Off The Fence

Bright and early on Saturday 14^th January Off The Fence’s Schools Team put on the annual youth and schools work conference known as ‘Kickstart’. Rightfully named it aims to refresh and encourage Christian schools and youth workers after the Christmas break.

The guests were predominantly from the Brighton & Hove area, however, there were a few faces that had travelled from as far as Ashford and Bognor!  At approximately 9:30am Salvation Army Ashford’s fears of a continental breakfast were put to rest as Emma and Les Heal served up a delicious Full English! With the kind support from Starbucks we were able to wash down well cooked eggs with wonderful fresh coffee.

The day’s teaching was led by Dave Steell, the pastor of One Church Brighton. Although Dave is now a pastor and no longer a youth worker he has great knowledge and was able to share his experiences of Church youth work with us. Dave taught us to focus on who we are in Christ and what that means for our individual projects. Although this may seem a passive angle to take with regards to youth work, Dave assured us examining ourselves leads to action. The closer we walk with God and the more certain we are of ourselves the more God is able to use us for His glory. He also encouraged us that we don’t have to do what is pleasing to everybody else but do what is pleasing to the Lord.

In a small break we had ‘Stories from the City’ where we learnt about the plans for new Christian secondary school in Brighton and Hove (The King’s School) and also about Prayer Spaces in Schools.

Dave Steell stepped up again to share from Psalm 23 and how it tells us to look back and see grace and mercy behind us rather than infront . He taught us to be encouraged by what we have already achieved and to be aware that God’s grace and mercy is with us in our work. He taught us not to invent projects and hope that God turns up at them but to work alongside God and what He wants to see happen in the city.

Christmas can be a difficult time of year for many, trying to stretch finances that are already at their limit, to buy extra food for everyone on holiday and presents to give.  This is the situation that many of the women we support through Gateway Women’s Centre face.  This year, thanks to the support of Sainsburys in New England Street, Brighton and their fabulous staff and customers, we were able to provide 12 beautiful Hampers for our clients together with 11 gift bags of toiletries for those of our clients who were alone for Christmas this year.

Sainsburys gave a day to Gateway Women’s Centre, where their customers were invited to buy one extra item of shopping and donate it to the Women’s Centre.  The response from Sainsbury’s customers and staff was overwhelming and by the end of the day we had a trolley full of Christmas treats and gifts.  We are so grateful to Sainsburys for their support and on behalf of the team here and the women we have been able to support through their kind generosity we would like to say a very BIG Thank you!

Project Antifreeze have been working together with various local agencies and politicians to get a change to the way the annual head count is done. This is to establish how many rough sleepers there are in the city of Brighton & Hove. Many of our supports may remember one of the speeches on the opening day of the new premises where it was claimed Brighton only had 10 rough sleepers! Since then, there has been a significant change of local government policy regarding the way in which they conduct the rough sleepers head count. The new policy involves the collaboration of local homeless agencies.  With the agencies sharing their statistics of who they work with on a daily basis and comparing the names and numbers with other agencies a far more realistic figure can be obtained.

Here at Project Antifreeze we had the privilege of being part of this first run of the new head count. We are pleased to announce that the outcome has produced a far more realistic number of rough sleepers. Is official overall figure is 117 known rough sleepers, 74 of which have been found at their sleeping site and 43 that have been understandably more secretive with the location in which they sleep. This exercise has been very useful to be part of and has shown some interesting facts about the levels of homelessness. For example, 83% of clients at Antifreeze are male and 17% female. With regards to the nationality of out clients we have seen that 53% were British, 10% eastern European, 9% other European countries with the other 28% being a combination of various ethnic minorities.

From the clients perceived needs in priority was:

1.) Housing

2.) Dealing with alcohol addiction

3.) Employment & Training

The big questions for us to ask, now we have a truthful figure is:

How can we best continue to help these 117 known rough sleepers?

Huge thanks to Robert Egglston for putting on a tremendous Motown evening in aid of Off The Fence!

The band ‘No Town like Motown’ were incredible and got the crowd dancing to all their Motown favourites.  The evening was a huge success and great fun for all who attended. Our thanks go out to those who turned up for this enjoyable pre Christmas event and special thanks to Robert and ‘No Town like Motown’ for making the evening a night to rememeber!

A few of us got together one cold Monday Morning in December to ‘Get Crafty’ and raise some money for Project Gateway Women’s Centre.  We spent the morning happily working to the sound of sewing machines, the  flurries of fabric and the industrious sound of scissors cutting felt for broaches.  Some of us made bunting while others splashed lashings of paint  over lovingly made gingerbread men, hearts and stars which were strung together  to make garlands to decorate homes for Christmas. The fabulous team were aided with danish pastries, seasonal mince pies washed down with copious cups of tea and coffee and a further additive to this fabulous morning was of course lots and lots of laughter!  It was unanimously agreed that this was indeed an excellent way to spend a cold Monday morning in December to start the Christmas festivities.

A Big thank you to everyone who made some gorgeous things, enabling us to fund raise for Gateway Women’s Centre.

We have an amazing opportunity to buy a container of 1500 sleeping bags from China; this would give us around three years’ supply of sleeping bags for Brighton & Hove’s homeless population. This would significantly reduce what we pay for sleeping bags and save so many lives.

To raise this money why not join us on the 10 December for a sponsored ‘Sleep Out’ in Hove?

It will be lots of fun while experiencing what life is like for those who sleep rough in our City. Even the CEO of Off The Fence will brave the elements!

If you would like to be part of the ‘Sleep Out’ team please sign up here.

Or call: 01273 733566

Or to sponsor Paul email: paul.young@offthefence.org.uk

Christmas party goers are set for a toe tapping, hip shaking night in the Martlets Hall on Friday 16th December as they dance the night away to the sounds of Motown. The night features No Town Like Motown, the south’s premier Motown band who capture the spirit of the period and the Motown sound.
The party night is a fundraising event in aid of St Peter & St James Hospice and Off The Fence Trust and all the profits will be going to these two charities.
Event organiser, Robert Eggleston, said that “ticket sales have been strong as people are using as a way to let their hair down before Christmas, have an impromptu office party and just want to listen and dance to some great music. There are still some tickets left and are only £10.00 a head. With the profit going to charity I’d love to see a sell out on the night.”
Tickets can be purchased from the Martlets Box Office or call 01444 242 888
For more information contact
Robert Eggleston
0794 779 2033

Project Gateway are very excited to welcome Lindsay Booker-Orman to join the team!

Project Gateway have been a staff member short for a while so it is very exciting to be able to welcome Lindsay!

Lindsay started on 22nd November taking on the role of key worker and administrator. We look forward to getting to know Lindsay better and seeing what is in store for Project Gateway in the future.