Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell has teamed up with the Rotary Clubs of Epsom and Ewell to bring Project Wenceslas to the Borough for the sixth year running. Project Wenceslas enables those who receive, but do not need, the Government’s Winter Fuel Payment to donate it to either Rotary Club of Epsom or Rotary Club of Ewell. This money will be distributed to people in critical need of assistance with energy bills, much needed during the Cost of Living crisis. All monies donated are redistributed 100% without any deductions for costs or expenses.

If you would like to know more about donating your Winter Fuel Payment, please contact Epsom Rotary via their website or Ewell Rotary via their website and search for Project Wenceslas.

If you are struggling with fuel bills, then contact Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell on 0808 278 7963 (Mon-Fri, 10am – 4pm) or see the CAB website : www.caee.org.uk

Gina Miller supported Epsom Rotary‘s fight against rising cases of Polio. Today is National Polio Day and on Saturday local Rotarians were raising awareness in Epsom’s Market Square. They raised £300 from the Borough’s generous public and that will be matched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gina Miller with Peggy Rowell of Epsom Rotary in Epsom Market Square

With the news reporting Poliovirus has raised its ugly head, here in the UK, it is a reminder how important the Rotary International PolioPlus campaign is. Not since 1984 has there been a case of polio in the UK, which was declared polio free in 2003. Although, no cases have been detected or confirmed and the risk of someone catching polio in the UK is low, it has come as major blow to Rotary, that it has been identified, here, in the UK. The emphasis is being placed on trying to make sure that all children and unvaccinated adults have been fully immunised against the disease. This is because the poliovirus is opportunistic and will exploit gaps in population immunity.

The Rotary PolioPlus campaign was launched in 1985, becoming a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. In this time, Rotary members, working with communities around the world, have contributed more that 2.1 billion US dollars and countless volunteer hours for the fight to end polio. Now polio is considered eliminated in most first world countries with Afghanistan and Pakistan being the only countries in the world where the infection is classed as an endemic.

The fight has to continue and as Rotarians we can play a key role in raising funds and awareness to achieve a polio-free world and ensure we protect the gains Rotary has worked so hard to achieve.

Polio Outbreaks 2022

Poliovirus (Poliomyelitis) has been confirmed in non-endemic countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, India, the United Kingdom, and New York in 2022. In recent years, polio-endemic countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported polio outbreaks, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

And on September 26, 2022, the U.S. CDC issued a global Alert – Level 2, Practice Enhanced Precautions, regarding polio outbreaks and poliovirus detections in various countries.

On September 13, 2022, the WHO added the USA to a list of about thirty countries where circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) has been identified in 2022.This action is related to genetic sequences in July 2022 from a polio (Acute flaccid myelitis) patient in Rockland County, NY, and wastewater specimens collected in various New York counties, linked to poliovirus samples collected in Israel, and London, indicating multi-country, community transmission.

Our own correspondent

Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell (CAEE) has launched a crowdfunding scheme with the Aviva Community Fund to raise money to deliver critical Cost of Living advice to local people. Aviva has selected CAEE to be part of the Aviva Community Fund where Aviva employees can allocate £25 (donated by Aviva) to their chosen charity project on the scheme. The crowdfunding scheme is not limited to Aviva employees – the public are encouraged to donate towards community fund projects. In addition, Aviva has pledged to match donations (one per donor) up to the value of £250 to help tackle the Cost of Living crisis.

Lisa Davis, CEO, CAEE said: “The Cost of Living crisis is affecting all of us with rising prices and concerns about the future. But for some, the crisis is truly devastating. People coming to us are understandably very worried about paying their bills, heating their homes and looking after their families. Demand for our services is predicted to grow this winter so this campaign is crucial to help us support the local community during this difficult time.”

CAEE is an independent charity and needs to raise funds to keep its services running for the benefit of the community of Epsom & Ewell. It gives free advice and information about many different issues including debt, benefits, housing and employment advice.  This can include crisis support such as vouchers for the local food bank and funds to help with fuel payments. CAEE can check that people are claiming all the benefits and other money that they are entitled to and help with budgeting skills whether they are in debt or worried about managing their money effectively.

