Report on Christian Aid week Collection for Churches Together in Roundhay in 2010

Well, we did it again! This year's total is £8090.18, as against last year's £8017.27. Warmest congratulations to everybody for keeping on doggedly with the good work in spite of economic gloom and a degree of disappointment on the doorsteps. We have collected a substantial sum to help the world's poorest people. The importance of the work we enable Christian Aid to do was brought in on me with force this morning on hearing on the news about the drought and consequent famine in East Africa, forcing thousands of people to walk to refugee camps. I heard of one woman, a mother of six. When her children could walk no further, she carried two of them the rest of the way, then returned for two more, and again for the remaining two. These people need our help!
It has to be said that we would not have exceeded last year's total without the innovation of the church lunches. As so often in these cases, we owe it to Heather Fry to have had the brainwave, and seen that it was implemented! St Andrew's, St Edmund's, Lidgett Park and Roundhay Quakers each hosted a lunch, and made a total of £1,044.80, and the Immaculate Heart Church made a further £130 for Cafod. We will continue with the lunches from October of this year, and may be able to fit in more than one for each church before the summer of 2012.

The total for this year's house to house collection was £6921.33. Heather also organised a pew collection at Lidgett Park, at which a further £124.05 was collected, bringing the total up to £7045.38. If other church organisers could do this it would add a worthwhile amount to the total.

So warmest thanks to everybody who contributed in any way to this year's success. The money we have collected is doing a lot of good where it is most needed. An impressively large number of people in the churches have given time and commitment to the cause, and they all deserve our best thanks. It isn't easy!

Here is a breakdown of the figures for the individual churches (with last year's figures in brackets):
• St. Andrew's, with 20 collectors, £1500.2 (£1784.24; 24 collectors)
• Lidgett Park, with 19 collectors (including some help from the Immaculate Heart of Mary), £2322.57 (£2217.02; 16 collectors)
• St. Edmund's, with 21 collectors £2041.60 (£2308.63; 26 collectors)
• Roundhay Quakers, with 7 collectors, £1181.01 (£1238.46; 6 collectors)

It is clearly getting harder! Collectors report more refusals (anecdotal evidence only). Whether reluctance to give is the result of the recession or simply compassion fatigue it is hard to guess. On the positive side, many people welcome our coming, and thank us for what we do, and some people are extraordinarily generous! There was a CAF voucher for £300! Moreover, it seems that more people are taking the trouble to fill in the gift aid slips. Christian Aid Week not only still makes a substantial amount of money to go where it is most needed, but it also serves to keep the charity and its aims in the public eye. It is surely still very well worth doing.

Things to remember:

It is worth reminding people, wherever it seems appropriate, of the value of filling in the slip attached to the envelope allowing Christian Aid to collect the tax due on the amount collected (20% of the donation).

• It helps to put a slip through the door with the envelope stating how much was collected in that street last year. It can stimulate people into resolving to give more! Ask me or your church representative for the figures.
• Heather's idea of putting envelopes in the pews for donations from those whose envelopes haven't been collected is a very good one. £124 was collected in this way this year.

Your representatives are Pam Clark for St. Andrew's, Heather Fry for Lidgett Park, Jenny Paton-Williams for St. Edmund's, Liz and Martin Schweiger for the Quakers.

Joanna Dales, 15/07/2011.

And from Jenny Paton-Williams

The Christian Aid House to House Collection took place again in May. It is that part of the church calendar of events when our neighbours are accustomed to seeing us take to the streets and knocking on their door. Collecting, though, is challenging. A few of our volunteers reported some negative or even rude responses. Many householders do, of course respond warmly and positively and indeed, there were some very significant donations, never forgetting the widow's mite.

At St.Edmund's, our 21 volunteers, each taking one, two or three streets, raised £2.041.69, with a further amount of gift-aid to come of £750.71. I hope that you will be pleased with this result. Nationally about 200,000 people collect during Christian Aid Week and the total comes to several millions of pounds.

Thank you to everyone who contributed in some way to this important work, surely part of the Kingdom which Jesus told us about.
Might I give you some examples of how Christian Aid money is used….

• Buying mosquito nets at £3 a time
• Re-building communities destroyed in the 2008 Burma cyclone
• Campaigning successfully to end the manual cleaning of dry latrines in India and funding alternative opportunities for the women who previously did this awful job.
• supporting job-creation schemes in infrastructure repairs for Egyptian migrant workers who have had to flee Libya
• legal advice for land restitution in Colombia
• after last year's floods, giving Pakastani farmers vouchers for tools, seeds and fertilisers.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay - Charity Number 1131904