BE Bosom Friends Information and Fund Raising Events

[Stanley]

And the boiler?

[PanBiker]

Boiler is fine Stanley since re-pressurising the system. Tends not to work when there is no water in the system. Traced, I think to a very minor leak on one of the radiators in one of the upstairs rooms down the corridor. Not flooding the place but signs that the coupling to the rad needs nipping up. I checked all the rads in the building the other day and this one was the only one that showed any signs of a fault. The boiler has a fixed filling link in place which makes it very easy to top up the pressure.

Shortly going for the pies.

[Tripps]

Big plans afoot. . . .


New Charity Shop

[PanBiker]

Aye they troll the planning applications. We have also made it into Lancashire Live magazine I believe. It's a work in progress for us, waiting for planning permission which should be sorted by mid January or so we have been told. Should be a formality for the conversion back to retail as it was always a shop until 1995 when it was converted to a dwelling. Strange actually in the middle of a designated retail area. Anyway it will move us along and save us the monthly rent we have for our existing outlet. Better all round, it will be a nicer environment for the volunteers with new modern facilities, it has on street parking and the yard at the back is big enough to back a vehicle in.

[Tripps]

Aye they troll the planning applications

Perhaps 'trawl' rather than 'troll'?

[PanBiker]

Indeed, not foldy roll.

[Stanley]

That was puzzling me as well. Well done Bosom Friends was my reaction. It's very creditable that the organisation is in such a good position and condition that it can make and execute plans like this.

[PanBiker]

We try our best Stanley and in the 25 years or so that the charity has been going this will be the first time that we will have owned our own retail property, we have always been in rented retail premises which is a bit of an anathema. We will be knocking internal walls out and putting a lift in for access to the upper floor. it will have full disabled access and facilities. The move will save us roughly £6K a year which we can use for better things. Some folk question the spending but as a registered charity we are obliged to cycle the revenues that we raise. We are fairly unique in that all our supporters are unpaid volunteers, we don't have or need a paid shop manager unlike lots of other charities. It will be a new ball park for the shop volunteers and we will engage them in the development of that area. We are developing a new operating model because we have to. Mary, (who was the original founder, shortly joined by Sally) and Gus are retiring from the group at the end of the year. Sally and I will become the elder trustees. The other four trustees are all younger and work full time so the current operating model has to change and become more self sufficient. Exciting times and a new challenge for all that are involved.

[Stanley]

The word that comes to my mind is Dynamic. You are not short of new ideas and are pursuing them.
Still well done!

[PanBiker]

We have recently finalised our regular meetings calendar and one of our first extra events this year.







Our Monthly Coffee Mornings.



And a Table Top Sale to coincide with the February Coffee Morning.

[Stanley]

Ian, am I correct in thinking that except for the last one all the others assume that the reader knows where Bosom Friends HQ is?

[PanBiker]

Yes Stanley, the posters are created in Canva which we have for all our graphics manipulation and are sized for social media. They all go onto our Bosom Friends Facebook page first and are then shared by other people. The graphics also auto scale for Instagram etc where we also have an account for the group. Canva can also produce stickers, labels and just about any other graphic rich content. We have templates with all our new logo variants and colour pallets that we use.

[Stanley]

[PanBiker]

Sally an I attended our local Rotary Club meeting last night for a presentation of a cheque to the group from monies raised from last Christmas's Santa Fun Run. Barnoldswick & Earby Rotary took over the running of the event which our group instigated some years ago. We had to break over the pandemic period and this was the first time since that the event has been run. It was at their monthly dinner meeting at The Tempest near Elslack. Nice meal and company and firming up the bonds between the groups who both support the community but in different ways.

The photograph shows Rotary Club President Alan Hardman presenting the cheque to Sally and myself.





I had the pleasure of meeting with a couple of old school friends who I haven't had the company off for over 50 years. Nice to have a catch up chat.

[PanBiker]

It's the groups AGM tonight followed by our normal monthly trustee meeting. AGM's should always be a pretty short affair as there is only a single item agenda. Ours will probably break records, Gus and Mary have now retired from the group to further enjoy their retirement. That leaves six current trustees, so the AGM will simply be "do we all want to continue" shouldn't take more than a minute!

