Rotary nominated Charities for 2017/18 ('Headline' charities')

• Scarborough Survivors
• SASH – Safe And Sound Homes
• Springhead School
• Dial-a-Ride

DIAL - A - RIDE

On 4 October 2017 we were pleased to welcome Julie Banks, General Manager Scarborough Dial a Ride, and her deputy Tim Lawson to our meeting.  Julie ran through the history of this important community transport activity, from its inception over twenty years ago to the present day, when eleven buses, and over forty volunteer drivers and escorts provide vital services to a wide variety of members of the Borough.

As Julie pointed out, the occasional or regular trip with Dial a Ride, perhaps to the doctor, shopping, to Bingo or to a lunch club, may be the only time that the passenger speaks to anyone in that week.

It’s not just a transport service, the Dial a Ride folk keep in touch with their customers in a unique way.  Julie stressed the dependence that the service has on volunteers, and made a loud plea for Cavaliers to consider supposing the service-  heaven knows, some of us may need it soon and we need to give it all the help we can, says JK, volunteer driver. 

As Cavaliers will be aware, President Chris and the Club have selected Dial a Ride as one of our four main nominated Community charities this year, and Julie and her team are very grateful for this support. It may help them buy a power wash to clean the three buses used at the Dragon Boat event.

SASH – Safe And Sound Homes

SASH prevents 16-25 year olds from becoming homeless by offering them a room in the home of a volunteer. We work across York, North Yorkshire and East Yorkshire. We help some of the most vulnerable young people in the region avoid homelessness. 

Youth homelessness is very much a hidden problem.  Because young people tend to stay on friends’ sofas or floors, they are not usually seen sleeping rough.  However, this practice exposes them to abuse and can put their long-term future at risk through loss of employment or dropping out of education.

We believe that the best place for a young person at a time of crisis is in a home environment. Therefore, we work with volunteer ‘hosts’ to provide accommodation. Our hosts are ordinary people with a spare room who want to help young people in their local community who are facing a difficult time in their lives. In most cases, these young people have nowhere to go due to a family breakdown. They might also be fleeing abuse or be unable to stay with a parent who is experiencing severe mental health problems.

Thanks to our hosts, we can offer young people much more than just a roof over their head. Through our emergency Nightstop service, they will get a hot evening meal, a chance to have a bath or shower and wash their clothes, and breakfast the next morning. Just as importantly, the young person has someone to talk to should they wish, and does not feel they must face their problems alone. While the young person is staying in Nightstop, other agencies such as the local council will be working to find them appropriate long-term accommodation.

Our Supported Lodgings scheme again offers a room in a host’s home, but is longer-term solution for those who are not yet able to live on their own. It gives them a chance to regain some stability and learn the skills they will need to move on independently – for example budgeting, cooking, tenancy rights and responsibilities. 

For all these young people, it is crucial for their future wellbeing to ensure that their homelessness is not compounded by dropping out of college or losing their job. Therefore, our focus is on ensuring the young person can remain in, or re-engage with, education, training or employment.

Scarborough Survivors is a registered charity, founded in 1994.  It operates a Resource Centre in Alma Square in the town. The centre is open from 1.00pm – 4.30pm Monday to Thursday and currently has over 400 service users on its books.

As part of its work it offers a local self-help group covering Scarborough and the surrounding area and is made up entirely of people, with direct experience either personal, as a carer, relative or friend, of mental help problems. A key element of the Survivors chief officers work is to represent the voice of the service user on a wide range of committees and groups locally, such as the Crisis Care Concordat.

Presently, they receive revenue support annually from North Yorkshire County Council, The Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust, and the NHS Scarborough and Ryedale Clinical Commissioning Group. Some £39,000 in all.  This core funding allows the charity to financially operate on a break-even situation and it employs one part-time member of staff.

The chief officer, Andrea Woolcott, explained that their basic needs are to: -

o   Attract more volunteers to help with straightforward admin. and reception duties; (They have 4 volunteers now).

o   Additional trustees. The Board meets monthly and has 4 trustees, two of whom are members of Scarborough Cavaliers Rotary. The Chair is Carolyn Knaggs

o   Open 5 days a week (currently 4 afternoons)

o   Open 7-days a week

Additional opening hours would need extra funding.

The charity has a business plan and a set of objectives and has long-term ambitions to be a “Care House”. They do occasionally work with other charities in the mental health field, like Northern Lights and First Light. {MW}

We are an all-age specialist school for cognition and learning - a community special school based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire

We admit pupils aged 2 – 19 with a wide range of special educational needs and disabilities, which include complex moderate, severe and profound learning difficulties and disabilities and which may also include autistic spectrum condition, physical or sensory needs and social / emotional and mental health needs.

We are an executive school within the Scarborough Teaching Alliance, and take an active role in working collaboratively to promote innovation and research in a range of areas including pedagogy, technology, and teacher training.

The values that shape our school are those of respect, integrity and a positive attitude, and we offer unconditional positive regard to all our pupils. Some of our pupils have yet to experience success in their learning. We aim to teach creatively, our practice based on effective learning strategies, ensuring that the pupils' development and our expectation goes in the same direction and are appropriate and realistic for our children and young people. We know that we achieve better outcomes for pupils if their starting point is that of being engaged, relaxed and excited to learn.

A number of charities were nominated by Dragon Boat Sponsors to benefit from the fund raisng efforts of their paddlers, as well as the four 'headline' charities (above) nominated by Rotary.  

Cheques were distributed at a  'ceromony' at the Downe Arms in October and many of the beneficiaries listed below attended :