Please visit the CAEE crowdfunding page for more information and to donate: https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/p/citizens-advice-epsom-ewell-cost-of-living-advice-services  

Or visit the CAEE website www.caee.org.uk

About Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell CAEE is a small, local charity offering free advice and information for all who live, work and study in the borough of Epsom &a Ewell. All advice is free, confidential, impartial and independent.As a small charity we are responsible for raising our funds. It costs, on average, £60 for each client that we help. To make a donation please visit www.caee.org.uk/donate/

Just £5 per month could enable us to help another client this year. If you need advice, please contact our friendly team at Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell on 0808 278 7963 (Mon-Fri, 10am – 4pm) or see our website: www.caee.org.uk

Epsom Pantry is a member-led community hub and food shop opened by Good Company (Surrey). Opened to create a network of support and a much-needed source of affordable grocery shopping within our community. The Pantry is a means of strengthening people’s financial and emotional resilience while also helping to reduce the dependency on food banks. The cost-of-living crisis means more and more households are struggling to make ends meet. The Pantry offers vital financial savings, access to healthy nutritious food and the opportunity to be part of a growing community of support during a time when it is most needed.

Image: Volunteers Faye and David in the Pantry

Since officially opening back in July they now have 170 members, supporting a total of 299 adults and 258 children. The Pantry membership has grown very quickly, far exceeding its aim of reaching 100 members in a year!

Bex Loomes, Epsom Pantry Manager said “With growing numbers comes a great sense of community. As soon as the shop opens there is a buzz and a lovely atmosphere. We have seen long lost friends reunited, shoppers sharing new recipe ideas, and people sitting down to chat with new friends, in a space they feel is their own. If you are in Epsom Monday to Friday, do pop in and say hello. We are open for limited hours but there is often someone in the shop ready to show you around.”

Epsom Pantry works through a membership system. Anyone can apply online to become a part of Epsom Pantry or be directly referred to the Pantry by Epsom & Ewell Foodbank. The Pantry offers an alternative food-aid that is available to anyone we see at our food banks centres. They also help people before they are in that crisis situation.

For £5 members get to choose 10 items from the shelves. Each week this includes meat, dairy, fridge, and freezer items, as well as all the store cupboard basics and toiletries. Fruit, vegetables, eggs, and bread are all given out for free! Our members are taking home over £30 worth of food shopping for just £5, meaning they are saving an average of £1,000 a year on shopping bills.

When not open for shopping, they are running community activities. So far these have included free children’s cooking classes with Jayne from Grow, Cook, Enjoy; energy advice consultations and top ups with Dave from Surrey Community Action; and adult low-cost, low-energy cooking classes with Chef Renu.

Newest staff team member Jane (Pantry Co-ordinator) will be heading up these community activities going forward, engaging with local agencies, and involving the wider Epsom community in what Epsom Pantry do here.

Epsom Pantry
24 South Street
Epsom
KT18 7PF

Epsom and Ewell based charities Love Me Love My Mind and The Friends of Horton Cemetery joined forces with Surrey County Council Youth Workers and others this week. In Epsom Market Square on Saturday 8th October local residents and visitors took part in the “Out of Sight, Out of Mind” Project. This Historic England supported project raises awareness of the Horton Cemetery in Epsom. There are buried 9000 patients of Epsom’s five now closed psychiatric hospitals. The largest asylum cemetery in Europe.

Borough and County Councillor Bernie Muir joined in the Market Square painting of memorial flowers.

The painting continued during a day of reflection and celebration on World Mental Health Day 10th October at St Barnabas Church in Temple Road, Epsom. Activities included a walk to Horton Cemetery beside Hook Road and a song and dance performance by students from Epsom’s Laine Theatre Arts School.

Mayor Clive Woodbridge joined the event and painted a flower. 900 ceramic flowers are being individually painted by young and old throughout the Borough over the year. Workshops will be held to discuss the significance of the Cemetery and the lives of those who ended up in this paupers’ graveyard. The aim is to plant the flowers near the Cemetery on Mental Health Day 2023. The site was sold by the NHS to a property speculator in 1983 and has been neglected ever since.

Sustainable Epsom and Ewell is an independent, apolitical and entirely volunteer led environmental group aiming to raise environmental ambitions in the Borough. Sustainable Epsom and Ewell was founded in late 2019. 

As a group they organise events for local residents, have a website with useful local information and tips for residents, and take action with our Council. They also have a social media presence on Facebook and Instagram. 

At Sustainable Epsom and Ewell they feel strongly about our local environment and want to share their resources and extensive local knowledge to get more residents involved and taking action.  They have high ambitions for our  Borough and believe the Council can and should take a greater lead and bolder actions to address, mitigate and adapt to the Climate and Environmental Crises. 

Over the past years they have organised several events including “Green Friday” to raise awareness about the excessive consumption culture promoted through Black Friday events, a Cycling themed debate where both Surrey and Local councillors spoke as well as committee members of the Epsom and Ewell Cycle Action Group. 

