Despair

Brilliant!

Thank you Tegan and Jane

I will miss it but it has been exhausting me for some time , what was so hard was listening to the distress , comforting, but coming home to an empty house I would at times curl up and cry. But There was laughter too.

And the shops, supermarkets and local farmers will be thrilled , I am a good fund raiser because I have no problem with asking/begging /scrounging

I am just thankful there is a place for these lovely people to go, I even thought of using my bungalow but it would have brought problems , I would have done it though

Gosh that's absolutely terrific Anniebach. What wonderful news. Might you struggle a bit to hand over the reins? Its such an odd feeling when something you really hope for actually comes true! Anyway enjoy the relief.

Great news.

Thank you Jingle, no more fund raising and semi retiring , I will take night calls still, but I am relieved the organising and daily running is no longer my worry

That's great annie!

Just want to say MIND has come to the rescue of the drop in centre

Yes DJ he is. Both him and his wife are lovely caring people. Too good for politics.

I always thought that Norman Lamb was too good to be an MP, if you know what I mean.
Thanks, NFK, the more that sign the better.

Have signed DJ for all the good it'll do. Norman Lamb is a local MP and he did his best when he could but seemed to be banging his head against a brick wall. He's still fighting to get folk treated locally and not half way across the country.

Yes , * Welshwife* I am fortunate to be in a nice area. Not rich though. A high ratio of retired though who stir everyone up and motivate them!

www.change.org/p/nhs-islington-bring-my-son-stephen-home-care-for-him-in-our-community-bringstephenhome/u/17627729
Sorry. Thought the second was the update.

www.change.org/p/nhs-islington-bring-my-son-stephen-home-care-for-him-in-our-community-bringstephenhome

Just received this about mental health and autism.
In an update, the parents say that SW have changed their minds and will not send the boy home.
Some people mentioned in the update are three days travel away from family.
That can't be right.

Please sign if you haven't already and put on facebook.

www.change.org/p/nhs-islington-bring-my-son-stephen-home-care-for-him-in-our-community-bringstephenhome

That is good NFK - they must have a good flow of people through there to see that and donate and/or buy. I like the idea of the church too - you must live in a nice area where peop,e will gladly volunteer.

Welshwife. - Our little local supermarket has a table of pre-read books which are donated and resold cheaply. Also DVDs. The money raised goes to local organisations. Also every Monday (market day) the local church has a sort of bring and buy. Planks are put across the pews and donated toys, books, dress jewelry, good clothes etc sold.

Those charity bags which get posted through our doors don't fare too well here as all unwanted stuff has already gone. A shame as they're not posting them nearly so often - I've had to buy bin bags!

I am heartily fed up with people justifying their reluctance to give to charity by putting the old "they pay people high salaries" argument.
There are many different types of organisations operating under the legal status of charity, from U3As to Oxfam and Cancer Research.
I never give to a charity that is local as I can never be sure that their boards of trustees are operating in a professional manner. And I rarely give to charities that have not got their act together to reclaim Gift Aid. Anyone can start a charity in memory of their pet budgie and the charity commission do not have the staff to be able to oversee effectively.
But there are:
charities that are basically membership organisations e.g U3A
charities that run something through the efforts of volunteers - the friends of the local churchyard etc
charities that fund things like refugee aid or cancer research and these have to employ good people if they are to make effective use of funds. The normal state of affairs is that people working in this sector are on employment packages that are seriously inferior to equivalent workers in the state sector
and charities that provide services e.g. Age UK, RNIB, Women's Aid.
I realised a couple of years ago that these big national brands are actually an umbrella under which many local branches sit each of which is a separate charity This means that the "admin costs" look low, if you look at the national organisation. Because they have outsourced most of the employment, and hence the salaries, to the local branches.
My remarks about the "big society" scam by the Tories relates to the last of these categories - those delivering local services. And these are the ones that rely on government funding, which has to be bid for.

I see further down this thread there are comments on the parable of the Good Samaritan. I think you are missing something there.
The question was "Who is my neighbour"
The man who fell among thieves was an ordinary person. The rich man and the lawyer both passed by. The person who stopped to help was from Samaria, a despised set of people. (Think Romanian immigrant!) He didn't see a Jew, an Arab, an Englishman, he saw a man in trouble. And helped.

This has nothing to do with Annie's problems. In Jesus' day, there was no social security, all taxes went to the Romans to keep the Army going. Today, we presume our National Insurance, and taxes go to helping those that need it, but that just isn't happening any more.
Maybe we should all stop paying taxes to the Government and use the money for local support.

Our library is far too smal for the size the town is becoming with all the new houses being built, so the book area has shrunk and shrunk to make way for the children's section, the computers, the DVDs, etc. I used to love being able to just browse the shelves for fiction but that pleasure has gone.

Re EU funding, Norfolk is supposedly rich so has never got much funding from any direction. So we've always had to start things ourselves. Our town council held a meeting five or so years ago to ask what direction the town should go in. It was well attended by foolish people such as myself who suddenly found themselves a member of a Group! Things like dementia support groups meet in church halls with everyone contributes to the cost. Once they're up and running it's usually possible, with enough perseverance, to get a little funding and donations from local councils, supermarkets, anyone who has money and a reason to be nice! Many of the large multinationals have charity funds and are worth approaching. The money is there, it's getting at it that's the problem!

Do you think that here could be a market for people donating new fiction they have bought, read and no longer wish to keep? I sometimes have books I buy to read for for the book club I belong to and some are not really my cup of tea - ipI would happily donate books - and I am not a person who defaces a book in any way. Maybe there could be some sort of local points system where you were given some sort of reward or discount for doing this.

MrBags and I just drove over to Drymen (30 miles away) to take our petrol mower for a service and we were talking about the library issue. He agrees that new fiction books are the problem when there's no local library.

It occurred to me that, so long as one has a valid library ticket, one should be able to phone and ask for a book to be reserved. I haven't tried it myself but I might just to find out if it works. Paying the reservation fee might be an issue but one could pay that when one collected the book, surely? I guess some people might never turn up to collect their book though. Hmm.

We are suppose to be having a new library built thatbags, the one we have in the middle of town was only built in the sixties ,heaven knows where they will build the new one

Not going to start on the council, they closed the town offices and built a new one over a mile outside the town,Mathis means the elderly have to take a taxi

But I'm still unsure about whether I need to get anxious about reduced funding for libraries and about some library closures.

I agree, ab. Some people really rely on libraries. I am not arguing with or disagreeing with that, only pondering about whether as many people, proportionally, need libraries as much as they used to.

Some libraries have expanded their uses to include other community benefits. That's great, but that doesn't address my ponder either.

Stuff like bus passes and disabled parking badges are done at council offices here. Admittedly, they are spanking new council offices. They have adapted and expanded an old school building. It's great.

Our local libraries do buy new books.

Jingle, I read England thinks it should follow Wales in housing the homeless