After months of planning alongside the venue, beneficiaries and volunteers, our new weekly Bognor drop-in launched in early September and is already proving to be a vibrant and popular social event.

We have discussed the possibility of a Bognor drop-in a few times since WSCC began placing resettled families from Afghanistan there in 2021, but with a gradual continued increase in families from various parts of the world, and beneficiaries in Bognor finding it difficult to get to the Chichester drop-in, demand finally reached a tipping point. Numbers have grown from 12 beneficiaries to 19 attending the drop-in since it launched, all enjoying chatting with each other and volunteers, playing board games, spelling out their names with magnetic letters (a great way for those who have little English language to familiarise themselves with our alphabet) or working on creative projects. We were also delighted to welcome some new Bognor-based drop-in volunteers.

Here’s a report from Trustee and Drop-In Lead Jude Clouston about the latest session:

Some of the beneficiaries who came along last week joined us again but there were new ones too. Leave to Remain Coordinator Hannah Lytton was kept very busy registering some of these with Sanctuary as they have only recently moved to Bognor. Trustee Mike Mansergh came along to see how we were doing and was quickly involved in helping one beneficiary who had recently gained leave to remain for himself and his family, and who have been moved into temporary accommodation in Bognor until they can find somewhere more permanent.

We put together some more activities this week, mostly around sewing, knitting and crochet. We are very grateful to volunteer Sheila for organising materials, to Miranda for providing some lovely new wools and knitting needles and to Chichester drop-in volunteer, Catherine, who had sorted through excess sewing and knitting items in the Chichester store cupboard and brought along more needles, buttons, scissors etc. The women soon got stuck in producing some lovely things and Jo taught one woman the basics of knitting – she took her needles and wool home to practice.