The Winter Bag Project - Part 2

Update on the Winter Bag Project:

The first write-up on our winter project can be found here.

We are able to confirm that each bag costs £10.50. We have ordered 20 bags so far and 11 of those have been sponsored. We are also estimating that the contents (essential + personalised items) should cost no more than £20. We were advised that the items should not be expensive.

Here are the essential items that must go into the bag:
Hats/Gloves/Socks/Scarves
(All of the above should be for winterwear) for men/women
Underwear (men/women)
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Shampoo
Shower Gel

The personalised item that you can add:
Thermal wear (men/women)
Warm Jacket/Jumpers (men/women)
Bin bags/(Long lasting) Shopping bag
Blanket
Towel
Small torches
Laundry powder
Baby wipes
Razor & Shaving foam (for men) and Sanitary protection (for women)
Cereal bars

If you wish to sponsor a bag only (£10.50), a bag + contents ( up to£30), or contents only (up to £20), please do let us know. For the second and third options, you have two options:

1. You can buy the contents yourself.
2. We can buy the contents for you.

Thank you for your kind support.

The Winter Bag Project

Come and get involve with our very first winter project!  

A good hot meal is always welcome in winter but for the rough sleepers who have basically no shelter, security of their belonging and warmth is just as important.  One of our regular donors suggested months back about giving out bags to these rough sleepers but at the time, we did not have the capacity to act on the idea.  But as we seek to slow down our voucher issues in these couple of months to transition to a new mode of operation, we would still like to help out the vulnerable in Edinburgh and decided to revisit the idea.

From my own conversation with some of the rough sleepers before, they face difficulty in keeping their things together and secure.  Now, with all the shops charging 5p per carrier bags, it is even more difficult for them to get hold of carrier bags to store and keep their things dry.  As winter sets in and the weather gets wetter and colder, they will need warm things and ability to keep them dry.  So a waterproof bag with some essential warm things and a waterproof mat/tarp will be quite useful for them.  That is why we are calling this project the 'WINTER BAG PROJECT'.  We would like you to get involved in the project in one of these three ways:

1.  Sponsor a bag and its contents (and you can add a personalised item as well)

2.  Sponsor a bag only (we will match you with someone doing the third option)

3.  Sponsor and personalise the contents of a bag

You can do it individually or get together with friends.  The costs and more details will be made available as we progress.  But please signal us your interest by emailing to us at mealonme.edinburgh@gmail.com as soon as possible because we would like to issue out the bags in December.  Thank you!

October's Update

Introduction

Dear All,

Thank you for your support this month.  Your support has been so important to us and those who have been using the vouchers.  This month, we are in the process of consolidating our processes and establishing new protocols given we want to become a charity and also expand our network of cafes.  Therefore this is a transition period and we appreciate the patience of our donors and our service users as we make the adjustments.  We have tried to minimise the issuing of vouchers these few months to enable us to transition better to fit a new model of operation.  We understand that the money we are holding should not be kept in the bank and so we are also thinking of a way to still benefit the more vulnerable in the society while we are undergoing the transition to the new mode of operation.


Main News

1.  We have submitted and awaiting results on our charity status application.  It will take up to three months for the process so we are hoping to get the charity status by early next year.

2.  We had our largest fundraising event of the year where we had a lot of fun.  Please find a sample of the photos of the event further along the page.  One feedback by our guest:
 "we had a great day. all the activites were well oraganised and intresting . kids had great fun and remember most the science corner . cant stop talking about the volcano ,mixing the soda and other ingredientsand watching it erupt"

3.  We are in the process of expanding to new cafes/food outlets.  Keep a lookout for further updates on this.  A place we are considering: a bake potato shop.

4.  We are also hoping to expand our services to other organisations.

5.  We are looking to start our first big project to prepare the more vulnerable in Edinburgh for the winter...information to follow.


Accounts and Voucher Usage

Below are our accounts for this month.  Basically we raised a net of £495.86 from our fundraising event.  This month 47 vouchers were redeemed with our main users being One Parent Families.  We are issuing out 30 vouchers for this month and trying to close the gap on the number of vouchers that have yet to be redeemed.

Bank Statement		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
9/28/2014	Balance C/F	£536.74
10/6/2014	SS	£5.00
10/7/2014	Funraise change		-£50.00
10/13/2014	Lidl for fundraise		-£3.38
10/13/2014	Costco for fundraise		-£150.07
10/13/2014	Payment from Member for Costco	£25.00
10/14/2014	Payment for Venue & Bouncy Castle		-£60.00
10/14/2014	Payment from Member for Costco	£69.81
10/27/2014	SA	£50.00
10/27/2014	MS	£15.00
10/27/2014	N Kadirova	£50.00
10/30/2014	Transferred from cash	£729.50
9/28/2014	Total October	£1,481.05	-£263.45
9/28/2014	Balance C/F	£1,217.60

Cash		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
10/1/2014	Melinda	£5.00
10/4/2014	NM	£50.00
10/14/2014	Fundraise	£664.50
10/24/2014	Lorraine	£10.00
10/30/2014	Tranferred to Bank		-£729.50
8/28/2014	Total October	£729.50	-£729.50

Fundraising Photos

You can find more photos of the event here care of one of our guests.

