Agenda item

To receive a presentation by Station Commander Adam Burch

Station Commander Burch gave Members a presentation on the Fire Fighters Charity. Living Well Groups had been introduced and offered somewhere to socialise and reminisce with fellow retired members of the fire and rescue service. Back in 2018, the Charity noticed that it was extremely difficult to interact with retired staff who also remained beneficiaries of the charity and so they came up with this very simple concept to bring staff back into a familiar environment and create social opportunity. This was being introduced into the Service with monthly meetings, guest speakers, and access to charity services and refreshments would be provided. The introduction of the Living Well Groups would help support the delivery of agreed objectives set in the 2020-2025 People Strategy and would compliment the ongoing work of the Welfare Officer, improving the communications and support provided to retired members of the fire service community.

Station Commander Burch advised Members that 2020/21 was a challenging year for the Charity due to lack of opportunity to fundraise and the impacts of the pandemic. However, the fundraising update for the first six months of 2021/22 provided positive reading. Event fundraising had increased by 341% and recycling income by 197%. Two key events held were the tunnel to towers event which raised £7,809 and the Chesham to Brighton bike ride which raised £4,376. The figures were broken down into five key areas, events, fire service lottery, fire service regular giving, individual giving and recycling which was predominantly the clothing banks seen on many fire stations.

Projected fundraising income included post incident recognition, where donations had been raised following a large fire at the Kings Head hotel in Stokenchurch. Donations had been raised by the local community and pupils at Stokenchurch Primary School as a means of thanking the hard work and dedication shown by the operational crews. The Authority had agreed to donate £5 for every staff member providing a response to the next Culture Survey which would take place in January 2022. Various fire stations had started planning charity car washes in March 2022 and would be holding charity collections this month.

Station Commander Burch advised that a digital event registration form had been created that would automatically notify the Health and Safety team, Communications team and the Charity Coordinator with details regarding future events that were planned. This approach would provide support at the planning stage to ensure the appropriate risk assessments were completed, event insurance considered, and a communication plan put in place to maximise the opportunity to raise the profile and outreach of all future fundraising events.

Station Commander Burch highlighted how important the clothing banks were across the different sites in Buckinghamshire. Since 2010 when the first clothing bank was installed, the Service had raised in excess of £188k through clothing recycling which was in excess of 618 tons of clothing. The clothing banks had a performance poster placed on the back, informing the community and staff how much it had generated.

A Member stated that as some of the fire stations in Milton Keynes were inaccessible to members of the public, was it possible to locate the clothing banks on non-fire station sites and was advised by Station Commander Burch that the Charity was extremely supportive of banks being placed on other sites, that would be deemed suitable.