After a very busy few months we are thrilled to bring you more news on our:

Our fundraising has reached £1.65 million following a fantastic gift of a £150,000, plus significant donations received at a local private sale in aid of The Branch, helping us get closer to our target of £3.4million for redeveloping The Branch.

And why the elephants ? All the food and other goods delivered over the last 13 months add up to 100 tonnes of goods, the weight of 16 adult African elephants - quite an impressive herd!

We were delighted to receive a visit from our amazing High Sheriff of Oxfordshire , Amanda Ponsonby, at the end of the Easter holidays, to present Mary's Meals with an award 'in recognition of great and valuable services to the community.' It was a lovely surprise, marking 13 months of delivering weekly food parcels to those particularly badly affected by the pandemic.

It has been an extraordinary effort, providing over 42,000 meal s, plus other essential goods and well being packs, and it doesn't suddenly stop here. We continue to look out for the welfare of the 150+ families that we have been serving, aware that their circumstances will continue to fluctuate, particularly as the eviction ban ceases this month. A few families (40+ households) are still receiving meals in our reduced fortnightly delivery service and we recognise that the need for these is likely to increase again once the school holidays begin and access to free school meals stops.

Remix, our community youth group, was set up over 5 years ago and has provided entertainment and a safe haven of community for hundreds of teenagers. It ran weekly until March last year, and joyfully began again last month!  The following is an account from Ben Waddilove, a local musician and regular volunteer.

"It was wonderful to see so many pupils return for the first Remix session on Friday afternoon. Braving wind and stormy rain they came in droves, excited (and perhaps just relieved) to be there again for the first time in over 14 months. We played a boisterous and noisy game of football on the big pitch with all ages taking part.

Joel, (our youth worker) appeared and demonstrated his prowess in the sliding tackle, the ground shook… Others scaled the dizzy heights of the climbing wall, played badminton, table tennis, computer/video games or pool. Some were creative with arts and crafts and some just generally ‘hung out’ and ran around with their friends in the safe, friendly environment that is Remix.

Children are always hungry after school(!) and they were adequately provided for by our tip top catering team in the kitchen with a table of free food and assortments of toast, hot chocolate and confectionary available. We also re-formed the Remix band – jamming away on guitars and cajon, singing the blues to anyone that was listening!

We are so thankful that we can continue to reach out to the young people in this way once more."

As the need for practical support, here in Chipping Norton, has grown over the pandemic, so too have we seen an increased need in terms of mental and emotional health and wellbeing. As well as anxiety, worry and stress, many in our community have been struggling with isolation and loneliness.

Working with the amazing charity Kintsugi Hope, we launched our first Kintsugi Hope wellbeing course last Autumn, as part of our overall response to this growing need. Kintsugi, meaning 'golden joinery', is a Japanese technique for repairing pottery with seams of gold. This repairs the brokenness in a way that makes the object more beautiful and even more unique than it was prior to being broken – instead of hiding the scars, it makes a feature of them. The groups are for anyone who is feeling, or has felt, overwhelmed and provide a safe and supportive environment for people to flourish and invest in their mental health and wellbeing.

We were delighted that our wellbeing support (which has included weekly wellbeing packs, 1:1 mentoring for both adults and youth, a phone web and a Mongolian Yurt –- see February 2021 newslettter) has lead us to be chosen as a 'Hero Church' as part of the national 'Give Hope' campaign which celebrates churches committed to giving hope and responding to the needs of our communities at this time. A great privilege!

The formal planning application to redevelop The Branch, transforming this semi-derelict building into a thriving community hub fit to serve the town and surrounding communities, has been submitted to West Oxfordshire District Council and is now available for consultation on the planning portal. We would love to encourage all our supporters to log onto the site and ' Make a Comment' in support of our plans.

If you would like to do this simply follow this link https://publicaccess.westoxon.gov.uk/online-applications/ and search for the application, number 21/00986/LBC.

In your comment we would love to encourage you to state how needed this facility is, using some of the pointers below:

Thank you so much for your continued support at this critical time! Please help us to make these plans a reality and keep on track with our vision to open this important and essential facility, fit for purpose, in 2023.

Telephone:  07879 624854
Email:  campaign@thebranchtrust.org

If you would like to support or get involved in any of our work please do get in touch with Georgina Orchard using the contact details above.