Quarterly Update - 2014/2015

INTRODUCTION

Dear All,

It's been a while since this blog has been updated.  We are very sorry for the tardiness of our update but we have been really busy with getting things sorted.  Things have really progressed since our full year report in July and we would like to share this news with you.

MAIN NEWS

1.  OUR FIRST AGM IN EARLY AUGUST 2014.

The following are the points from the meeting

1. The organisation representatives were very happy with our project, especially since there are less and less available public funding for emergency food parcel. 

2. We asked the organisation representatives to get more anecdotal feedback from their clients for our future donation appeal and also for current donors' knowledge.

3. Over half of the vouchers issued have not been redeemed - two of the organisations have records of their clients matched to the vouchers' serial numbers and they were happy to check about the missing vouchers. In future, all three organisations will keep such records to enable better tracking of such vouchers. Further ideas of ensuring better tracking of vouchers in all various stages of the 'life' of the vouchers - from the issuance to the redemption - were also discussed.

4. Ideas on fundraising were also discussed. The co-ordinator of the single fathers' group from One Parent Family Scotland assured us that his 'fathers' were willing to bake for our next fundraising event.

We are happy to say that it was a very positive session and helped boost further understanding amongst the various "players" in this project.

We would also like to report that we had to use £18 of the money donated for event - £15 on the drinks and snacks for 7 people and £3 for printing costs.

If anyone would like to read the Annual Report, please send us a message.

2. APPLICATION FOR CHARITY STATUS

We finally managed to put together the documents and have submitted our SCIO application in early October.  We are hopefully waiting for their reply as to any further questions they may have.

3. VISIT TO ROCK TRUST

In late September, Rock Trust held an open evening and we attended.  It was an eye-opener as we finally met a few of the youths who benefitted from our project.  The event allowed us to understand better the services offered by Rock Trust to these youths.  

We also managed to network and gained some ideas for future activities.

4. EID FUNDRAISING PARTY

We just finished our first major fundraising event on Sunday.  Lookout for further update on this event by end of this week.

ACCOUNTS AND VOUCHER USAGE

These are the accounts for the quarter.  We would like to thank all our donors for their kind donation.  We have issued out only 50 vouchers in the past quarter, mostly because we would like to get to the bottom of the nearly 50% of unredeemed vouchers.  We have made some progress towards that.

The other reason is because we are looking to expand our cafe choices and so the vouchers will need replacing and so too the method of tracking them.  We are therefore taking time to take stock and rethink of new ways to improve our ability to account for the vouchers and their usage.

Thus far, since inception, we have issued out 613 vouchers.  We collected 212 vouchers in 2013/2014.  For this quarter, we have collected back a further 131.  One Parent Families are our main user followed by Saheliya and Rock Trust for this quarter.

Bank Statement		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
6/28/2014	Balance C/F	£356.17
7/3/2014	MS	£10.00
7/4/2014	SS	£5.00
7/24/2014	SA	£50.00
7/24/2014	Hafiz Ahmed	£50.00
7/24/2014	Paypal charge Hafiz Ahmed		-£1.13
7/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£50.00
7/31/2014	Total July	£521.17	-£1.13
7/31/2014	Balance C/F	£520.04
8/3/2014	MS	£20.00
8/4/2014	SS	£5.00
8/20/2014	Transfer to Aroma Café		-£5.00
8/20/2014	Anonymous	£5.00
8/24/2014	SA	£50.00
8/28/2014	Transfer to Aroma Café		-£250.00
8/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£75.00
8/28/2014	Total August	£675.04	-£255.00
8/28/2014	Balance C/F	£420.04
9/24/2014	Anonymous	£10.00
9/3/2014	Payment for AGM refreshment		-£18.30
9/1/2014	Keith Walker	£25.00
9/1/2014	Paypal chargeKeith Walker		-£1.05
9/4/2014	SS	£5.00
9/24/2014	MS	£20.00
9/25/2014	SA	£50.00
9/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£50.00
9/28/2014	Total September	£580.04	-£19.35
9/28/2014	Balance C/F	£560.69

and

Cash		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
7/4/2014	NM	£50.00
7/28/2014	Tranferred to Bank		-£50.00
7/28/2014	Total July	£50.00	-£50.00
8/2/2014	Chen Jia	£20.00
8/4/2014	NM	£50.00
8/9/2014	Anonymous	£5.00
8/28/2014	Tranferred to Bank		-£75.00
8/28/2014	Total August	£75.00	-£75.00
9/4/2014	NM	£50.00
9/28/2014	Tranferred to Bank		-£50.00
9/28/2014	Total September	£50.00	-£50.00

Thank you again for your support.

First Year (2013-2014) Full Report

Introduction

Time flies and it is now a year since we started this project.  Since then, we have had many good and bad times but we would not have been able to still sustain this project without the support of all of the donors, our partners, the cafe and most importantly the people we are helping.  So we truly thank you!

