Tough Girls

Hi were back and its 2012, a bit nippy at the moment but on a warmer front Emma you can see her down below is doing the Tough Guy for us here at Ben’s.

What a challenge go get em girls. I have to say a big thank you to Emma she has just been a good friend to Ben’s and is always think what she can do to make life a little easer for us here.

If you want to support Emma and Ben’s the details are on this page

Thank You Emma

Sunday, 29 January 2012

• • Time

    08:00 until 11:00

• Where

  ToughGuy- Wolverhampton

• Description

  Soon, Claire and Bentley will be pitting their strengths against the toughest men in the country in the most brutal of challenges, ToughGuy, a gruelling cross country obstacle race. We are fundraising for Ben’s Centre, a place of stability for Sheffield’s street drinkers…See more

• 

  Emma Bentley

  Current Total: £230 thanks to Alex Nicholls and Hannah Sloman. Thank you much guys! And for those of you who haven’t….donate!! x

  Like ·  · Friday at 10:20

  • • 

      Emma Bentley To donate via paypal, visit the charities donations page at
      http://benscentre.wordpress.com/donations/
      and, if you want to, post your donation to the event so we can keep track of our total!!
      Thanks!

      Friday at 10:22 · Like

Ben’s Centre Celebrates 15 Years

On Monday 7th November Ben’s will be celebrating 15 years of supporting people with chronic alcohol dependency.  During this time we have had many success stories, tears and tantrums. We are having a party at Ben’s on the 7th November which is going to be attended by the Lord Mayor of Sheffield and a Mystery Soap Star! There will be a raffle and a quiz, both with prizes and of course lovely food and refreshments. We are predicting a good time will be had by all!

A big thank you to Radio Sheffield listeners

Radio Sheffield sent a reporter to Ben’s centre during the recent snowy weather to record an interview with myself and clients views on rough sleeping in the extreme cold. Catherine the reporter spoke Keith who has slept outside throughout the last 4 weeks of snow, ice and minus temperatures. He was a real star and his words touched many who heard the piece on Radio. He spoke from his heart about what he was experiencing and he didn’t complain or blame anyone he was realistic about the fact that his circumstances where due to his chronic alcohol dependency. He went on to say that he often goes and sits by the River Don and watches the wild life, the ducks and the birds and thinks to himself that they survive in the cold weather so why can’t he, and then he thinks, “but I’m human.”

Radio Sheffield is going to rerun Keith’s interview on the 30^th December between 10-11am on Radio Sheffield.

On the back of the interview we have had a number of people come to the centre and donate warm clothing including coats which we were desperately in need of. So we would like to say a really big thank you to everyone who has thought about the centre and our clients needs and donated clothing.

Ben’s Centre is closing today until January 4^th, the Christmas project HARC (Homeless & Roofless at Christmas) will be open at the Broom Hall Community centre from 9.30am-7.30pm from Christmas Eve until 3^rd January.

We are ending 2010 as we began, with SNOW!

I can’t believe that we are struggling with snow again. If you read back to our blog reports in January, February and March 2010 we were struggling with what we thought at the time was the worst winter weather for a long time. Now here we are in December 2010 ending the year as it started with severe snow and cold weather. The street drinkers we are working with are struggling through and just about managing but it is far from easy for them. I am just hoping this weather breaks and doesn’t continue through into 2011.

We have spent time making sure everyone is dressed appropriately we encourage people to wear layers which will help them with the cold whether they are rough sleeping or living in a tenancy unfortunately most haven’t got heating and are struggling to stay warm.

We have two people who are continuing to rough sleep through the weather they feel quite intimidated at the thought of staying in any temporary accommodation which Sheffield Council would provide them with temporarily while the weather stays below zero. So we try and make sure both are managing and support them the best way we can. We have managed to stay open through the weather and at least for 4 hours a day 4 times a week our clients have had somewhere warm to come and access to a hot meal.

If anyone can help we desperately need men’s clothing they must be washable we need in particular:  Winter coats fleece and waterproofs, sleeping bags, boots and walking shoes that can cope with the snow and ice and jumpers and jeans. If you are in Sheffield you can drop them into the centre Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9.30am to 4.30pm. This would really help us and all our clothing goes directly to our clients and will quite literally help them survive the winter.

An abundance of fruit

I’m sorry for not keeping our blog more up to date, I hope you agree with me that our clients should be our priority and they have been keeping us very busy.

I’ve just returned to the office after being on Radio Sheffield reviewing today’s stories in the news with Rony, we had good fun and he likes to throw all sorts of stories at his guests he asked me ‘if I liked flap jack?’ This gave me the opportunity to speak about Ben’s and the apple flap jack we had made last week with Gavin one of our clients, which I would highly recommend, it was delicious.

Abundance a local charity, collects unused fruit from trees around Sheffield donating it to local charities we have had pears, plums and lots and lots of apples. I have taken a number of individuals into the kitchen with me to prepare a number of apple dishes; we have also made Apple Crumble, Eve’s Pudding and most recently Tarte Tatin prepared by a client who is a trained pastry chef.

I never get over the joy of watching people participating in an activity; it’s a lot to ask them to do for many of our clients their lives are very chaotic. However they turn up to cook and the majority haven’t cooked in years they are hesitant and some will be shaky because they will not have had a drink. With lots of reassurance they begin to join in and start to relax and enjoy the time spent one to one in the kitchen, which can be quite comforting and homely with all its warmth and smells.

