This week at The Bridge we stayed late to have our AGM - Annual General Meeting. Staff, volunteers, and trustees all attended to learn about the work of The Bridge over the past year, what we want to focus on, and what the future looks like. This was the first in-person AGM The Bridge has held since before Covid, so it meant even more to see so many attend. It’s important to have meetings like this to make sure we are keeping on track with our goals, and focusing on what's important - our guests. It’s also a good opportunity as a group to learn about the homelessness situation across Leicester, and the UK, so that we know that what we’re experiencing here at The Bridge is not so different from other charities tackling the same issues.
The first thing we looked at was a summary of the past year. We learnt that our health and wellbeing plan has been incorporated into our Business Plan, which we will continue to work towards. We covered the new roles and titles that have been added to The Bridge in the past year, including our Centre Manager, and our Lived Experience Worker. We also acknowledged the increasing pressure we face due to the number of guests rising, with more complex issues than before, and the fight to provide the same quality service throughout this.
It’s important to take some time to appreciate our achievements, such as:
All the people we have supported
Changing our hours to include opening on Saturdays
Adding volunteers to our staff team
Receiving a 5 star food hygiene rating
Supporting 73 guests into accommodation
Raising £24,000 during our 2024 Big Sleep
Receiving increased funding to hire two Mentor Coordinators
Increasing the health support provided to our guests, particularly dental and optical
Also highlighted were some areas of concern, including the increase in demand, acknowledging the 82% increase in guests since 2022, which shows no sign of reducing soon. We also spoke about the lack of affordable housing, leaving many guests feeling helpless, and affecting staff who want to find solutions. The process of purchasing accommodation to turn into homes for guests was also a trial that has resulted in being frustrating and slow.
And finally, we looked to the future, and discussed the direction for the next year. This included the completion and publishing of our business plan, which we hope to add to our website mid January of next year. The aim to assist guests into more supported accommodation in a variety of ways is another aim for 2025. We also want to increase the number of businesses we work closely with and who could become Business Champions, supporting us not just with monetary donations, but with product donations and volunteering too. One thing we spoke about that is the farthest in the future is the consideration of new business premises, but that is something we will continue to look into as we monitor the development of The Bridge.
As always, thank you for reading. If you’d like to support The Bridge and the work we do, please find a link to our Christmas Fundraiser here.
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