The Great Sanctuary Cake Bake: Can you rise to the challenge?

Looking for something to do during the interminable school holidays/balmy summer evenings? Look no further…

As if it’s not hot enough already, we’re now asking you to put your oven on! Throughout the summer, we’re asking our supporters to bake the best cakes in the world (or near enough) and sell them to help reach our fundraising goal of £40,000, to support our work with refugees and asylum seekers.

Bake with the kids, bake with friends, bake with neighbours!

And invite people to join you in a small cake sale or tea party.

Do take photographs of your cakes and event, and we’ll publish them on the website. And then send a cheque for the money you raise – no matter how small – to Sanctuary in Chichester, PO Box 794, Chichester, PO19 9UL. Please make cheques payable to Sanctuary in Chichester.

Ready, steady, bake!

Have a look at the bakes so far…

We have raised an extraordinary £22,600 since we launched our fundraising campaign just eight months ago. This impressive sum – over 50% of our target – has come via such varied means as concerts, grant bids, donations and greeting card sales.

Our success to date has given us great confidence that we’ll reach our goal of £40,000, and so be able to sustain and expand our support for refugees and asylum seekers in West Sussex.

We’ve got a pipeline of future events and activities lined up to support our appeal:

• Throughout August we’re asking supporters to bake and sell cakes on our behalf and to send a cheque for the proceeds – however small – to Sanctuary in Chichester, PO Box 794, Chichester, PO19 9UL.

• On Sunday 7 October, at 6pm, soprano Rebecca Grove and mezzo-soprano Stephanie Peat will sing to the accompaniment of harpist Frances Kelly, at Holy Trinity Church, Bosham.

• We are having a charity party on October 13 at the Dell Quay Sailing Club. It will run from 7pm until late and the £15 tickets will include a delicious home-cooked, two course buffet supper, a bar, music, dancing and beautiful views across the harbour (moonlight permitting!). For more info, contact su.leeming@btinternet.com.

Seeking new fundraisers

Our fundraising success is due to the generosity of our supporters and the efforts of our voluntary fundraising committee. We are looking for new recruits to attend our monthly meetings and to plan and help with events and other fundraising activities. If you are interested in joining the team, please mail us at sanctuaryinchichester@gmail.com.

We have recently had our very own notelets printed! As you can see from the images, the card features a beautiful garden scene. On the back is the City of Sanctuary branding so that anyone receiving the notelet can learn more about us.

We will be selling the notelets at our drop-in sessions and coming events, so be sure to come along if you’d like to get your hands on them…

Notelets are available in packs of five for £2.50.

Sanctuary in Chichester is now a registered cause on the website “easyfundraising”, making it simple for you to fundraise for us – for free!

easyfundraising partners with a huge range of online retailers such as John Lewis, Amazon and  eBay, and these shops give a donation to a chosen cause whenever you shop with them.

To raise money for us, please click here and sign up by clicking “Join us”. Then simply visit the easyfundraising website before shopping to choose the retailer.

We would really appreciate you raising some extra funds for us in this way, so if you have the time please do sign up!

A Chichester concert has raised almost £800 in aid of Sanctuary in Chichester and Portsmouth’s Friends Without Borders, both of which provide support for asylum seekers and refugees.

At In Search of Sanctuary, held at St Paul’s Parish Centre on 2 June, performers used poetry readings, music and song to explore the refugee experience. The accomplished singers and pianists and a violinist, clarinettist, cellist, guitarist and fiddle player performed an eclectic range of pieces from classical and pop music, to folk and musical theatre, interspersed with poetry.

The event – which raised a grand total of £797.40 – was organised by soprano Rebecca Grove, with support from her father Chris Grove and friend, mezzo-soprano Stephanie Peat.

Rebecca Zeman, from Sanctuary in Chichester, said: “Saturday’s concert was a wonderful and moving occasion, with extraordinary performances from all those who took part.

“We would like to extend a huge thanks to Rebecca, in particular, for her hard work in organising the event, to all the performers, and to everyone who gave so generously. The money raised will be a huge help in supporting our work.”

• On 7 October, at 6pm, Rebecca and Stephanie – along with harpist Frances Kelly – will perform in another fundraiser for Sanctuary in Chichester at Holy Trinity Church, Bosham.

