Latest Night Shelter News!

While we may have closed for the winter back in March, there has certainly been lots happening in the life of the night shelter. Perhaps the biggest piece of news comes in the form of a new building, 11 Chapel Lane, that we will be using as our permanent base from July 2018 onwards.

The building itself belongs to Swan Bank Church, and in collaboration with the Number 11 project we have renovated it over the past few months to create a welcoming and relaxing space. Number 11 will be using the downstairs to offer holistic support for those in need within our city, while the night shelter will be using the upstairs part of the building.

We have 8 sleeping pods that our guests will be able to use (but we still need to buy the beds and mattresses – if you’d like to support us in this way, please follow the link to our gofundme page > https://www.gofundme.com/stoke-night-shelter-needs-beds ) as well as kitchen and shower facilities. Having a permanent base will help us to better support  our guests as we will have all of our resources in one place.

We are hosting our first open day to officially ‘open’ the building on Saturday 7th July from 12.30pm and everyone is welcome to come along and have a look around, as well as finding out what the night shelter is and how it works! There will be refreshments available throughout along with a cake sale and raffle. RSVP on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/events/351335258725568/ – so we know how much cake to make!

 

October 2017: Project Update

Somehow October managed to fly right past us without a chance to discuss what’s been happening for the night shelter project this month.

We had two successful training sessions for our new volunteers on the 5th and 19th of October, hosted by the wonderful YMCA North Staffs team in Hanley. It was fantastic to get to know so many new folk who have a passion to help those who are homeless in our city and we are so pleased that they will be joining our ever-expanding team of night shelter volunteers. Due to the steady influx of people wanting to volunteer this year, we will be hosting a final briefing and training session for new volunteers on Wednesday 15th November, 6.30pm – 9pm. The venue is currently being organised and we will confirm this via our Facebook page. The Facebook event for this training session can be found here – https://www.facebook.com/events/337200100084985/

In sadder news, Temple Street Methodist Church, who hosted the night shelter on Sunday nights last winter, have decided that they want to continue independently of STCCNS this year and so won’t be hosting us on Sunday nights for 2017-2018. However, the wonderful Wesley Hall Church in Sneyd Green have generously agreed to host us on Sunday nights as well as Friday nights and so we should be able to provide accommodation for the 3 weekend nights as we did last year.

More excitingly, some of you may know that we have spent the past year developing a plan for a permanent night shelter base in the Chapel Lane building behind Swan Bank Church, in tandem with the Number 11 Project. We are funding the renovation of the upstairs floor of the building with plans to develop the night shelter project from there over the coming years, and the building work is now set to begin on the 12th December 2017 which is fantastic news. Further details on the Chapel Lane building to follow soon – watch this space.

That’s all for October’s news – keep your eyes peeled for donation updates and other exciting news over November.