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Mr Robert Huck welcomed 21 members of Hebden Bridge Probus Club to hear Mr Paul Blakey speak about Street Angels. Paul spoke on how the Angels were formed, and their purpose in patrolling the streets of Halifax, helping people who were ill, drunk, lost or frightened or in any difficulty. He was awarded the MBE recently for this work, and the Angels received a certificate of “The Big Society” from the Prime Minister. Paul is now national co-ordinator for Street Angels. The vote of thanks was given by Geoffrey Greenwood. Source
A man who was viciously attacked in Blackpool town centre has welcomed suggestions to reinstate monitoring of the resort’s CCTV system. Following a spate of violent incidents in the town, landlords called for Blackpool Council’s system to be manned again and suggested ways to harness revenue and volunteers to fund it. Daniel Burgess, 42, from central Blackpool, who was attacked by two men, has backed suggestions by landlord Stephen Pierre that venues help to fund the system and volunteers be sought to man it. It comes after council bosses said they would welcome suggestions on re-instating a staffed service again as police appealed for information on two, separate, horrifying attacks just metres from where Mr Burgess was attacked at around 1.30am on April 27, at the junction of Talbot Road and Dickson Road. Mr Burgess, whose alleged attackers are due in court next week, said: “I’m a staunch supporter of monitored CCTV. I think it should be on whatever the cost, it would make people feel safer.” Bar owner Stephen Pierre has said while he sympathises that reinstating manned CCTV when Blackpool Council is having to cuts millions from its budget is “not an easy task”, he believes there are ways it can be done. He said: “Monitored CCTV is a great preventive tool against crime and offers the police real time information. “An apportioned late night levy tax on bars and clubs which operate past 11pm could be introduced. As a bar operator I would certainly support this. Another way to help reduce CCTV operational costs is to accept the kind voluntary support offered from The Street Angels. “With appropriate training a number of The Street Angels could spend a few hours at peak times assisting the professional CCTV operators.” Street Angels bosses have pledged their support for such an idea. Blackpool branch manager Paul Rawson said: “We’re fully supportive and behind CCTV being monitored, I think they should have kept it on. “If they were asking for volunteers it’s something we would certainly look into.” Mr Rawson is a member of a night-time economy working group, set up by Blackpool Council to try to improve the town centre in the evening, with a sub-committee charged with dealing with public safety. Source
Raising funds for those who need care in a time of need. Guildford's Street Angels are setting off on a nine day sponsored walk today (20th September) from Canterbury Cathedral to Guildford Cathedral. It is to help raise funds for the charity, which has been going for six years. Street Angels are volunteers who believe that people deserve care and love in their time of need. Those needs could be as a result of homelessness, intoxication, drug abuse, assault or any other issue which has caused personal distress or the potential for physical harm. The Street Angels operate under the management of the Town Centre Chaplaincy with volunteers representing people of different faiths and none. The Guildford Street Angels programme operates with support from Surrey Police and the Safer Guildford Partnership. Guildford Street Angels operate on Friday, Saturday and occasional weekday nights from around 10.30 pm until around 4.00 am when all the bars and clubs are closed. To find out more about Guildford Street Angels, click here. Source
Every mother hopes for, yet in equal measure dreads, the day her eldest child leaves home to start university. As Kym-Marie Cleasby hugged 20-year-old Bethany goodbye on the doorstep of her new student digs in Southampton, she desperately tried to mask her tears with a smile. These exciting new beginnings would mark the next chapter in her daughter’s life — it was her duty as a mother to let go. Back home, in their empty nest in Witney, near Oxford, she and her husband Rodney, 61, a graphic designer, were consoled by the fact that Bethany’s photography course would launch her into a rewarding career. But what Kym-Marie, 51, a director of an international charity, could not have anticipated was that Bethany’s arrival at university would precipitate her downward spiral into a dangerous world of alcohol dependency, leaving her deep in debt and vulnerable to sexual predators. While stories of students drinking to excess are nothing new, Bethany’s tale will horrify any mother of daughters. And never more so than at this time of year, as drink-fuelled Freshers’ Weeks across Britain seduce a new cohort of wide-eyed students with a seemingly endless supply of cheap alcohol. before her first term at Southampton Solent University was out, Bethany had developed the beginnings of such a serious drink problem that she swapped lectures for sessions at Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), before dropping out of university altogether. ‘It sickens me to admit that I must have had at least 50 one-night stands — and they’re the ones that I am aware of — all because I was too drunk to care,’ she says. Too drunk to bother with contraception, Bethany realises she was very lucky not to get pregnant, or contract a sexually transmitted infection. And, having repeatedly put herself in vulnerable positions, she is also aware she’s lucky to be alive. Now 26, Bethany says her problems began when, as a shy student, she took advantage of the cheap booze laid on to lubricate those awkward early social interactions. When, two months into her university career, Bethany called home in tears, her parents were horrified. ‘She had six weeks of term to go, but had already blown her entire student maintenance loan — around £1,600 — and was a further £1,000 overdrawn,’ Kym-Marie says. ‘it emerged that all of it had gone on drink.’ At her parents’ insistence, Bethany caught a train home within the hour. later that evening, the full extent of her drinking became clear. ‘We worked out she was drinking around 240 units a week,’ says Kym-Marie. ‘more than 15 times the recommended limit.’ When she went back to university after Christmas 2008, her parents took control of her finances, opening a bank account in Kym-Marie’s name and transferring £30 a week for food. But, unbeknown to them, Bethany spent the money on alcohol. She was also so adept at getting others to buy drinks for her that controlling her money made little difference. ‘Some clubs sold pints for 50p, and my friends and I could easily share a litre of vodka before going out,’ she says. ‘I regularly had blackouts, where I could barely remember arriving at a club let alone leaving it. ‘Once, apparently, I even went around a late-night kebab shop asking men to go home with me. Fortunately, one guy, a total stranger, realised the state I was in and took me to my shared house.’ For Kym-Marie, it was a terrifying time. Though Bethany kept many of the most shameful incidents to herself, she would often phone home, full of self-loathing and distraught about her drinking. With her parents’ encouragement, she began attending AA meetings, but felt out of place in the group of mainly men, meeting secretly in dark church halls. She longed to find others in a similar situation to herself: young women, new to alcohol and struggling to cope. Emily Robinson, director of campaigns at Alcohol Concern, says: ‘It’s not easy for young people to work out how to deal with alcohol. They’re bombarded with alcohol advertising, which tells them drinking is a normal thing to do, and it’s often available at unscrupulously low prices. ‘Young people also tend to overestimate how much their peers drink, which can cause a feeling that “everyone is doing it”.’ Indeed, research conducted by Drinkaware and the National Union of Students claims many 18 to 24-year-olds think it is socially unacceptable not to drink alcohol, and one in five young adults say peer pressure influences them to drink more than they might wish. Further evidence suggests that those who drink heavily in their teens and early 20s are up to twice as likely as light drinkers to still be binge-drinking 25 years later. Persia Lawson, 28, is certain it was her arrival at Exeter University ten years ago, to study English literature, that sparked her lack of boundaries around alcohol. ‘Nothing prepared me for the student alcohol culture,’ she says. ‘Aged 18, I’d barely drunk before and, suddenly, was seeing boozed-up girls getting naked in pubs and boys urinating into shoes in the middle of the afternoon. ‘Everyone was drinking. If you didn’t join in, you got left behind. I wasn’t drinking to escape problems — I didn’t have any — it was just about trying to fit in.’ Keen to be the ‘life and soul’, Persia was soon drinking up to 10 units a night, four days a week. ‘As my tolerance grew, I would down a bottle of wine before going out. There were ambulances outside clubs before anyone arrived: they knew the state we’d get into.’ After three years at university, Persia’s drinking was getting progressively worse. ‘I used to black out a lot, and ended up stranded at parties in the middle of nowhere, with no money to get home. I’d wake up from one-night stands, not knowing where I was or who with. In two months, I put on 2 st because of the alcohol.’ Somehow, Persia’s grades didn’t slip. After graduating, she enrolled on a drama course. ‘By then, I was so used to drinking, I thought it was normal to turn up to 8am classes still drunk. It was almost a badge of honour.’ But, when she began experiencing stomach cramps, panic attacks and depression a year after graduating, she knew that she needed help. ‘I joined a 12-step addiction recovery programme and went to therapy and started looking at the reasons I was drinking so much in the first place - because I didn't value and respect myself. 'I started to drink less, do exercise and eat more healthily, which meant that I no longer needed to turn to booze to escape from my problems and lack of self-worth.' Now, Persia jointly runs a support group for young women called Addictive Daughter. It's aimed at young women who struggle with addictive behaviours, inspiring them to make healthier lifestyle choices. She has now learned to ‘drink like a grown-up, not a student', and is much happier as a result. Last year, concerned headteachers wrote to universities to warn them they are failing in their duty of care to students by ignoring the binge-drinking culture amongst young people studying away from home for the first time. Emily Robinson says the blame cannot be laid solely with universities: ‘If we’re to change the student drinking culture, we need bars and retailers to act responsibly, and this means not trying to hook them in with irresponsible price promotions. ‘We need the Government to act and introduce a minimum unit price, which would cover student bars and help prevent students bulk-buying cheap alcohol to “pre-load” at home before going out.’ Kym-Marie believes the combination of cheap alcohol and student loans can prove lethal, when combined with a first taste of independence. Although she didn’t finish her course, with family support, Bethany stopped drinking, of her own volition, in June 2011. Horrified by the lack of age-appropriate support, Kym-Marie has now left her job to set up a charity with Bethany to plug that gap. Wash My Pink Jumper (a code phrase Bethany would use on the phone to her mum while at university to show she needed help, without losing face in front of her friends) offers a helpline and weekly meetings for young women. ‘Drinking is not always black and white. It is not always about being an alcoholic or not,’ Kym-Marie says. ‘We support young women, and parents who are worried about them. I don’t want any mother to feel how I felt.’ For Bethany, the charity has been a lifeline: ‘To know I got through that awful time and can help others do the same gives me purpose. I feel horrified at what I did, what I put everyone through. ‘I was lucky to have such a strong, supportive family — in many ways, the charity aims to replicate that for other girls who are not so fortunate.’ Visit washmypinkjumper.com, addictivedaughter.com, or actiononaddiction.org.uk Source
Volunteers in York are receiving free safety training to support them in their work with vulnerable people. Eboracum Training is offering free courses in conflict management for members of Street Angels York. Street Angels is a church-led initiative that provides practical and listening support to people in the city. The training provides volunteers with strategies and skills to remain safe in difficult situations. Eboracum Training was launched by Eboracum Security earlier this year. Carl Nickson, managing director at the parent company, said the firm wanted to ‘put something back into the community’ by providing the training. ‘We approached Street Angels York because of the fantastic work they do, and we were delighted to be able to offer them conflict management training completely free of charge,’ he said. ‘The Street Angels deal with some very vulnerable and challenging individuals, so through this training they are able to keep themselves – and the people they work with – safe, whilst also providing a more effective service.’ The company is now looking to provide further training courses after positive feedback, he added. Source
A TEAM of “Street Angels’” is helping to maintain a safer night-time environment in Malton. Set up last year, the scheme involves a team of volunteers who help and support people enjoying a night out in the town. Initiated by PC Jane Jones, of Malton police, the aim is to support people who may be struggling to get home safely and help defuse situations before they get out of hand. PC Jones said one aspect of the Street Angel role was befriending in the hope of possibly influencing future behaviour choices. She said: “We are, in general, welcomed by the people we meet while out patrolling, and some now come and ask for our assistance. Over the last six patrols the Street Angels had given out 11 bottles of water to those who are vomiting or clearly very drunk, and 29 pairs of flip-flops to assist women who are walking with difficulty in high-heeled shoes or are already barefoot.” PC Jones said the patrol routinely picked up abandoned or empty bottles and cans of alcohol, pouring away the contents and placing them in council refuse bins. She said: “Empty glasses are returned to the nearest pub to prevent accidents from broken glass, and to remove potential weapons from those who may become aggressive.” Initiated in Halifax, Street Angels have patrolled other towns and cities for some time, including Scarborough and York. PC Jones said during recent patrols in Malton they had helped 14 individuals. She said: “If we notice people in personal difficulties, needing help to find friends, to get home or needing medical assistance, for example, we offer what help we can personally and inform the CCTV operator and/or the ambulance service as appropriate. “If we see violent incidents building up or occurring we inform the police via the CCTV operator, and seek to be a useful witness for the police in recording and passing on facts and identification.” PC Jones said the Street Angels would also like to thank members of the public for their donations to the charity boxes which are located around the pubs in Malton and Norton, which has so far raised £60. She said: “As Street Angels we seek to work in partnership with pub doormen and any other staff in trying to maintain a safe environment in the night-time economy. “A local glazier has reported a major reduction in broken windows in Malton and commented that there were usually two or three most weeks and there have been hardly any since November when Street Angels began.” Source
Kirkheaton Church members Karen and Ian Atkinson joined the Festival Angels at this year’s Leeds Festival. Serving the 80,000 festival goers were a group of Christians – Festival Angels – and that’s where the journey really began. They met with lots of other volunteers, there were just over 100 volunteers in total, who managed both a Prayer Tent - with coffee and tea on tap 24 hours a day, and the Lost and Found. Since 2011 Festival Angels have offered a safe place, a Christian presence and safe people around the site. Ian and Karen were on site from Wednesday to Saturday August 20-23. “It was a truly amazing and inspiring experience,” said Karen, “Ian and I feel totally blessed to have been a part of it.” They are also members of the Huddersfield Street Angels, who help people in the town who get into any kind of trouble on a Saturday night. With their Street Angels experience they became one of the detached teams. “Our remit was to wander around the site and offer help in whatever way we could,” she added, “as well as collecting lost property from the campsite managers. “We worked in pairs or occasionally threes and carried a bag of essentials including water, sun-cream, baby wipes, foil blankets, plasters, rubber gloves and lollies.” 