What is happening about STEPS – let me give you an update...

After the marvellous gifts of money in March for the STEPS 2010 programme, progress has been made in shaping up plans for a debt advice centre and family support services.  And a proper kitchen is to be built in the Vineyard Centre this summer.

Our theme for 2010 is Building Bridges. This is where Reach Out, our purpose driven priority of compassion, meets STEPS our programme to put in place finance and infrastructure. Most of our Reach Out is run through housegroups and on a low key basis. It is good quality work and many people give it substantial time and energy.

STEPS 2010 intends to build long term and substantial bridges into the communities around us, with Wharfedale Vineyard being the bridge. So far this has included us all in the giving financially, with ideas and expertise, information and offers of help. Since March, when we launched STEPS 2010 there has been further progress to make the vision a reality.

There are three main things that STEPS 2010 will enable:

Debt Advice Centre

1. At the end of January 2010 total personal debt in the UK stood at £1,463bn. £22,500 per man, woman and child.
2. The Citizens Advice Bureau deals with 9,500 new debt problems every day.
3. Every 11.4 minutes a property is repossessed.
4. Every 3.69 minutes someone will be declared bankrupt.
5. CCCS helpline received 335,323 calls in 2009 – an increase of 25%. Expected to go up in 2010.
6. Yorkshire ranks equal first (with West Midlands) in the number of clients per head of population (5.53 Debt Management Plans per 10,000 of the population).

Many of us are aware that this is a significant need for the people in the areas around us, and through STEPS we will start to provide practical services in a way that could not be done effectively through our usual informal housegroup-oriented Reach Out activities.

Most often a Debt Advice service means coming alongside people who ask for help and offering technical advice to get them out of debt and managing their money better. But also it invariably involves building relationships with people, some of whom are short of friends and support and often are people who don’t know that Jesus loves them and died for them. Debt advice provides a way to help them practically and introduce them to their Saviour. Two for one.

I have been speaking to debt counselling organisations, churches and experts in the finance arena to discern how we can best serve the community in this way.  It is worthwhile to develop two main services:

• money management courses to help prevent debt and encourage good stewardship of money
• debt counselling for those in debt.

The preferred strategy is to go into partnership with an existing provider and we need to find the one that is right for us. Both of these services are provided by a number of partnering organisations, but I have narrowed the field down to Community Money Advice, Christians Against Poverty, Stewardship and also some elements that we can provide through the expertise we have within Wharfedale Vineyard.

I am in the process of evaluating each of these providers, and in the next few weeks will make a recommendation about who we should partner with.  If you have insights to offer and I haven't already consulted with you, please get in touch right away.  It is likely that we will want to train and employ someone on a part-time basis, and there will be a host of opportunities for volunteers to get involved as "befrienders". We are on track to start training to provide the first elements of a Debt Counselling service from the Autumn.

Family support services

When I ask people what needs they are aware of, it is very common for people to mention a variety of services that help families – for example: supporting parents with skills, providing safe places for children, prisoner support, befriending prostitutes (providing care for their children), marriage counselling, home renovation, contact centres (which are safe places where separated parents can visit their children), supporting asylum seeker families.

One of the reasons this resonates with us in the Vineyard is because we already have a track record – both through the church and because many of you are involved through your own professional careers or personal interests.

However it is a fact that there are many services like this already offered in Leeds, the need is huge and we cannot address everything.  With the help of lots of Vineyard people, Hannah Ripping and I have been doing some careful research work to find out what specific gaps there are in family support which we could most effectively fill.

We are finding that although there are a vast array of services for children there is much less available to support parents, and there is little sense of progression as the issues change in parenting babies, toddlers, children and teenagers. This is where we are focussing, helping parents bring up their children from ages 0 – 18.

I am particularly excited at present about the possibility of Wharfedale Vineyard being able to provide a Family Contact Centre for the community. These centres offer a chance for separated parents to see their children in a safe and controlled environment.  I recently visited a centre run by a Baptist church in Buttershaw, Bradford and was very much inspired by what they do. They open their doors four times a month: every other Saturday morning and alternate Thursday evenings. (For more info on these centres: http://www.naccc.org.uk/ ) The next steps are to begin discussions with the formal bodies who authorise and accredit such centres to see if we could establish one here.

 
Hannah Ripping is leading on exploring how we could deliver a number of other family support services through the Vineyard.

 

Vineyard Centre Improvements

Until the time comes to buy another building we need to squeeze more value from the current Vineyard Centre. There are things we can do to improve the current use of the Vineyard Centre.

1. The main thing at the moment is to complete the installation of a kitchen so that we can cater properly. This will allow us to provide meals for events such as Alpha suppers, training events, dedication parties and so on. At the moment we generally have to ship in outside catering – which costs money and is less flexible.  Diana Smith has done a marvellous job in drawing up specifications and has obtained designs and quotations from a number of companies - she has tried to consult all the people who have expressed an interest in this, so if you wanted your voice to be heard, please speak to her right away.  The trustees have reviewed the options and the next step is to finalise a decision, aiming for installation over the summer months - yipee. This will vastly improve our ability to cater for people and support the work of Wharfedale.

2. Although it is not exciting we do need to spend money to look after the building as we go along. Bits get worn out and need replacing and that costs money – so far we have replaced the alarm systems, put in a new boiler and repainted the entranceway for example.  Alex Holt and Anne Button will be auditing the building in the next couple of months and there will be a number of small repairs and improvements that need to happen.

3. It is also prudent to pay down the mortgage on the Vineyard Centre as fast as we can. We have an extremely good mortgage deal and are making good progress in repayments. However, we think interest rates will be quite a lot higher in a few years’ time so it would be wise to reduce the loan faster in order to ensure that we aren’t using future funds to service the higher amount of interest.  Ian Dowling, our finance trustee, and Anne Button our business manager are also in talks with our mortgage provider about the one-off lump sum payment we plan to make to reduce our mortgage.

 

Thank you once again for all the support that has made all these projects possible.  It is really exciting!  Keep praying that we make the right decisions and that the things we do together are effective.