Hi all.
As usual, apologies for the tardiness of this blog! As usual, we’ve been hard at it, beavering away behind the scenes and we’ve sooo much to update you with.
Firstly, the most brilliant news!!
Yes, it’s official. We are now a registered charity!! We have an official charity number and everything (for those interested, our number is 1168339)!
It’s taken quite a bit of work getting the application together for the charity commission to gain our charitable status, and we learned so many things along the way, but the end result is that as a charity, we’re now able to make all of your support go even further. As our mission is to provide syringe drivers to the CPFT, we are eligible for 0% rated VAT.
What does this mean?
Basically, we can buy our drivers at cost price, no VAT to pay, which allows us to save a further 20% on each and every driver and lockbox we buy. This means the savings made on every 5 drivers would allow us to purchase a 6th. This is such a huge benefit, that the late night form filling and preparation has made it all worthwhile. As we have charitable status, we can now start the process for looking at extra benefits such as gift aid which allows us to claim tax back from HMRC on the donations you make to us, meaning your pound will be worth £1.25!! It also allows us to be selected as a local charity by fund raisers all over the country (should they wish).
This leads nicely onto our next action…
We’ve been asked quite a bit about featuring on sites such as just giving, as those who have wanted to fundraise for us have found this an easy way to start. Quite early on, we investigated the possibility of signing up, however there is a monthly subscription charge that as a charity we need to pay, in addition to a transaction fee taken from the gift aid claim. We felt that we would rather use every penny we raised buying and supplying drivers to communities rather than pay to use such services. We have a number of ways that people can donate to us, at the lowest cost possible to us.
One new way we’re currently exploring BT’s “MyDonate” scheme. It seems that all such schemes have a transaction fee of sorts, but “MyDonate” takes the smallest fee only from a gift aid claim. While it’s not ideal, we can at least ensure that any funding received this way maximises the most of any donations.
We’re also well underway with our efforts to raise awareness of the shortage of drivers in the rest of the CPFT area. We have started talks with Oundle and Wansford, and thanks to loads of feedback we’ve been able to contact the Oundle Advertiser, Inspire Benefice News, The Village Connect, Living Villages, Nene Living and the Castor and Ailsworth Magazine, as well as their local Facebook pages so watch this space as things develop.
We’re also beginning to develop a brand and style that we hope you like. Expect to see our new logo, colour schemes and material over the next few weeks! Hopefully it stands out and makes us memorable!
What else,
Wood off cuts:
We’ve had a generous offer from a kind “woodsman” (not the fairy tale kind) who is happy to make some beautiful wooden planters if we can supply the wood. So any offcuts, please let us know as we can sure find a home for them. J
Charity Bike Ride:
16th July; Bruce and a team of 50 riders from the Letter B organised a 53 mile cycle ride to help raise money for syringe drivers. It was a huge success and massively appreciated. Thanks Bruce and the Patrons of the riders of the Letter B.
Donations, donations, donations
23rd July; Bella Craven and the Marholm pudding club made a lovely donation to the fund. The pudding club get together once a month and share their homemade puddings. That sounds like our kind of club
15th August; Rosemary Marson and the Whittlesey Tangent club delivered a very generous donation to us. It was a lovely surprise to receive the letter and donation.
16th August; we had an exclusive sale of Bearded Lithuanian Iris (for those green fingered fiends) provided by a stately home that were not available in the shops. We were really pleased with how well they sold at £4 a bag.
The Kids are alright!!
16th August; not wishing to be left out, Mason (son of Louise and Lee) declared his “Rock shop” open for business!! He opened his “shop” selling painted rocks and fossils and the odd dinosaur tooth and made a wonderful £14. All his own initiative and a keen desire to help “grandad’s” charity. The children really ARE the future!!
Feedback
16th August – We had a lovely email back from the CPFT in July about the Whittlesey drivers, yet again providing evidence of how vital these devices are:
"You are right about the 5 drivers being used over the weekend but it is now ongoing and the District Nurses report that they have had 7 running at once. This is an unprecedented number at one time, but I can tell you that the comments were, thank goodness we had the extra drivers from NGNPUK".
Sweetie appeal
We also appealed for any lose packets of sweets kicking around to be used at future events and we were overwhelmed by generosity.
Donations of sweeties galore for our sweetie tombola, too numerous to mention, but a MASSIVE thank you to each and every one of you. It really is appreciated! We also received a donation of a large number of cuddly toys (thanks Lisa Hedges), so expect to see them popping up at our events in the future!!
And finally,
We’re attending the Whittlesey Festival on 11th September. We’ll be located in St Mary’s churchyard, so please pop by to “whack the rat”, visit our stall of goodies or just to say hi!!
