Shaftesbury Refugee Group AGM 2024
Our Trustees met in public to hear the Chair and Treasurers’ ’reports and to reflect on our achievements and priorities for the future.
The full reports can be found here.
Hosts Richard and Pamela, and This is Alfred reporter, Noel were on hand to listen to the reports and raise questions.
Noel’s interview can be heard here.
Listen from 38 mins 34 secs
Achievements in the last year
A summary of our achievements and performance:
The numbers of people (displaced people, hosts), our service has been in direct contact with so far this year reduced slightly as some Ukrainian guests have returned to Ukraine but remains over 200
We have had 57,324 visits and 53.477 unique visitors to our website from 76 countries since it was launched in May 2022, and in the period of this report an average of 2,243 unique visits per month for advice and support online, up from 1,500 in the previous year.
Our Treasurer’s Finance Report, which follows, shows our income in the period to December 31st 2023, was £26,221.38, our income in 2022 was £10,804. The greatest reason for the increase in funds was linked to the expenditure on the visit of Kyiv City Ballet.
We arranged the visit of Kyiv City Ballet which is reported on more fully in the appendix and was attended by over 500 people.
We have arranged 8 more social events that have helped people in the Homes for Ukraine scheme to connect with each other. These were attended by over 350 people and also raised funds to support our work. They included the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show, Independence Day, The visit of Kyiv City Ballet, Wimborne and Kingston Lacy, Christmas lino cutting workshop, Yoga sessions, Make a Film in a week, Flavours of Ukraine, Stand with Ukraine, Maslenitsa, Vyshyvanka, Ivan Kupalo, The Spring Countryside Show, Neurographica session, Semley Music Festival, and PotFest.
With our partners DonateIT, we have distributed a number of laptops, tablets and phones, and offered grants for printers to meet the educational and professional needs of refugees.
With our partners Friends of Guys Marsh Prison we have distributed 8 sewing machines.
With our partners Marnhull Tennis Club we have enabled children and adults to join and be coached.
We have reflected with hosts on the experience of hosting to learn the lessons for supporting new hosts and helped with matching new guests.
We have written articles for local papers, spoken on local radio many times and used our events to raise awareness of the plight of displaced people and these have maintained over 100 Friends of our charity from the local community, and over 50 partner organisations.
We have maintained a group of 19 volunteers 10 of whom are providing conversational English sessions with 11 refugees whilst others support IT donations, translation and photography.
We have supported Ukrainian guests who have moved into private accommodation, faced bereavement and forthcoming births.
We have supported Syrian refugees who have successfully applied for and gained their British citizenship. A wonderful thing to celebrate. We have helped them develop their businesses, The Hammouds’ Kitchen and Kabab Ji, Syrian Cuisine through opportunities for catering at our quizzes and via their websites.
We have provided 30 week long places at a 5 week long summer school with our partners English Country Schools and Port Regis.
We have liaised with the Dorset Council resettlement team and support workers locally where families have encountered hardship or additional challenges. We have very good trusting relationships with Dorset Council and other statutory agencies.
We have represented our group at Dorset Together meetings, enabling us to link to wider services and partners across Dorset.
We have opened Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn social accounts to make our work more visible.
We have instituted a clearer and data safe newsletter service through MailChimp
We have met regularly as Trustees and developed a Business Plan that sets out our ambitions and approach for the next four years. We have secured funding that will enable us to achieve our goals for the coming year.
Where we are headed in the next 4 years (from our Business plan 2024-28)
We have established a range of services that we should maintain. These are detailed above and will include for at least the next 4 years
A reliable centre for bespoke practical advice for displaced people
English Conversations and befriending
Transport support
Digital Inclusion
Cultural events that celebrate displaced people and the richness they add to our community
Educational support for children with additional events focused on their inclusion and language development
In addition we want to focus in the next 4 years on the following
Helping the people of Shaftesbury, Gillingham and the adjacent towns and villages recognise how special their current offer of sanctuary has been to people who have been displaced and how that can continue into the future with our area becoming a place of Sanctuary.
Increasing the range of refugees that the community can support in particular helping with the settlement of Afghan and Hong Kong families, unaccompanied minors and the victims of future conflicts.
Building our capacity to provide sustainable support to refugees and those who support them by
Establishing stronger relationships with other services and organisations supporting displaced people.
Increasing the number of volunteers and ensuring they have the skills and experience to fulfil their motivation to give support to those most in need.
Increasing the range of skills and the number of Trustees, taking account of the need to have some succession plans in place for founding Trustees
Securing reliable sources of funding for our running costs