So many people come into the kitchen and say “it won’t work”; “it won’t taste right it won’t rise”. They all have such negative experiences and such low expectations of themselves they are so incredibly hard on themselves. I make sure that what ever we choose to make with help they will be able to make it and it always tastes great!

Once they have finished cooking everyone gets to share in their endeavours as it becomes part of our lunchtime menu. Initially all you hear is silence as everyone tucks in to their meal and then, one by one each of the street drinkers congratulates the pudding maker. Not only do waists lines start to swell but the person who took the risk  to help with the  cooking, starts to stand up taller and then their pride begin to swell too.

Temporary Cook

We have returned to Bens’ Centre after a break, to be faced with the good news that Dominic our placement secured his first job in the chef trade, he left us quickly to begin his post and we would like to say Thank you and wish him all the best in Future.

This unfortunately places a real strain once more on our staff and volunteers team and with winter hurtling towards us, our Trustees have agreed for us to take the unusual step of using a small portion of the charities unrestricted reserves to employ a temporary Cook for 5 months until the end of March 2011.

The post is for 18 hours per week and due to the urgency of our problem the closing date for anyone interested is Friday 8^th October, you can email us at benscentre@hotmail.co.uk for an application pack. We are looking for someone to oversee the catering in the centre, understand kitchen hygiene laws and have some experience of volunteering or working with service users who are homeless or alcohol /drug dependant.

This is a short term solution to get the centre through the coldest part of the year when we prioritise providing service users with a hot nutritious meal. If anyone would like to donate to helping us cover the costs of employing a cook for 5 months please do contact us.

Recent AGM Update – 22nd September

The last AGM was held at Ben’s on 22nd September and was well attended including Sheffield’s Lady Mayoress. All the accounts were in order and we tendered our sincere thanks to all staff and volunteers for a job well done over the last 12 months. Looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead!

Roast pork

Silence has just descended because lunch has been served; on today’s menu was roast pork with all the trimmings, a favorite with a large percentage of our service users. We had two cooks in the kitchen today and disaster could have ensued however both were pragmatic and came away learning tips from each other. Bens centre is hosting two placements with the future jobs project this gives unemployed under 24 year olds, placements for 13 weeks in the voluntary sector to acquire experience in the jobs market. Dominic is a young man who has gained his NVQ level 2 in catering, and has come to spend time with us helping to prepare lunch for our service users; he is just completing his induction period with Wendy. Feedback from our service users about today’s meal was very favorable, Wendy had supervised the Roast Pork and this little piggy did us proud with ‘outstanding crackling’ being one of the comments received, Dominic undertook the Roast potatoes and was informed that they were ‘sublime’ so both cooks felt rewarded.

Funding may be hard to come by with the current economic climate however these placements really help meet the work of the centre at a time when its income is restricted and their help is greatly appreciated.

Broomhill Festival

Last night I attended the Broomhill Festival committee where Ben’s Centre along with 3 other Sheffield Charities was presented with a cheque for £2,350. The festival committee and its team of helps had all worked together passionately to run 10 days on events within Broomhill community in June this year.  A wide range of events including family activities, poetry, history, music events and a garden party had raised £9,000 for their chosen charities this year. We were very blessed to be chosen as one of their charities for 2010 and we would like to say a big thank you to everyone involved in running the Broomhill festival and its events for their time, commitment and support.

It is really encouraging as a small charity to receive support from local communities, Broomhill is just under a mile away from us and many of its residents including the large student population will walk along Glossop Road on to West Street unaware of our presence in the city. Our involvement with Broomhill festival has given us the opportunity to promote our charity and its work with street drinkers.

We plan to use the donation towards the costs of producing a hot nutritious lunch for our service users over the next 6 months; this will roughly help to provide over 1000 meals for street drinkers in Sheffield.

Pushed to our limits

We have been really busy at Ben’s Centre this week, averaging 15 clients a day and a steady stream of new clients wanting to access the Centre. Ben’s capacity is at the top of what it can cope with, so we are having to work closely with the outreach teams who work out on the streets to identify who is most vulnerable and the most in need. You realise just how short staffed we are at times like this.

However running the day Centre is only part of the organisation’s work load . We are currently writing our Annual Report, a requirement of the Charity Commission and a working document which we use with potential funders and supporters of the charity. We have had a Future Jobs placement worker Matt, with us for two weeks and he has done a sterling job at helping us prepare the report before it goes off to the printers, we would like to say a big thanks to him for all his help.

In all the activity yesterday I (Wendy) was busy multi tasking and I completely forgot to prepare lunch for clients.  Luckily Fridays dinner option was swung into action a day early with less cooking time needed and order was restored, enabling us to serve lunch on time. This is a basic requirement to keep harmony in any busy day centre. Events of the day revealed how close we are to something or someone snapping under all the pressure and some TLC is in order I believe.

By 6PM  we finally left the building, the last client leaving at 5:50PM – 3 hours after we had officially closed. Yet another new client in real need had arrived just as I was trying to interview 2 new volunteers for the Centre. Kay and I realised this was a client identified to us by outreach and so we set about engaging with this lady. Although we couldn’t address all of her needs she did leave the Centre 2 hours later with very different body language than when she first arrived: head up and feeling a lot more peaceful, she felt cared for and special.

For confidentiality reasons I can’t disclose the events of those two hours but we didn’t do anything miraculous – we just gave her space to be and we listened. This is not always easy at the end of an exhausting and taxing day but the rewards for her where huge. She was able to leave feeling more able to cope and tackle yet another night in Sheffield.