BIG GIVE CHRISMTAS CHALLENGE – in which we are participating again this year.
We are thrilled to bits to have received Champion Funding from The Hampshire Cricket Foundation who have generously doubled our pledges – so now we are aiming to raise £4,800 in donations during Big Give Week – 3rd to 10th December – in order to reach our target and benefit from the generous pledges we have received. So please consider donating a few £s to our Big Give page during Big Give week, knowing that every pound donated will be matched, and worth double to us. If we reach our £4,800 donation target, that will mean £9,600 for us and will make a big difference to our beneficiaries.
ONE DONATION – TWICE THE IMPACT!
Our eBay shop is filling up – have a look for Christmas gifts! And if you have anything at all that you are considering giving to a charity shop, please think about giving to our charity shop! We would love to receive donations of anything that we can upload for sale in our eBay charity shop – preferably things that are easy to package up and send when sold, so perhaps not glass or porcelain items. But anything else – YES PLEASE! Just let us know and we’ll find a way to collect any donations from you.
What's in the news?
The new Budget has obviously had an impact in a number of ways …. Our Will-Writing partner Rosie O’Hanlon-Hills – from Westcotes Wills – has written a blog for us about the effects of the Budget on inheritance, and the benefits of a charity donation in your Will. Have a read – it’s interesting and enlightening.
Christmas cards… Lovely to receive but a chore to send … so what about sending some eCards this Christmas? Have a look at the range on our Don’t-Send-Me-A-Card page and see if there is anything that that you would like to send to friends and family instead of putting a card in the post.
The Railway Inn Winchester are, for the second year, holding their New Year’s Eve Rootsenanny event as a joint fundraiser for Hammersley Homes and the Music Venue Trust – it’s fabulous of them to be doing this for us and we are, of course, extremely grateful. If you haven’t made your New Year’s Eve plans yet, this promises to be a GREAT evening so book your tickets now!
Meet the team - Richard Rayner, our Treasurer Trustee
We were delighted when you applied to join our Board of Trustees in October 2023 – what was it about Hammersley Homes that appealed to you? What made you want to join us in our work?
I had been considering looking for a volunteer Trustee role for a while. Hammersley Homes seemed a particularly good fit with my background in social housing, location, and my previous personal experience of supporting someone with a mental health illness. Once I met with Louise and Marion, I could see their obvious passion for the mission of the charity, and I felt I could offer a finance and treasury skillset that could add some value to the Board.
It’s already a year since you joined our Board of Trustees as Treasurer, and your accountancy skills are enormously valuable to us – what have you learned in your first year, particularly about what’s involved in being a Charity Trustee? What have you enjoyed about the work, and what have you found challenging?
It is humbling to see the number of good people that volunteer their time, effort and resources to bring a wide range of skillsets to try and push forward the great work done by the charity. Due to Hammersley Homes being a small charity, at times it has pushed me out of my comfort zone (in a positive way!) when the Trustees look to me as the lead authority on finance related issues, but I feel like I am growing into that role. The most challenging element of the role is not being able to provide the level of time commitment that I would love to give due to work commitments!
Where would you like to see the charity in 2 years’ time? What would you like us to have achieved, and how are you able to help us get there?
It would be great if the charity has secured the future of the Outreach services with a longer-term funding arrangement. I also hope that significant progress will have been made in progressing towards an actual physical Hammersley Home.
What advice might you offer to anyone considering becoming a Charity Trustee?
It is amazing just how much demand (and unfilled vacancies) exist for Trustees that can bring a variety of skillsets to charities. I would urge anyone to strongly consider volunteering as a charity Trustee, whether it be for a pure sense of philanthropy, your own personal development, or a combination of both.
Online Shopping for Christmas? – Raise free donations for Hammersley Homes when you shop at 6,000+ stores online using Give as you Live Online! It costs you no more and makes a real difference to us.
REGULAR DONATIONS are particularly valuable to us – they help us with our budgeting, and with our applications to Charitable Trust Funds and Foundations …. and if you feel able to donate a few pounds a month via DONR – quick and easy donations via text message – we would be enormously grateful. To donate £3 a month, text 3HOMES to 70580. Texts cost £3 plus two standard rate messages and you’ll be opting in to hear more about our work and fundraising via telephone and SMS. If you’d like to give £3 but do not wish to receive marketing communications, text 3HOMESNOINFO to 70580. To change the amount of the donation, just change the first number of your text. Thank you!!
