| How you can help us First, thanks for coming to this page - it is great to know that you want to help us. You can help us in a number of ways, by giving us: Your time, as a Volunteer. There are various things Volunteers can do for us, such as: Working in the NIght Shelter. During the Winter, we are working with Cornwall Council, The New Connection and St. Petroc’s Society, to provide emergency accommodation for Rough Sleepers throughout the County on very cold nights. As well as providing shelter from the bitter cold of a night on the street, this is a wonderful opportunity to engage with entrenched Rough Sleepers, to offer them an alternative to the harsh way of life they are following. This work can be very challenging and there is always a risk involved in taking in people whom we do not know and who may have been living by different standards from ours for some time. We try to minimise that risk by having one experienced volunteer to work alongside a member of our staff in the Night Shelter. But if you think you may not be up to that challenge, you can still help, because a third, less experienced person to help out generally, will always be welcome. As a Support Workers’ Assistant. Working alongside an experienced Support Worker, this may be a way of finding out more about a career that might interest you, or just a rewarding way of spending some spare time. As a Driver. If you are prepared to give clients a lift to appointments, you may be able to save our Support staff having to take up time that they need to spend on other clients. While we try to encourage our clients to get themselves wherever they need to be by public transport, as part of promoting independence, there are times when the public transport system is not up to the job. As a Befriender. When our clients move on into independent accommodation, we try to help by continuing to support them for a time, until they have “found their feet”. We do this in two ways, over the ‘phone and, where it is practical for them to come to see us, on-site face-to-face. Off-site support, however, is another matter: we have very limited capacity to to provide this and can only do so if they live within close proximity to Cosgarne Hall. This leaves two significant gaps, where either the amount of time needed is beyond our resources, or the client requires regular off-site support and has moved to another part of the County, so coming to Cosgarne Hall is not a practical solution. We therefore need volunteers in various parts of the County, who will be prepared spare a few hours from time to time, to befriend our former clients who move to their area. Befrienders can also help some of our existing clients to supplement the work our support staff do, e.g. to take them out, go shopping with / for them, help keep their rooms clean, etc. – we already do a lot for our clients, but we could do so much more with your help. As an activity leader / organiser. One of the biggest problems for some of our clients is filling their time. We try to offer them a range of activities, on and off site, so that they can occupy that time constructively, helping them to move forwards to an independent life and back into work, as an alternative to less constructive pastimes. Fund-raisers. Not having been a charity for very long, we are really new to this game. With imminent cuts to our usual funding streams in the offing, we need to get up too speed very quickly. If you can help, either with ideas, or by putting other people’s ideas into action, we’d love to hear from you. There are probably many other ways in which you could help us as a Volunteer: if you have any ideas, however "off the wall" they may sound, we'd love to hear from you. Alternatively, you could give us: Your Goods or Services. If you are a Supplier, a Tradesman or a Professional, if you are prepared to give us "owt for nowt", or just a discount, you can help us stretch our resources further. Your money. You knew I'd get there eventually, didn't you?! There is a range of things we should like to do if we had the money to do them and others that we want to ensure that we can continue to do if our current funding streams run dry, by building up our reserves, or securing new on-going funding streams. We shall be making it easier for you to donate shortly, by putting in place an on-line donation arrangement, but in the meantime a cheque or standing order would be great, especially if it can be increased in value by a Gift-Aid declaration. If you feel you can help in any way, please get in touch - we'd love to hear from you: Telephone: 01726 74186 E-mail: support@cosgarne.com Snail mail: Cosgarne Hall, 81 Truro Road, St. Austell, PL255JQ THANKYOU! HOME |