Here are the details of our journey so far:

Donors:

The project has been so blessed with a lot of supporters and one of form support without which this project cannot do without is donation:

We would like to thank our regular donors who would like to remain anonymous:
N.M.
M.S.
S.S.
S.A.

Between them, we normally have an average income of £115 per month for most months.

We also would like to thank our next batch of donors - they were the initial donors.  Without their belief in this project, it would not even have started:

Gordon McGill
Alex Chai
Isniati Ali
Shereen Baird Gacem
S.A. 1
S.A. 2
S.G.
V.C.

Other donors include:
Sadhia Sarwar
Norbert Jobst
Andrew Edwards
AQ
Jennifer Debbage
Chris Carr
And several anonymous donors

We really thank you all for your continuing support.

Partners:

We started this project, working with 3 different organisations:
1. Bethany Christian Trust
2. One Parent Family Scotland
3. Saheliya

for the benefit of their clients.  We subsequently approached Rock Trust who welcomed our initiative.  We are still working with Aroma Cafe to provide the meal to the needy at £5.  

Events:

Other than regular donations, we have had two bake sales with the support of Edinburgh Central Mosque, once in February 2014 and the other in June 2014.  We are grateful also to the support of those who volunteered by (1) baking the lovely cakes and/or (2) manning the stalls.  For our two bake sales, we spent out of our own pocket £15.

We also launched our website http://mealonme.webs.com/ early this year.  

Accounts/Disbursement of vouchers:

As always, we are publishing the last quarter's accounts, starting with the donations received in cash (which is later transferred to the bank):

Cash		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
4/4/2014	NM	£50.00
4/25/2014	Chris Carr	£30.00
4/25/2014	Jennifer Debbage	£10.00
4/25/2014	Anonymous	£6.00
4/28/2014	Transfer to Bank		-£96.00
4/28/2014	Total April	£96.00	-£96.00
5/4/2014	NM	£50.00
5/28/2014	Transfer to Bank		-£50.00
5/28/2014	Total May	£50.00	-£50.00
6/4/2014	NM	£50.00
6/6/2014	Bake Sale Profits	£220.00
6/28/2014	Transfer to Bank		-£270.00
6/28/2014	Total June	£270.00	-£270.00

Then there is the donations received through online banking or paypal:

Bank Statement		Pound
Date	Description	Dr	Cr
4/3/2014			-£300.00
4/8/2014	MS	£10.00
4/20/2014	SS	£5.00
4/24/2014	SA	£50.00
4/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£96.00
4/28/2014	Total April	£806.17	-£300.00
4/28/2014	Balance C/F	£506.17
5/3/2014	Paid to Aroma Café		-£300.00
5/8/2014	MS	£10.00
5/20/2014	SS	£5.00
5/24/2014	SA	£50.00
5/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£50.00
5/28/2014	Total May	£621.17	-£300.00
5/28/2014	Balance C/F	£321.17
6/3/2014	Paid to Aroma Café		-£300.00
6/3/2014	MS	£10.00
6/4/2014	SS	£5.00
6/24/2014	SA	£50.00
6/28/2014	Transferred from cash	£270.00
6/28/2014	Total June	£656.17	-£300.00
6/28/2014	Balance C/F	£356.17

As at end of June, we had £356.17 in the bank.  To date, we have £520.04 but the accounts for July will be published in another update.  Previous quarters' accounts can be found on our blog.

To date, we have distributed 612 vouchers, worth £3060 but only 276 vouchers were redeemed.  The following are the breakdown by the month they were issued:

Issue Date	No. of Vouchers Given to Organizations	Value per vaucher (Pound)	Pound Total		Cash Given to Cafe	No. Of Vouchers Collected	Total Value of collected vouchers (Pound)		Value of Vouchers to be collected (Pound)	No. Of Vouchers to be collected
7/31/2013	40	5	£200.00		£300.00	29	£145.00		£155.00	31
8/1/2013	20	5	£100.00		£-	17	£85.00		-£85.00	-17
9/3/2013	72	5	£360.00		£360.00	31	£155.00		£205.00	41
10/2/2013	90	5	£450.00		£450.00	38	£190.00		£260.00	52
11/2/2013	90	5	£450.00		£450.00	47	£235.00		£215.00	43
1/31/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	30	£150.00		£150.00	30
2/28/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	36	£180.00		£120.00	24
3/29/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	26	£130.00		£170.00	34
4/29/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	12	£60.00		£240.00	48
5/31/2014	60	5	£300.00		£300.00	10	£50.00		£250.00	50
Total	612	5	£3,060.00		£3,060.00	276	£1,380.00		£1,680.00	336

We will be holding a meeting with our partners on 2/8 to better understand why their clients are not using more of the vouchers.  As such we have not distributed vouchers for June.

Membership:

We started out this journey with only Sharon and myself.  But since March this year, we were joined by Miss Maria Semper who is enthusiastic about the project and has always been a firm supporter even before she joined our team.

To date, we have organised ourselves as follows:
Sharon Gray    - Chairwoman
Shidrati Ali       - Secretary
Maria Semper  - Treasurer

Please contact us at mealonme.edinburgh@gmail.com if you have any enquiries about the project.  You may also find more information about us in our website or facebook page.

Thank you.