Our best turn out so far and the same for Sutton Soup, which was a joy to see! We took up two tables at the pub beforehand and had a great time networking including having some new faces who are so new they don’t yet have an organisation name yet but have plenty of fun ideas!
Sutton Soup, as always, was a feel good night with a focus on children’s charities and we met up with more Volunteer Coordinators and Managers there.
The next one will be Thursday 24th April 24th and you can reserve your place here: Sutton Soup tickets.
The organisations who pitched were:
Croygas Pirates
This pan-disability football team was set up by football fans who wanted to make the game available to all and has proved very successful and award winning. It is run by volunteers who enjoy coaching children. They wanted people’s votes as funding is hard to come by and is required for kits, helping lower income families, pitch fees and social days out.
Home-Startt Sutton
The volunteers at the Sutton branch has been providing support for people with children under 5 for over 40 years. One of the many groups they run involves helping new mothers with a Maternal Journal. It transforms the mothers’ lives and is also good for their babies. At present they don’t have funds to run this 6 week course which they would like to offer to all pregnant women.
Creative Heritage
This group, run by local women, is for everyone from the youngest to the oldest and celebrates cultures near and far. They are particularly keen to engage with young people, offering a safe, nurturing environment to nurture their talents and help them grow to mature adults. They offer rehearsal spaces and want to help more groups and cultures. They need stage supplies, costumes, and rehearsal spaces. They run all sorts of events bringing children from different backgrounds together, helping people feel more engaged with the community - they want Sutton to feel like home for everyone.
DownsyndromeOK
They put on a wide variety of events: Xmas Parties, family days, discos, drama and speech classes for children and young adults. They told us how important early intervention is and how there is insufficient speech and language therapy provided by the NHS, and that it is not Downs specific. They offer speech, language, drama and music therapy. Children learn to copy, make choices, communicate, listen, match words, hand skills, number skills and to sit calmly. This is all provided in a weekly playgroup where, not only do the children make friends, but so do the parents who can relax together. There is a shortage of speech therapists and they are very expensive so they wanted our votes to continue this initiative.
They were delighted to be the winners of a cheque for £1475!
We also heard from Cheam Sutton Rotary Club, inviting charities to join them in their Cheam Christmas Float, which four ‘Soup’ charities did. They were able to report that over £15,000 was distributed to 16 local charities. They told us that they were offering 5 charities a chance to join them in running the 2025 Float.
Then we heard from Clare, from the Paul Alan Project who are providing defibrillators throughout Sutton and offer free basic life-support - to over 1350 people so far at their monthly sessions. She won the previous Sutton Soup and spent their winnings on a defibrillator for over 1000 people on the Shanklin Housing Estate, who will also be offered training. This received fantastic feedback from residents who now feel safer.
The lovely ladies of the Carshalton Netball Club volunteered their time to wash up so that the key organisers of Soup didn’t miss out on what’s going on.
If you know any other group who would be willing to help, contact the team. If you know any local group who you think would benefit from pitching, then please do encourage them to apply via the website.
If you would like to volunteer for any of these organisations get in touch with them directly, quoting you found out about it through Volunteer Centre Sutton. You can find some specific roles and more on Simply Connect.
If you’re interested in anything get in touch and we can help you out: https://vcsutton.org.uk/volunteer/
Next Volunteer Coordinator’s Forum will be in February.
