Major Goals 2017 – 2022
Our Buildings
Our services run from three different venues as follows:
- The Moorlands Centre, leased from East Riding of Yorkshire Council, comprises of a ground floor spanning three masionettes above. We also hold the two upper floors of one of the maisonettes. We struggle with storage space so we also lease a garage near to the Moorlands Centre. The café seats 20 people, the kitchen is inadequate for the meals we prepare now and as we grow it will become more difficult to produce the quantities required. The Centre does not lend its self to any physical activity and we also have to run our Cyber Café for 8 – 13 year old over two floors which increases the risk of children having accidents and means we need additional staff to ensure the children are kept as safe as possible. The garage itself is not water tight so storage is limited to items that will not be compromised by water. The upper two floors have no fire escape and no lift so is not compliant in terms of Health & Safety and under the Equality Act 2010.
Through focus groups, evaluations at all our venues with the Board of Trustees and in the community we have set ourselves the goal of securing a purpose built community centre in Old Goole within the next five years. We will commence with a feasibility study in 2018 to assess the viability of this target.
Meals on Wheels Service
Evaluation of our Meals on Wheels Service demonstrate 96.4% of those receiving our locally resourced, freshly cooked daily meals cooked by us on a regular basis say they feel less isolated and have improved health as a result of our service. We also ask how we may improve our service and suggestions that have been consistently muted are:
- Change the menu more often. Within the next six months we intend to set up a user group who will work with us to plan out the menu and taste test the exciting new recipes we will be producing. We will continue to undertake our quarterly evaluation questionnaire and adapt our menu accordingly to ensure we provide quality, fresh, healthy meals to those who require this. We will also continue with our Net Promoter Score question to assess the quality of the provision.
- Offer the opportunity for people to meet up socially. We are therefore intending to set up a luncheon club in 2018 and offer not only the opportunity to meet socially for a meal but also indulge in social activities and informal talks from professionals that will target issues which can affect older people’s health and wellbeing.
- Provide a structured cost analysis of the provision with a view to providing evidence to show the service can be sustainable in the longer term
- We are also constantly asked by our partners in health and social care, and through inquiries to our service from residents to increase the geographical scope of our Meals on Wheels. We are therefore committing to increase our geographical reach in the next two years to include Snaith, Eastrington & Newport to the east of Goole.
Youth Provision
In 2014 the local authority closed all the youth centres in the Goole area and this severely curtailed any youth activities. The majority of our services run in the second most deprived area in East Riding and anti-social behavior increased significantly in 2015. Residents repeatedly voiced concerns that their sons and daughters had nothing to do and were ‘getting into trouble’. We have therefore committed to not only providing children and young peoples activities four sessions a week but also to provide a programme of activities, in partnership with our statutory and voluntary sector partners, during the school holidays. We are also currently exploring with the local authority to hold the Duke of Edinburgh Award (DofE) license for this area following the resounding success of targeting hard to reach young people involved in anti social behavior onto and completing the Humberside Police Night Challenge consisting of a 14 mile night walk with challenges and tasks built in to raise the issue of Child Sexual Exploitation. Such a programme as the DofE will also contribute to addressing health inequalities, such as the high levels of obesity and smoking in young people in this community.
Migrant Support Service
This service is significantly over subscribed and the worker (currently engaged on an 8 hour contract a week) puts in at least 10 hours voluntary work each week and still has to direct clients to similar services out of town. With the vote to leave the European Union playing on the minds of those who have made the UK their home over the years we can only see the workers time being in more demand. We therefore intend to extend this provision to ensure the worker is adequately paid for their time and to ensure we continue to provide a high quality service to those in need.
Over Sixties Group
Is predominately made up of females and activities centre around bingo and trips out and about either locally or further afield. We feel this could be restricting to certain people so we intend to expand our provision in this area to include access to allotments and a Men in Sheds project, specifically to redress the imbalance of gender (however, we do acknowledge there are fewer men than women within this age bracket due to the differences in mortality rates).
Valuing Our Environment
As a large organisation we amass a vast amount of waste and at present we only recycle 23% of this. We wish to develop a sustainable strategy where we see a mind shift by those working, volunteering or accessing our services to see less waste and an increase in recycling. This demonstrates our commitment to the environment, to the community, and work towards an environmental accreditation.
Trustees, Staffing and Volunteers
We are very proud of the fact we have a strong volunteer programme and they tend to stay with us for several years; our longest serving volunteer has been with us for 22 years! The majority of Trustees are from the local community and come with a wealth of knowledge which contributes to our future direction. We will continue to encourage local residents to volunteer and have set a target in 2018 of recruiting at least 10 volunteers in a range of skills that will complement our provision. We would like to plan and deliver a robust volunteer programme which provides funding for training, marketing and costs of recruiting. Our staff are also mainly from the local community so have a vested interest in providing a good quality reputation. However, we need to expand our staffing structure to accommodate the changes in our service provision. We therefore require:
- A Centre Manager
- A Volunteer Co-ordinator
- A Luncheon Club Activity Co-ordinator
- Additional Cook x 2
- Additional Kitchen/Catering Assistants x 3
- Additional hours for the current Migrant Support Worker
- A full time Administrator/Receptionist
- A full-time Support Worker to support, advocate & appropriately refer individuals who access our services on a range of issues from housing, social welfare, domestic violence, drug & alcohol dependency
- A part-time Environmental Strategy Officer
- Increase our volunteers by at least 20 per year from 2019 onwards
In 2018 – 2019 we would like to see the Board of Trustees expand to include those with experience of business and finance to specifically support us in these areas.