1,170 lost property items were handed in to the Festival Angels team and 565 have been returned to date. They are still working on the rest. This included dozens of passports and Driving Licences, £100 in cash and at least one tent. Other things Karen and Ian got involved with included: Pitching tents in the dark and the rain Offering First Aid help and advice Walking a very lost and anxious young lady to meet her friends at the opposite side of the Festival site Informing other Festival staff about security situations that they had observed and also potentially vulnerable people who may need help at a later time Guiding a vulnerable young man to the Welfare Tent where he could be cared for until he could recall where he was Unravelling a girl who had been wrapped in packing tape by her friends. “We spent just over 20 hours over four days, walked over 30 miles, clocked over 300 miles in round trips in the car, she adds, “and had a fantastic time.” Source
Ecclesiastes 3:1-5 “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven. “A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing” I think there is even a time for fun. It has been a good thing to see the events that have happened in our community so far this year and the good number of folk that gotten out and enjoyed these times. I admit it hasn’t been all easy for some of us that live in city centre. I have had to figure options on parking; there has been litter in street, lots and lots of noise, and a few other challenges. And I don’t want it every weekend year around but all in all I say - enjoy. This past weekend I had a chance to do something that I have been wanting to be involved in but just hadn’t seemed to manage, Street chaplaincy. ROCK Street Chaplains were able to send a team to Music Fest and I was able be a part of the team. I had a blast visiting with folk. Well a lot of the folk I chatted with were, shall we say a bit past merely having had a drink. Some close encounters I felt the effects just from the vapours hanging in the air...that may be a bit of an overstatement but enough said, the guilty moaned about sore heads Sunday morning on Facebook. We went out and about and talked to people, we gave lollypops and a wee contact card out and for the ladies we had a special on pink flip flops to ease the foot pain from the high heels. We got lots of comments and questions, even some serious conversations. I saw folk that I’d not had a chance to chat with in ages. I felt we were appreciated for being out and about, and not one person was nasty or mean at all. I expected a bit of a hard time from somebody but honestly, it was some of the best late nights I’ve in involved in. So for all the folk out and about the event overall seems a success. The Street Chaplains said it was really a great time and that Brechin folk were really friendly and they want to come back. And even though they didn’t have a jacket my size folk still seemed to know who I was. I want to say a big thank-you to the organisers of these community events, WELL DONE! Thanks to all the local venues who hosted the different groups and bands. Thanks to the folk who clogged up Clerk Street. A big thank you to whoever it was that picked up the trash that was left behind. A big thanks to those who came out and had a great time and made me glad to be a part of Brechin and glad for friends and the chance to meet some new ones. A great bit of fun in its time, Rev. Jon Bergen Brechin Baptist Fellowship and on behalf of ROCK Street Chaplains Source
For the last two years, Hull's team of Street Angel volunteers have become a regular sight on the city's streets on Friday and Saturday nights. Easily identified by their high-viz gear, they help revellers who've over-indulged get to safety, and just as importantly, encourage responsible drinking to try and prevent unfortunate incidents from even occuring. But due to members moving on, the pool of Street Angels, who take turns doing the rounds once a month, is down to just 22 members. As a result, they're struggling to put volunteers on the streets every Saturday and Friday night. What's more, it means it's currently impossible for them to go forward with their plans to expand to provide a service at major events, and after football and rugby matches. Organiser Karen Thompson says they're desperate for new people to get involved, and that all new members get comprehensive training: "At least ten more would be great. All our volunteers receive such an investment from myself and their colleagues, because we firmly believe that what they're giving us is immeasurable. We cannot pay them, they are giving their time up freely, but what we can do in return is actually invest in them." Karen says that at it's core, the Street Angels initiative is all about improving Hull as a destination: "If we can get these people home they're at less risk of getting assaulted, getting robbed, all these bad things that could happen - not that they do - but could happen. The last thing you want is someone to say, 'Well, I went to Hull for the weekend and it was terrible'. You want people to say, 'I had a fantastic time in Hull, and I felt really safe'." |
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ROC Angels - an initiative of ROC (Redeeming Our Communities)
Charity - 1139817 / Registered Company - 7327258 Postal Address: ROC Angels, c/o The King's Centre, Park Rd, Halifax, HX1 2TS E-Mail: [email protected] (founder / CEO) / Phone: 07725501465 |