The original idea of a walk up to Nore Folly and through Slindon woods was abandoned because of muddy footpaths and ankle deep puddles. Fortunately, an attractive alternative was close at hand: lambing at Gaston Farm in Slindon. And so our plan B became an A star occasion.

It was a beautiful sunny Spring day, quite a rare occurrence during March 2018. In total we were a happy band of eighteen, including two children. Cars parked, we approached the farm buildings with a sense of anticipation not at all sure what we might see. First stop was a hangar size building where our friends were introduced to the British tradition of queuing, even though it wasn’t clear what lay beyond. Our reward was to be seated on straw bales and handed a delightful warm bundle of yellow feathers, first a tiny chick and then a duckling, each one a few days old.

Once we prised ourselves away from the hangar we moved on to an open air enclosure where new born lambs huddled close to their mothers. Nearby in a small brick building we were again invited to sit on straw bales, this time to hold a new born lamb and feel the warmth of it’s body through the wool. What a joy. Adults as well as the children were excited and moved by the experience.

Bit by bit we all arrived at the farm picnic tables, where our friends displayed their generosity and forward-planning by laying out a feast of savoury and sweet delights for us to share and enjoy in the sunshine. We also shared our thoughts and feelings about what we had seen and enjoyed being together, no one in a hurry to move on.

There was more to come. A bumpy ride on a trailer pulled by a tractor took us out of the farm, up through Slindon on to the downland from where we could see the South Downs and Bignor Hill in one direction, Chichester Cathedral in another and the sea in yet another. We saw sheep lying on the grass with their off-spring standing on their backs. Not just a delightful pastoral scene. The tractor driver explained that lambs do this to rouse their mothers so that they can get beneath to feed.

It was lovely occasion, one to be remembered for the new experiences and for the feeling of companionship.

Annie Conway

CHICHESTER CONCERT: SATURDAY 2 JUNE 7.30PM

Musicians and singers will use poetry readings, music and song to explore the refugee experience at a coming event.

At In Search of Sanctuary at St Paul’s Parish Centre, accomplished singers, pianists, a violinist, a guitarist, a cellist, a clarinettist and a fiddle player will perform an eclectic range of pieces from classical and pop music to folk and musical theatre, interspersed with poetry.

Admission is free. No ticket or pre-booking required, with all donations going to Sanctuary in Chichester and Portsmouth’s Friends Without Borders which, like Sanctuary, provides support for asylum seekers and refugees.

The June event is being organised by soprano Rebecca Grove, with support from her father Chris Grove and friend mezzo-soprano Stephanie Peat. The concert is the latest in a series of musical fundraisers Rebecca has worked on.

Coffee, tea and light refreshments will be served. Free parking is available outside St Paul’s Church, Churchside, Chichester, PO19 FT6.

For more information, call 01243 781370.

SECURITY TIPS

Before you go into battle against the scammers and hackers, find people to go into battle with you. Even just their advice, or having someone to talk to, is valuable. So here is a list:-

1. Computer magazines. They’re a fund of information, and probably have a security section like this one.
2. Computer shops. They can be helpful. Go in and buy something, then have a chat with the person behind the counter and pick their brains!
3. Chat to IT specialists – if there are any – at your place of work. They might have some advice.
4. Evening classes in computing – beginners’ or advanced – at your local college. They can give people a chance to share their knowledge with each other.
5. Make friends with your bank’s fraud department. Having them on your side and working for you will be a very good help when protecting your money, and they will watch out for any payments you didn’t intend to make, or any devious small print, committing you to regular payments you don’t actually want to make. Small print doesn’t usually appear on the screen, unless you scroll down. The fraud department will probably spot that for you.

