CLOSER TIES WITH SOMERFORD COMMUNITY CENTRE

The Somerford Community Centre, which serves residents of Somerford and the wider Christchurch area of Dorset is re-organising the structure under which it operates. The charity which runs it has changed its name to the Somerford Youth and Community Centre. As part of the change, GFT Chair of Trustees, Richard Gale, has become a trustee of SYCC. This will cement an already strong connection between the 2 charities.

The GFT’s Bryan Hoile and Richard Gale have been in discussion with Jae Harris, who runs the centre, regarding developing a disused barn in the centre’s grounds into a new community hub. These discussions led to a planning application being put in and granted late in 2020 for a new facility which will provide flexible office, function and meeting rooms.

Some grant funding has already been received which will enable work to start on the first phase of work at the beginning of 2021.

MISSION CHRISTMAS 2020

THE GFT DONATES OVER 11,000 ITEMS OF NEW CLOTHING TO THIS YEAR’S APPEAL

In its 6^th year of supporting Wave 105’s Cash For Kids Mission Christmas appeal, the GFT were presented with the opportunity back at the beginning of September to buy a wholesale clearance consignment of brand-new children’s clothing. The sheer amount of clothing was daunting but at the price offered was too good an opportunity to miss.

Over the next 3 months hundreds of man hours went into wading through over 13,000 items of clothing that had to be sorted into gender and age groups with a number of the items needing repackaging or washing and ironing along the way. Ultimately over 11,000 items ranging from tops and t-shirts to jeans, shorts and leggings to shoes and coats were suitable to be donated to the appeal which provides deprived children and young adults across Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight with presents at Christmas.

The retail value of the gifted clothing was in excess of £70,000 and the GFT are grateful to Andy White of Wholesale Clearance UK, based in Poole, for introducing us to this opportunity.

Read more about Mission Christmas 2020 here

Numbers of clothing:

• Jeans – 1500
• T shirts, tops and blouses – 3,750
• Leggings – 1,000
• Shorts – 650
• Pyjamas – 2,000
• Baby grows – 1,500
• Dresses – 400
• Sandals - 100

MISSION CHRISTMAS – NEARLY MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!

Chair of Trustees, Richard Gale, recounts this year’s unprecedented donation. ‘I received a call from Andy at Wholesale Clearance UK at the beginning of September as he had been asked to sell a consignment of brand-new children’s clothing by a trader who was having to cease trading due to poor health. I immediately went to see what the consignment comprised of and was taken aback at just how much clothing there was which was packed into 90 or so large mail sacks together with 20 or so large boxes.

My immediate reaction was that it was just too big an amount to deal with bearing in mind I had no storage or large space in which to sort it out. Apart from a brief description of what was included within the bags and boxes I had no idea what I was buying but I took the decision to buy it all and hope for the best. We didn’t even know if Mission Christmas was going to go ahead at this point.

Over the next 3 months, and with the help of fellow trustee Bryan Hoile, we sorted through over 13,000 items of clothing involving hundreds of man hours. I had clothes stacked up in just about every room of my house for weeks on end! When the final bags and boxes were delivered to the Mission Christmas warehouse in the middle of December the sense of achievement was matched by the relief that we had done it all in time.

It will be hard to top this next year!’

FOUNDING TRUSTEE, KATH GALE, FALLS VICTIM TO COVID 19

We are saddened to have to report the passing of Kath Gale who died just before Christmas having contracted Covid a week earlier.

This follows the death of Edward Gale, her husband and fellow trustee at the same time of year 3 years ago.

They will be greatly missed by all who knew them.

MAJOR SPONSORSHIP FOR POOLE TOWN FC’s KIDS INITIATIVE

We continue to provide funds to help the football club provide free coaching to local children’s charities. During the summer of 2020 we also joined with local football academy Champion Sports to provide a series of free soccer schools in Hamworthy and Turlin Moor.

However the big sponsorship came when the GFT provided the funds for the Kids Initiative to sponsor Wave 105’s Cash For Kids 1000 Faces appeal earlier in the year. Unfortunately the first Covid lockdown occurred just a week after the launch of the appeal which subsequently struggled to attract its usual support.

CHRISTMAS FOR KIDS 2020 GOES ONLINE

Like so many charities this year, Christmas for Kids faced difficult operational decisions to make. In C4K’s case it was whether or not they would be able to offer their touring puppet roadshows to children’s hospices during the month of December.

An early decision was taken in the summer that this year the show would go on – but online only. The GFT were delighted to once again donate to the production of a new show, Benson’s Christmas Letter, which was made available to 70 hospices and 90 SEND schools across the country.