Latest News

Nuneaton and Stratford services raring to go

February will see our first venture into a neighbouring local authority in the form of new Supporting People contracts commissioned by Warwickshire County Council. Based in Nuneaton and Stratford, the contracts will deliver the following services :

Nuneaton (Arbury Road)

Accommodation and support for 7 residents (plus one designated emergency unit) in the 16-24 year old age group. The service will be delivered from a single shared facility with transitional resettlement support provided for clients to move into their own tenancy.

Stratford (Clopton Road)

Accommodation and support for 8 residents in a shared facility in Stratford. The service will enable single homeless people to develop independent living skills to prepare them for ultimately moving into their own accommodation.

It's all the fashion

Coventry Cyrenians have entered into an exciting and innovative collaboration with Coventry Trading Standards to recycle the thousands of counterfeit garments seized each year. In a carefully regulated scheme, branded counterfeit garments are being deconstructed and converted into fashionable and desirable clothes. Working closely with the Coventry University fashion and design departments, students are working on a variety of designs. We are being advised by Claire Harris, a leading fashion designer, who shares our enthusiasm for this project. One of the aims is to involve a large number of our young clients, most of whom possess no qualifications and limited employment prospects, in an accredited training scheme that will produce a relevant qualification at the end of the process.

The potential benefits of this project to clients and the organisation are limitless, so watch this space!

ISO 9001-2008

Having achieved the ISO 9001-2008 quality mark in 2009, the company received its first BSI inspection recently to assess whether it continued to meet the rigorous criteria demanded of this qualification. We are pleased to announce that the quality mark has been renewed and this section of “Latest News” offers an opportunity to recognise the hard work of staff whose modesty prevents disclosure of their names.

Norton House Christmas Dinner

The 2009 Christmas Dinner, held at the Methodist Central Hall, was once again a resounding success as measured by the number of people who availed themselves of an excellent Christmas lunch. We estimate over 250 people were served by nearly 80 volunteers. Our thanks go to the following :

Reverend Paul Wood (Methodist Central Hall)
Knights of St Columba
Joe Richards
Matthew Lewis Designs
Jim MacCormack
Tania Taylor
Jo Page
Volunteers
Donors, including individuals, companies and church groups

Changes to Homeless Services in Coventry

Recent media reports have highlighted changes to services and reductions in funding for homeless services.

Concern has been expressed at a political level in the council and this has alerted the press to whom we have given our response to these changes.

This is a difficult time for both ourselves and Coventry City Council as reductions in funding for services have been imposed on the Council by national government and these have been passed on to a number of service providers across the city.

Some services previously operated by Coventry Cyrenians and others will no longer be available after the end of September.

The City Council announced its strategy for the delivery of services to single homeless people some months ago and it believes this is the best way forward. As an organisation we have considerable worries about how this will impact on single homeless people and raised our concerns with the Council during its consultation process.

Other new experiences for the organisation are that we have just had to competitively tender for services we have traditionally provided for many years with grants and contracts. We are very pleased to have won all the tenders for our existing services.

Inevitably, where there are challenges, there are also opportunities and we are pleased to announce that we will be opening two new services in Warwickshire in the near future.

In December we will be working with partners to provide accommodation and support for single homeless people in Stratford-upon-Avon.

We shall also be opening an accommodation and support service in Nuneaton for young single homeless people.

We look forward to these exciting new opportunities to work with all our new partners and are grateful to all the staff who worked extremely hard to enable us to win this new contracts.

Mike Fowler
Chief Executive

23 September 2009

Relocation of Anchor Centre

As an agency continually striving to improve services for homeless people, Coventry Cyrenians work closely with many other agencies. One of the most important of these organisations is the Anchor Centre which is why we greatly welcome their imminent relocation from the Coventry and Warwickshire hospital to Simon House in Bird Street, a building adjacent to the Norton House Day Centre and currently rented by Cyrenians.

The Anchor Centre is funded by the Coventry Primary Care Trust and provides healthcare services for homeless people. More convenient access to their services will complement our campaign to improve the health and well being of homeless and vulnerable people. It is anticipated that the move will be completed by early April 2009 with all of our Homeless Intervention Services already transferred to Norton House so that Simon House can be reconfigured to accommodate Anchor Centre staff and equipment.