However, their biggest events to date have been two Eco Fairs, organised in partnership with St Martin of Tour’s Church in 2021 and 2022. The aims of the Eco Fair are threefold: 

1)  to  highlight and showcase the groups active in our Borough as well as Council teams active in the environment fields,

2)  to inspire local residents and groups to volunteer, take action and share experiences, 

3)  to highlight the strong proportion of residents keen to take personal action whilst encouraging the Council raise their green ambitions through action. 

The 2022 fair included over 14 different groups, including Surrey Wildlife Trust, Epsom and Ewell Tree Advisory Group, the Lower Mole Partnership, Oxfam, the Epsom Repair Cafe, Dr Bike and the Epsom Civic Society as well as local green businesses. 

This year in addition to the many residents who attended, the Fair attracted a visit from MP Chris Grayling and Epsom and Ewell’s Mayor Clive Woodbridge. 

In the short-term future, they hope to continue to expand their reach to residents, campaign for real, ambitious and proactive Council measures in the environmental fields and provide opportunities for local groups and residents to meet and engage through events.  

www.SustainableEpsomEwell.co.uk

Facebook/Instagram: @SustainableEpsomEwell

Two Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) staff members set off to Poland yesterday (Thursday 6 October) to donate another 4×4 Land Rover to the Ukrainian Fire and Rescue Service.

This donation is part of the National Fire Chief Council and UK charity FIREAID’s convoy 4. Convoy 3, which was delivered in May this year, also saw a donation of two 4×4 Land Rovers by SFRS.

The vehicles, which have been decommissioned by the service, are typically used for off-road/rural firefighting. The service has worked with its Fire Authority, Surrey County Council, to prepare and release the vehicle.

The two staff members who have volunteered, will meet other UK Fire and Rescue Services who are donating items, they’ll then handover the vehicles in Poland next week.

Acting Chief Fire Officer, Dan Quin, said: “I am proud to be able to continue our support to the people of Ukraine during this incredibly difficult time. Thank you to all organisations who are supporting these efforts and to Chris, who also donated the equipment during the last convoy, and Lee from our Engineering team, who are supporting the delivery. Chris will be taking us on the journey over on our Instagram channel, so please do follow us so you can witness another historic effort from UK Fire and Rescue Services.”

Cabinet Member for Communities and Community Safety (which includes Surrey Fire and Rescue Service), Denise Turner Stewart, said: “Surrey County Council’s priority is to ensure no one is left behind and supporting yet another national convoy does just that. I am so pleased that we are able to support this national effort and we would like to sincerely thank all involved.” Surrey County Council has a lot of information available on surreycc.gov.uk for communities who’d like to support, as well as guidance for Ukrainians coming to Surrey.

Surrey County Council News

The Epsom and Ewell Energy Support Scheme is a plan to offer those running into difficulties immediate help with their bills, and then advice and financial support to improve energy efficiency or reduce energy consumption in their homes and so reduce bills going forward. This might include buying a more efficient appliance for them or helping with improved insulation. The scheme is supported by local MP Chris Grayling

To help support this programme they are asking local households who have less difficulty paying for these higher energy bills to donate their £400 support payments to the fund so that it can be used to help reduce the bills of those who are struggling. If you are able to do this, they would be very grateful, and all other donations are of course also very welcome.

The Scheme is being run jointly by the Good Company, which runs the local food bank, and Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell helped by local Churches. It will offer both advice sessions to help those who are not sure how to improve their energy efficiency as well as assistance paying for improvements.

To make a donation, please visit the donations page at www.justgiving.com/campaign/epsom-ewell-energy-support-scheme  

Four new trustees have joined Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell’s (CAEE) Board to guide and lead
the charity as it approaches what will undoubtedly be a very difficult winter.
Peter Edwards, chair of the Trustee Board, said: “I’m delighted to welcome four new and very talented trustees who will strengthen the Board at a challenging time for our charity, as we are already seeing rapidly rising demand for our services, inflationary pressures on costs, and fewer resources. With inflation rising steeply, the cost of living is a major concern for us all, and especially for the people we are here to help. Families on the lowest incomes will be hit hardest by spiraling price increases and our frontline advisers are already supporting people who are finding it difficult to get by.”

Photo from left to right back row: Andrew Heffernan, George Bell, Ian Davison, Shaun Jones, Patrick O’Driscoll. Front row left to right: Fiona Taylor, Lisa Davis, Yvette Ball, Hardik Trivedi and Peter Edwards.