EMAIL AND INTERNET

1. Never give personal information, such as passwords, to anyone. This sounds obvious – until someone does actually ask for your personal information! And they will. Sometimes, if it’s a person you yourself have contacted, and who hasn’t taken you by surprise, you might be safe giving one or two details, but never your password, or pin number. If they ask for those things, then you can be 100% certain they’re up to no good.
2. Don’t click on links in an email, you never know where they might lead, or even what simply clicking on them might do. They might crash your system, flood your computer – or your phone – with malware. You never know. Again, there are people you can trust, like your internet provider, who may send you a link to reset your password – but they will most likely tell you first that they will be doing that.
3. Make sure your antivirus system keeps an eye open for unwanted emails.  The email protection that antivirus programs provide is good, but sometimes the protection won’t start until it is activated by you.
4. Don’t use Wi-fi in public places, such as at an airport or café. There are programs out there called ‘network sniffers’. That boy in the corner watching a computer game might be doing no more than that – or he might have one of those ‘sniffer’ programs running in the background. The ‘sniffer’ monitors all of the wireless data flowing through a particular network to reach your email inbox – and that data can include important information – such as usernames and passwords. So wait to check your emails until you are safely in your hotel room, or some other secure and private location.
5. Watch what you’re sharing on social networks. Criminals can befriend you and easily gain access to a shocking amount of information—where you go to school, where you work, when you’re on vacation—that could help them gain access to more valuable data.
6. It is a good idea to have separate email accounts: one for friends and family, one for work, etc. Then, even if you take risks with one – because you have to make that call to your family – at least you can be sure your other account will be safe.
7. Shopping on the Internet can be tricky. The websites of well-known stores like John Lewis and Sainsburys are pretty safe. Amazon look after their customers, too, so you should be safe with them. However, be very careful of shops you don’t know, and free vouchers – or any other pop-ups or balloons – that appear from nowhere. If in doubt, check that it is a secure webpage where you are shopping. There should be a padlock or something next to the address bar, or the letters ‘https://’.

ON THE PHONE

• If the people who call you won’t say who they are, but ask who you are – ring off.
• If you say ‘Hello’ and there’s a long pause, and they just say ‘Hello’ back to you – ring off. They’re up to no good.
• If they say “Congratulations, you’ve won a prize,” they’re after your details, which they would then ask you to provide, pretending that you need to provide them in order to claim their so-called, non-existent prize. So ring off.
• If they say they’re from Microsoft, or BT, or some huge firm that would never bother to phone an individual, ignore them. Be ruthless. Ring off. They even sometimes phone you when they know you’re online and sitting at your computer. So again, just ring off, otherwise they can get to you.

ABUSIVE PHONE CALLS

With unwanted calls – heavy breathing or whatever – just put the phone down on the table (not on the phone cradle, since that allows people to ring again) and let the abuser carry on talking into thin air – and he will also be paying for the call!

ON FACEBOOK

Make sure to adjust your Privacy Settings, which you will find in the top right-hand part of the screen, on the blue bar. There’s a little picture/icon of a padlock – it’s black on a blue background, so it’s not easy to see at first. There are various options, so have a look at them all, and click on the ones you want. And then keep checking those options you ticked, in case someone is able to alter them.

There are endless security tips available, and new ones are needed all the time, but these are just a few pieces of good advice. So feel free to copy and paste them and then print them out.

Richard France

An acclaimed film about the unaccompanied child refugees left stranded by the closure of the Calais Jungle will be shown at Sanctuary in Chichester’s first ever AGM.

Calais Children: a Case to Answer by award-winning director Sue Clayton follows the young people, many of whom had a legal right to come to the UK, over the year since their forced eviction.

The film will be shown after our AGM, which starts at 7.30pm on 7 March 2018 at St Paul’s Church, Churchside, Chichester, PO19 6FT. The hour-long film is likely to start at around 8.05pm.

Everyone is welcome to both the AGM and the film. Admission is free, although there will be a voluntary collection. Refreshments will be served.

Roger in Pask, Sanctuary in Chichester chair, said: “The meeting will mainly be a celebration of a year of amazing achievements by a large number of our volunteers – so please note the date in your diary and be sure to join us.”

Our fundraising appeal has got off to a terrific start, with people giving a total of £4,000 (10% of our £40,000 target) in just two months. A big thank you to everyone who has donated!

The money has been raised through one-off donations, new regular giving standing orders and sales from Christmas cards. This successful launch has given us great confidence that we’ll reach our goal of £40,000, and so be able to sustain and expand our support for refugees and asylum seekers in West Sussex.

We’ve got a pipeline of future events and activities lined up to support our appeal.

On March 23, at 7.30pm, we’re hosting a performance of The Bundle at Chichester’s St Paul’s Church. This powerful drama follows one woman’s fight to gain asylum in the UK, and has been toured nationwide by the Journeymen Theatre Company. Find out more here and ticket information.

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to our appeal so far.
Find out more about how to donate and what you are helping to do.