Xmas Meals

Over the Christmas period Coventry Cyrenians provided over 700 free meals to people within Coventry who are, homeless, vulnerable or lonely. The period of events stared on 23rd December with a variety of Indian food provided by Coventry resident Mr Bassi, at Norton house, this was followed by delights prepared and delivered by Warwick Castle on 24th and 26th December, all of which was very well received by the Norton House service users. The highlight of the Christmas events was a meal at Coventry Central Methodist Hall on Christmas Day where over 200 clients enjoyed a traditional Christmas lunch, presents and entertainment provided by Peter Soesan and by clients who displayed hidden talents for singing and piano playing. The day was a huge success owing to the hard work and dedication of the more than 60 volunteers who came on the day to lend a hand.

Ayesha Rees who ran the event said ‘the day was a great success and seems to improve year on year. The highlights of the day were seeing the clients sing and playing the piano – they were fantastic with some of the volunteers asking if I had hired them in, as well as watching all the volunteers all muck in together. I would like to extended a special thanks to Paul Wood at Central Hall who not only helped make the day possible but also played a big part in the day itself. Whilst chatting to some of the clients it highlighted to me how vital this service is to people’. The events culminated with a meal at Norton House on 31st December provided by Foleshill Baptist Church ensuring 2008 went out with lots of fun and laughter.”

Christmas 2008 at Coventry Cyrenians

"Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it 'white'." ~ Bing Crosby (1904-1977), American singer and film actor.

>> Click here to view our Christmas Gallery

Support Workers Traditionally Christmas is a time of year for family and your loved ones, for the buying and receiving of presents, for the traditional dinner with all the trimmings, and enjoying the seasonal TV with your nearest and dearest.

For many homeless people, Christmas is a reminder of all that they don't have and all that they miss, and the reminders are many and constant for the duration of December. Here at Coventry Cyrenians, like many other charities around the world during the festive season, we try to bring a little cheer into the lives of those missing out.

This year, just the same as the run up to Christmas every year since we opened our doors, we have been as busy as Santa's own elves. In fact, our head office indeed looked like Santa's workshop what with the amount of presents that were being stored ready to be given to all our clients. All our clients, whether they reside in accommodation we provide, are street homeless or are supported in their own tenancies, were given Christmas presents and for some food parcels and all had the option to have Christmas dinner with us at The Methodist Central Hall in the City Centre.

Support Workers In total we spent over £5000 on gifts for all our clients which is cheap at the price when you consider the difference even a small gift and a bag of groceries can make to those that have nothing and have no one.

For those that were street homeless, or lived alone with no family or who just wanted company on Christmas, they were able to join us for Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas Day dinner with all the trimmings, and Boxing Day dinner. We have been providing this service for the last three decades but due to the current economic climate we had to work very hard this year to get the donations we needed to make it happen - which even included an appeal for donations and volunteers through the local paper. But the hard work and dedication of staff and the true spirit of Christmas shone through with those that jumped into action late in the day with donations of food, and also just as importantly, volunteers. So a big heartfelt thank you goes out to everyone who helped, for making the dinners and the day happen.

And indeed, what a good menu was on offer to all those that dined with us, what with a choice of starters, mains and pudding. There were also Christmas presents for all those that attended, a Christmas box with a gift voucher, selection box, hat, gloves & scarf, socks and toiletries and also some entertainment was put on. On Christmas day we actually had 100+ people who dined with us and the overriding feeling was that it had been another great success and had given everyone in Coventry the chance to share in a Christmas dinner that for most of us is just taken for granted.

But just as Christmas brings families together, there are particular stresses and strains, that I think every family will testify to, that also comes along. What we find is that even the most fractious family relationships will hold firm for at least Christmas day and Boxing Day, but once the last cracker has been pulled, the festive season can't always hold together the most troubled families and the stresses of the season help to undermine the family unit. As such we see our work increase in early January and we are reminded that although the season of goodwill is officially over, our work will continue unabated until next Christmas. And with this New Year being predicted to be one of the worst, economically speaking, for many decades, it will place even more of a sense of urgency on us and our services than usual. So we ask that you remember the homeless and the vulnerable throughout the year and perhaps you can help us to let the true spirit of Christmas continue all year round by possibly giving a donation of money, second hand household furniture or even your time. Just check the site or give us a ring and we will let you know exactly how easy it is to donate to us, whatever that may be.

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