Joining the Board as new trustees are Yvette Ball, Hardik Trivedi, Fiona Taylor and Andrew Heffernan. Yvette’s professional career was with the Probation Service culminating as Chief Officer of the service in Gloucestershire and then Surrey. With retirement her voluntary career has included Chair of Faith in Action Merton Homelessness Project and then of Refugees at Home before joining CAEE. In these roles Yvette led the organisations to achieve success, changing dysfunctional groups into high functioning teams and enabling the charities to thrive. She gained good knowledge of governance from experience as an Honorary Secretary. She understands disadvantage and brings her passion to tackle it as incoming Chair designate.

Hardik is an experienced consultant with Duetsche Bank and has a track record in delivering transformation projects across different industries in government and commercial organisations. Prior to consulting, he was a systems engineer within the UK Ministry of Defence. Hardik holds an MBA from University of Warwick and a MEng in Aerospace Engineering from Queen Mary University of London.

Fiona has 35 years’ experience in the transport industry including 13 years with her current employer, Network Rail, holding a number of director and senior leadership roles. Fiona spent several years as a self-employed consultant, working on a range of transformation, business improvement and commercial bidding assignments.
Andrew started his career in brand marketing for a number of blue-chip organisations, following which he took a break from the corporate world to qualify as a teacher. Andrew then worked for an educational charity before taking on the role of Membership and Marketing Director for a leading membership body in the social care sector.
Those who have departed are Alison Cribbs, vice-chair, who had been a trustee since 2015, Ian Davison who joined the board in October 2016 and chaired the HR committee, Bernie Watson who joined the board in 2018, and Alexis Marz and Hony Premial who both joined in 2017 and sat on the Finance and HR committees respectively.

Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.
Citizens Advice Epsom & Ewell (CAEE) is a small, local charity offering free advice and information for all who live, work and study in the borough of Epsom & Ewell. All advice is free, confidential, impartial and independent.

Each year CAEE helps around 3,000 clients with issues such as benefits, housing, debt, fuel poverty, family issues and much more. Our outcomes are extremely positive not only for the clients we serve, but also for the wider community. During 2020/21 we secured income in excess of £1.2m for our clients. Our added value to society totalled £1.06m in fiscal benefits by reducing health service demand and maintaining employment and housing. The wider economic and social benefit of our work during 2020/21 totalled almost £8m.

As a small charity we are responsible for raising our funds. It costs, on average, £60 for each client that we help. To make a donation please visit www.caee.org.uk/donate/ Just £5 per month could enable us to help another client this year.

To get advice please use our freephone adviceline 0808 278 7963 or visit our website where you can get advice by emails and also find details of our drop in service.

Beavers and adults from 8th/14th Epsom (Air Scouts) and 3rd Epsom (St Martins) joined over 400 Beavers and leaders from other Surrey Scout groups. Beavers Go Wild is an overnight camp which is held at Bentley Copse Activity Centre, south of Guildford, which is owned by Surrey Scouts.

During last weekend over 50 activities were on offer including Zip Line, Go Karts, climbing, caving, bouncy castles, making large bubbles, giant games, target slingshot paintballing, assault course and many more. In addition, young Beavers got to learn about Rail Safety by Network Rail who brought their train set, which is part of giving Scouting “skillsforlife”.

Denise Iverson, Assistant County Commissioner (Beaver Scouts), said: “Fun and Friends, it was great seeing all the children and leaders meeting new and old friends”.

Beaver Scouts are 6–8 years old, the next section on from Squirrels which are 4-6 years old.

Barnaby a Beaver Scout aged 6.5 from Epsom & Ewell, said: “I liked the campfire because it was nice and toasty.” Evelyn a Beaver Scout aged 6 from Farnham, said: “I liked the Zip Line as it feels like you are flying when you are doing it.” Matthew a Beaver Scout aged 7 from Pyford, said: “I liked doing all the activities with my friends.”

Finley a Beaver Scout aged 6.5 from Haslemere, said: “I liked the cave maze because there was lots of different ways out and campfire because there was lots of singing.” Jayden a Beaver Scout aged 7 from Sunbury, said: “I liked the cave maze because I like the dark.” Rory a Beaver Scout aged 7 from Farnham, said: “I liked the rock climbing as it was fun and challenging.” Vivian a Beaver Scout aged 7 from Farnham, said: “I liked the arts and crafts and I made some rope.”

All genders, races and backgrounds are welcome at Scouts. Every week, it gives almost half a million people aged 4-25 the skills they need for school, college, university, the job interview, the important speech, the tricky challenge and the big dreams: the skills they need for life.  

Scouts helps members gain these skills by encouraging them to ask the big questions and listen with wide open minds. It helps them to take a deep breath and speak up, think on their feet, ignore the butterflies and go for it. With Scouts, young people don’t give up – they get back up and try again, often with the support of the friends they’ve made there.  

Scout volunteers contribute more than 50 million hours of voluntary work each year to their local communities.