Battersea Coronavirus Angels – Update (08May20)

Canon Simon Butler, Vicar of St Mary’s Battersea (and a trustee of KLS), is writing a weekly e-news to the Coronavirus Angels volunteers. As we’re partner in this new venture we thought we should reproduce it here as it’s full of interesting and relevant stuff! 

Hello everyone again,

Before you read the newsletter, please note that we have been rather let down by Zoom in the past couple of days which means that the links we sent out earlier in the week for the Big Conversations next week are now not correct. There are new ones in this newsletter which should be used. See below for more details. 

Life at Coronavirus Angels has quietened down a bit in the last week, so we’re trying to discover the reasons for that. Still, it gives us a little time to do some extra publicity and to think about the future. We’re approaching 400 individual responses now in the seven weeks we’ve been in lockdown, which shows a real depth of need. We’ve got a team of twenty befrienders working alongside the Elders Team at Katherine Low Settlement to befriend over 40 individuals in need of some telephone support.

Last week, Aaron Barbour and I took part in a Zoom call with Marsha de Cordova MP, which gave us a chance to share our learning and to build our work alongside other groups responding across Battersea. We’re also looking at making a short promotional video with one or two well-known local faces to encourage people to look out for their neighbours and refer to us if help can be offered.

Zoom Conversations about Where Next: Next week (w/c 11th May), Monday to Friday twice a day (12.45pm-1.30pm & 4.15pm to 5pm), we are holding a series of big conversations about how we capitalise on this outpouring of volunteering and goodwill in Battersea. We said in our last email that this would be an informal opportunity to share in discussion with other people about what we might do to continue to make a difference in our community. We will be addressing five very open questions.

Monday 11th May: What have you found yourself caring  more and less about during lockdown? 
12.45pm meeting (Password: 828261)
4.15pm meeting (Password: 565323)

Tuesday 12th May: What has surprised you/have you discovered about the community of Battersea during lockdown?  
12.45pm meeting (Password: 828261)
4.15pm meeting (Password: 565323)

Wednesday 13th May: In what ways has this experience inspired ideas for a different vision for the future of Battersea? 
12.45pm meeting (Password: 828261)
4.15pm meeting (Password: 565323)

Thursday 14th May: What would a more sustainable and supportive community look like in Battersea?
12.45pm meeting (Password: 828261)

4.15pm meeting (Password: 565323)

Friday 15th MayOn the Friday we shall pull this together and discuss Where would you like to devote your energy to improve Battersea for people in the coming months and years? 
12.45pm meeting (Password: 828261)
4.15pm meeting (Password: 565323)

You are welcome to attend any of these meetings (there are two identical opportunities each day) and you can do so by clicking the links for your preferred time. The sessions will last no more than 45 minutes.

Telephone Befriending: We’re keen to expand our team of telephone befrienders for the next stage of the pandemic and would be keen to hear from anyone who would like to do this so that you can have some light-touch training. If you’ve not done the training yet, and you think that you have developed an ongoing befriending relationship with someone you’ve helped, we would also ask you to take part in the training, so that we can have good boundaries and do our befriending as well as we can.

Declutter and Donate: Perhaps you are using some of your spare time to have a sort out at home?  This week KLS are launching Declutter and Donate.  In a nutshell, use this special LINK to scan the books, CD’s, DVD’s or Games you want to declutter into the Zeffit App, they send a courier to collect the items and the proceeds come straight to KLS.  Please do share this with friends and contacts.

Sewing Fairies and Face Mask Initiative: We are a small team of face mask makers. These masks will initially be made for the vulnerable groups, associations and charities (cancer, homeless, elderly care homes, carers, etc) and medical staff (not to be used on the frontline) following the NHS guideline. We need *VOLUNTEERS who are willing to offer their time, talent and resources; *SEWING FAIRIES: people who can sew with their own sewing machine and access to a washing machine. We also need volunteers for social media exposure, transport, research, etc. We will support you and tell you all about the structure, model, etc. and give you the guidelines. All volunteers must be self-isolating and must follow strict hygiene and health standards and the masks will follow NHS guidelines. Please send an email to [email protected] telling us how you can help and where you are. Thank you Jazzy.

A Special Thank You To AFC Wimbledon Foundation and the Dons Local Action Group, who have been absolutely fantastic at providing us with food parcels in recent weeks, supplementing the work of Wandsworth Foodbank in a fantastic way. Three cheers for the Dons!

Best wishes,

Simon Butler

Canon Simon Butler
Vicar of St Mary’s Battersea
07941 552407
stmarysbattersea.org.uk

Contact

If you need a bit of help from the Angels then do call us on 07394 856 557 and email [email protected]

Support our family

We are committed to building stronger communities and enabling people to challenge themselves and find ways out of isolation through our varied community projects. There are so many ways you can support our work and help us to deliver our services to even more people.

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