0
As you may already know, our FoodShare service has been opening it’s doors at 2pm for a long time now.
Part of the reason for this original time was due to a couple of factors:
- Arrival time of food (and sorting in preparation for distribution)
- Availability of volunteers to help run the service
This meant that despite requests to run it earlier (especially from parents who needed to do the school run around 3pm) – we had no way of accommodating this.
However, now that those two potential issues have been resolved we are now able to make the change.
We asked attendees whether they would prefer this time at last week’s service (which we had to run early due to external circumstances) and the majority of attendees agreed it was a good idea.
So with that said, effective immediately we are officially changing the time of our FoodShare to:
| FoodShare Change | Start | End (Approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| Foodshare (Was) | 2:00pm | 3:30pm |
| Foodshare (Now) | 1:30pm | 3:00pm |
We hope the new time helps more people access the service.
Warm Space Changes
Our funding to cover our Warm Space service will be running out in November of 2023 which presents us with a number of challenges in keeping it going.
The main issue is that funding covered the occupation of one of our most popular rooms on one of our most popular hiring days – meaning, going forward we will be potentially losing income which we rely on to keep the centre open.
What was originally supposed to be a temporary situation due to increased energy charges and poor weather has turned into a nice little community space that we don’t want to have to take away as we feel if we can continue to make it work, we will.
Ideally we would be able to find additional funding to help with this, but with reduced availability and demand at an all time high it is harder than ever to get continuation funding for small isolated projects.
As such alongside the time changes made to FoodShare we will be making a permanent time change starting Warm Space half an hour later.
| Warm Space Change | Start | End (Approx.) |
|---|---|---|
| Warm Space (Now) | 12:30 | 3:00pm |
| Warm Space (Nov 1st+) | 1:00pm | 3:00pm |
In addition to the time change we will be introducing nominal charges for hot drinks to cover the costs of replenishing stock.
In Summary
Effective Immediately
- FoodShare new time(s) ~ 1:30pm – 3:00pm
From November 1st
- WarmSpace new time(s) ~ 1:00pm – 3:00pm
- Hot drinks will need to be paid for (Charges TBD)
Note: Warm Space viability is subject to change as we may get further requests for booking the space which we will have to prioritise if additional funding cannot be found – either way we will do our best to keep attendees informed.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support
The Castleland Team
