HUB NEWS VOLUME 7 • AUTUMN 2021
IN THIS ISSUE Limitations as Doorways • P. 1
LIMITATIONS AS DOORWAYS JO DOLBY, HUB LEADER
In a prayer book written by the artist 'Scott the Painter', there is a simple prayer about limitations that I really love;
"May my limitations be doorways to partnership and relationship, rather than reasons to feel shame and isolation" As a small charity if I'm honest, it's sometimes easy to be all too aware of our limitations...what we can't do due to resources, finance and people. Recently I've begun to see that our limitations are in fact, doorways. They are opportunities to focus on what we can do and to do that really well, and to form great partnerships with other organisations and funders. Working with others enriches all that we do, and ultimately improves outcomes for the people we work with. You'll read about some of those partnerships in this edition of Hub News. So here's to being grateful for our limitations, and to seeing them as doorways of opportunity!
IN THIS ISSUE
New Pantry Satellite Launched Birthday! • P. 2 -3 Funding News • P. 3
CA Anonymous • P. 4
Spotlight • P. 5
Join us • P. 6
PANTRY BIRTHDAY! CLAIRE HENWOOD, COMMUNITY WORKER
Our city centre Oasis Pantry has been open for a year! We opened in September last year, with a second pantry opening in Southdown in June this year. Our pantries offer weekly access to low-cost food to anyone locally who is on a low income, or experiencing food insecurity. Our aim is to help support people’s immediate needs through reducing the pressure on their budgets, and where appropriate to help signpost them to other organisations who may be able to help in other areas. We’re looking forward to start offering our members refreshments and the opportunity to chat, which until now we’ve been unable to do due to Covid. We’re delighted to have recently received some funding from our local Public Health team which allows us to fund our community worker for another year, meaning we can staff our pantries until at least the end of 2022. With the changes to universal Credit, the end of the furlough scheme and the increase in energy prices, we are anticipating that the demand for low-cost food will increase significantly over the coming months.
Coming to the pantry each week is brilliant. I was on furlough, and 80% of minimum wage is really not a lot. We wouldn’t have managed without coming here. The fruit and veg is amazing – really good quality and plenty of it. We go to the supermarket much less often now.
To find out more about our food pantries visit www.oasisbath.org/projects
COMMUNITY KITCHEN We're really delighted to have been successful with a grant application to the National Lottery and Ikea's grant scheme 'Places Called Home'. We've been awarded £5000 to make some much needed improvements to our community hall kitchen, used by ten different community groups and projects each week! The grant will allow us to install a new dishwasher and oven, as well as replace the worktops and some outdated crockery and utensils. The improvement to this space will have a huge impact on all our existing groups and partners, but it will also allow us to move towards opening a community cafe alongside our weekly food pantry. This means our pantry members can stay a bit longer for a chat over a cup of tea and a slice of cake. These conversations will be so important for positive mental health and wellbeing, but also to enable more signposting to take place, ensuring our pantry members can access the support they need. We'd like to say a huge thank you to the national lottery and Ikea!
NEW WEBSITE COMING SOON! Thanks to a grant from Quartet Community Foundation's Resilience Fund, we're in the process of creating a completely new website! During Covid the amount of people using our website to access information about our services hugely increased, and it's clear as Covid stays around for the long-term that we need a fully functional, secure and easy to use website where people can easily find what they need. Our current website just isn't up to the job, and we've spent a lot of staff time (and stress!) trying to sort out multiple issues related to the website recently. The new site will set us up for the long-term, and help spread the word about who we are and what we do. A huge thank you to Quartet for their support.
Funded by:
COCAINE ANONYMOUS AT OASIS A new twelve step fellowship support group has started at Oasis. Cocaine Anonymous is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength and hope with each other so that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from their addiction. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop using cocaine and all other mind-altering substances.
The group meets at Oasis on a Friday night at 7pm, and all are welcome to come along. You can find out more by reading our interview with the group leader Jerry, on the next page, and by visiting the CA website at the address below.
www.cocaineanonymous.org.uk
RUN THE BATH HALF FOR OASIS We're really pleased to have three Oasis runners training for the Bath Half Marathon next March! We still have two charity places left, so if you'd like to run to raise money for our Oasis Pantry, get in touch by emailing welcome@oasisbath.org. If you run for us you will receive; An Oasis t-shirt or running vest (whichever you’d prefer) A £25 meal voucher for you to enjoy after the event Our full support in plugging your fundraising link and getting the message out there that you’re running for us Help setting up your fundraising page with suggested text, logos and branding materials All we ask in return is that you try your best to raise £500 for Oasis, all of which will go directly to supporting our food pantries.
SPOTLIGHT In this regular Hub News feature we interview someone involved in or connected to the work of Oasis Hub Bath.
Jerry
Chair, Cocaine Anonymo us Bath
What is CA, and who is it for?
What happens during a meeting?
Cocaine Anonymous is a 12 step fellowship group that welcomes anyone with a drug or alcohol problem who has a desire to stop.
Our meetings are simple, we have a guest speaker from CA who shares for 20 minutes. Then the meeting is open to others to share back on anything they relate to from what the speaker has shared, or their personal experience of addiction. Afterwards people chat and exchange numbers. Many people make new sober friends from these meetings.
What's your role in CA, and how did you come to be involved? Currently I’m the Chair of CA Bath. This involves finding guest speakers each week and introducing them to the meeting. As a group our main purpose is to show people still in addiction how we have recovered using the 12 steps as well as the unity and friendship we find within CA. I’m from Bath and spent many years addicted to different drugs and alcohol. For years I tried so many different ways to get clean and I could never stay sober for long. Having finally got clean with the help of other people in CA I could see how CA could help people in Bath, and a group of us decided to start a new meeting in Bath. The meeting is the first CA meeting in Bath in approximately 10 years.
How does the group help people? The group helps other addicts relate to their experience and shows people that there is a way out from addiction. For many it offers hope seeing people who have recovered from addiction.
Why is the support of Oasis important to CA? Oasis have been instrumental in helping us set up CA in Bath, offering us a meeting room to use on a regular basis at a reduced rate.
To find out more about Cocaine Anonymous visit www.cocaineanonymous.org.uk
Join Us!
There are loads of ways to get involved in the work of Oasis Hub Bath. Reading this newsletter is a great way to stay in touch with all we're up to so if you want to make sure you receive this direct to your inbox, three times a year, let us know by emailing welcome@oasisbath.org. Here are some other ways you can be a part of what we're doing...
Volunteer...
From helping members choose their shopping at our Oasis Pantry, to being a listening ear for our kinship carers, there are loads of different volunteer roles at Oasis Hub Bath. Even a couple of hours every few weeks could make a real difference to someone in need, so if you've got some time to spare get in touch and we'll find the perfect role for you.
Give... You can now give by text! Just follow the instructions on the picture on the left. The best way to help us is to give each month by standing order. To download a standing order form visit the donate page on our website: oasisbath.org/get-involved/donate
Don't forget to follow us on social media too! @OasisHubBath
@Oasis_Bath
oasisbath
Oasis Hub Bath is a registered charity (no.1138904) and part of Oasis UK. To contact us email welcome@oasisbath.org, and to find out more about us please visit www.oasisbath.org