Louise, Sam & Lee
NPNGUK
As usual, apologies for the tardiness of this blog! As usual, we’ve been hard at it, beavering away behind the scenes and we’ve sooo much to update you with.
Firstly, the most brilliant news!!
Yes, it’s official. We are now a registered charity!! We have an official charity number and everything (for those interested, our number is 1168339)!
It’s taken quite a bit of work getting the application together for the charity commission to gain our charitable status, and we learned so many things along the way, but the end result is that as a charity, we’re now able to make all of your support go even further. As our mission is to provide syringe drivers to the CPFT, we are eligible for 0% rated VAT.
What does this mean?
Basically, we can buy our drivers at cost price, no VAT to pay, which allows us to save a further 20% on each and every driver and lockbox we buy. This means the savings made on every 5 drivers would allow us to purchase a 6th. This is such a huge benefit, that the late night form filling and preparation has made it all worthwhile. As we have charitable status, we can now start the process for looking at extra benefits such as gift aid which allows us to claim tax back from HMRC on the donations you make to us, meaning your pound will be worth £1.25!! It also allows us to be selected as a local charity by fund raisers all over the country (should they wish).
This leads nicely onto our next action…
We’ve been asked quite a bit about featuring on sites such as just giving, as those who have wanted to fundraise for us have found this an easy way to start. Quite early on, we investigated the possibility of signing up, however there is a monthly subscription charge that as a charity we need to pay, in addition to a transaction fee taken from the gift aid claim. We felt that we would rather use every penny we raised buying and supplying drivers to communities rather than pay to use such services. We have a number of ways that people can donate to us, at the lowest cost possible to us.
One new way we’re currently exploring BT’s “MyDonate” scheme. It seems that all such schemes have a transaction fee of sorts, but “MyDonate” takes the smallest fee only from a gift aid claim. While it’s not ideal, we can at least ensure that any funding received this way maximises the most of any donations.
We’re also well underway with our efforts to raise awareness of the shortage of drivers in the rest of the CPFT area. We have started talks with Oundle and Wansford, and thanks to loads of feedback we’ve been able to contact the Oundle Advertiser, Inspire Benefice News, The Village Connect, Living Villages, Nene Living and the Castor and Ailsworth Magazine, as well as their local Facebook pages so watch this space as things develop.
We’re also beginning to develop a brand and style that we hope you like. Expect to see our new logo, colour schemes and material over the next few weeks! Hopefully it stands out and makes us memorable!
What else,
Wood off cuts:
We’ve had a generous offer from a kind “woodsman” (not the fairy tale kind) who is happy to make some beautiful wooden planters if we can supply the wood. So any offcuts, please let us know as we can sure find a home for them. J
Charity Bike Ride:
16th July; Bruce and a team of 50 riders from the Letter B organised a 53 mile cycle ride to help raise money for syringe drivers. It was a huge success and massively appreciated. Thanks Bruce and the Patrons of the riders of the Letter B.
Donations, donations, donations
23rd July; Bella Craven and the Marholm pudding club made a lovely donation to the fund. The pudding club get together once a month and share their homemade puddings. That sounds like our kind of club
15th August; Rosemary Marson and the Whittlesey Tangent club delivered a very generous donation to us. It was a lovely surprise to receive the letter and donation.
16th August; we had an exclusive sale of Bearded Lithuanian Iris (for those green fingered fiends) provided by a stately home that were not available in the shops. We were really pleased with how well they sold at £4 a bag.
The Kids are alright!!
16th August; not wishing to be left out, Mason (son of Louise and Lee) declared his “Rock shop” open for business!! He opened his “shop” selling painted rocks and fossils and the odd dinosaur tooth and made a wonderful £14. All his own initiative and a keen desire to help “grandad’s” charity. The children really ARE the future!!
Feedback
16th August – We had a lovely email back from the CPFT in July about the Whittlesey drivers, yet again providing evidence of how vital these devices are:
"You are right about the 5 drivers being used over the weekend but it is now ongoing and the District Nurses report that they have had 7 running at once. This is an unprecedented number at one time, but I can tell you that the comments were, thank goodness we had the extra drivers from NGNPUK".
Sweetie appeal
We also appealed for any lose packets of sweets kicking around to be used at future events and we were overwhelmed by generosity.
Donations of sweeties galore for our sweetie tombola, too numerous to mention, but a MASSIVE thank you to each and every one of you. It really is appreciated! We also received a donation of a large number of cuddly toys (thanks Lisa Hedges), so expect to see them popping up at our events in the future!!
And finally,
We’re attending the Whittlesey Festival on 11th September. We’ll be located in St Mary’s churchyard, so please pop by to “whack the rat”, visit our stall of goodies or just to say hi!!
Louise, Sam & Lee
NPNGUK
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