Business meeting will be a bit more substantial as we have regular monthly agenda items that we discuss. We have also taken on new accountants so there is now a monthly gathering of receipts, monies raised and donated and the reporting of the banking of the same. New working practice so this will be January's and a test for the new system. We are also in the passing on of the telephone support and contact for the group. We will be keeping the same mobile number as we still have leaflets and publicity material distributed that has the contact number on. It may well be embedded in quite a few mobile phones as well. Our re branding and common graphics that we now use will eventually replace all the old versions of our publicity and labelling.

[Tripps]

Gus and Mary have now retired from the group to further enjoy their retirement.

Judging by his Flickr photos 'further enjoyment' won't be much of a problem. Please give them my best wishes.

[PanBiker]

Our shop volunteers received a "Pride of Barnoldswick" award last night in the Town Square. We had a get together upstairs at the centre afterwards with refreshment available. Tea, coffee, white, red and rose wine and fizz available as well as light snack food.

[Stanley]

That's a nice report.... Well done all of you!

[PanBiker]

One of our friends and regular supporters, Ellie rocked up yesterday with the proceeds from a Beating the Bounds walk that she organised with friends from the Greyhound pub who provided food and refreshments after the event. The walk, roughly based on the jaunt round the town boundaries raised a magnificent £430.00 for the group.

Next event which includes supporters and a team from Barlick is the Bangers to Benidorm Rally which is setting off in early May. Our car is supporting the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Bosom Friends. We have ordered suitably branded Bosom Friends car stickers and I am in the process of making up the collection tubs for donations.

European Road Rally, Benidorm Bangers

Might have some Euro's to process after the event, unless there is already a contingency for this by the organisers, (all donations gratefully received).

[Stanley]

That sounds like a bit of an adventure Ian!

[PanBiker]

Beating the Bounds is an established walk with marker stones around the parish. The Greyhound did a slightly modified variant for their fund raiser. The Benidorm Rally is an annual organised charity event and has lots of entrants from all around the country. It's not a race but promoted as an adventure.

[PanBiker]

At our trustees meeting last night we had an hour with our architect that is handling our new property, shop and community centre conversion for us. We have had the property now for 12 months with no progress and we found out why last night. We had the plans in the late summer last year and they went off to the council for approval and building regs check etc. The plans were drawn up with regard to the fire regulations with fully compliant smoke and fire sensors and evacuation planning which also catered for disabled visitors.

A month later our architect was told that new fire regulations had come into force which meant that our plans had to be modified and resubmitted.

Apparently the government has introduced new regulations which seem to all concerned, are a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the Grenfell disaster for which their lack of action has already been taken to task. What the architects and trades involved in building have ended up with is a one size fits all fire safety policy which seems to be based solely on another potential event like Grenfell. In effect our ad hoc community use upstairs in Frank Street has to be designed with the same safeguards as a 30 story multi occupancy building. Of course we don't want to burn anyone who may be temporarily within our building but there is no comparison between temporary meetings in the upstairs of a terraced property and someone who lives or works permanently at the top of a multi story building.

Consequently the design has had to be completely reworked to comply with the new fire regs. From our point of view we have inherited an extra wall, and fire retardant doors that have to be locked. Our intended single floor lift will need to be fire retardant and must be disabled automatically in the event of fire. The onus is also transferred to the property owners to evacuate anyone in the building in the event of fire. We, as trustees are also expected to be fully compliant with the new regulations.. I think Ian said they ran to 700 pages or so!

As Ian said it needs a consortium of the large national building contractors to object and ask for a judicial review. Their knock on of course will be that every house the build will cost more and that will have to be passed on to the customer.

[Tripps]

That's a bit of a thing with me and has been for a while. As actually doing the work becomes less onerous, and requires fewer workers the surplus of labour has gravitated toward supervising and regulating those who still do it. Mostly being paid far better salaries than those actually doing the work. Not expressed too well, but you get the gist?

I came across this photo yesterday - a forgotten corner?

Home time at Metro Vick's Trafford Park Manchester.

Metro Vick's.jpg

[Stanley]

I think you're right Ian, Grenfell casting a long shadow. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted? Sorry to hear it's affecting tour plans.
Lovely pic David and yes, that used to be a common sight at any large works didn't it. I doubt if it is common today......