As this year draws to a close and we take this time to reflect, it’s been a fantastic year here at Crumbs.
We celebrated Anne Gardner MBE our Founder and former CEO’s 20 years of dedication to The Crumbs Project. Anne has now been installed as our life president in honour of her work with us.
We have cooked and baked our way through 2016, we have provided 420 buffets for local businesses, funerals and weddings. 10 hot food fork buffets and silver service dining events in our very own function room with trainees, interns and staff cooking and serving. We have delivered cream teas and wedding cakes in the Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch areas. Our canapé service has been successful at networking events. We have also provided over 250 Christmas lunches this December!
For information on buffets, food services or cakes please check out our Food Services pages on this website.
New online shop coming soon!
We held our first ‘Fine Dining’ event called ‘Food Fiesta’ in August. This event was run by our trainees and interns, they designed the menu, prepared, cooked, baked and served their families and friends giving them all a chance to showcase their skills with great success.
At the beginning of the year, we started to supply Paragon Training with hot meals cooked at our training centre which was then transported to Paragon. By the spring a number of our trainees and interns started work experience in Paragon’s canteen. They prepared salads, cooked pizzas and served our hot food and drinks to the staff and students.
In September we started to supply hot lunches for Bournemouth language school Anglo Continental. This has proved to be a very successful not only in the training at our Crumbs centre but also giving trainees work experience in Anglo’s kitchen and coffee shop.
Our church lunches have been a hit with local elderly residents. Interns and trainees have played a big part in the cooking, baking and meal service. It has been another fantastic opportunity for us to contribute to serving the local community.
Congratulations to Martin our former trainee who runs our Snakpak service on his 10th anniversary at Crumbs!
Martin is a great member of staff team – he has grown the service and shares his skills and experiences by training others. Martin plans to grow the service further – interested in our Snakpak service? Please email Martin at snakpak@crumbs.org.uk or call 01202 519320
Our lunch clubs are running very well; we have former trainee Caroline (now a paid member of staff) up skilling to run two of the lunch clubs. This will free Kathy up to grow the service. We have a new location Stevenson Lodge, we have introduced a new breakfast/lunch menu at Craiglieth to fit in with the popular café culture, Bure house continues to thrive and we had 34 customers in for Christmas lunch at St Kilda’s this year.
Our Work-steps programme made visits to Bournemouth job fairs this year. Trainees have been supported into employment, work experience and voluntary work. Work experience has taken place with Nando’s at Castle Point, Marsham Court Hotel, the Community Café at Muscliff Park and Wesley’s Café in Poole. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank local businessman Simon Scarborough for all his support and advice on Work-steps matters. Simon has given up some of his free time to spend it with trainees looking for paid employment, giving them confidence and work experience opportunities.
Six former trainees have entered paid employment this year. Thank you to Domestic Angels, Dingles, Caresouth, Sturtons and Tapper’s of Winton, Pokesdown Primary School and Best Training for looking beyond our trainee disabilities. Well done and best wishes to Lee, Kelly, Alex, Daniel, Stephen and Sara.
We rejoined as signatories to MINDFUL EMPLOYER’S Charter. MINDFUL EMPLOYER is led by employers and is for employers. Which is about increasing awareness of mental health, helping you deliver your business, providing support networks and information, and making it healthier to talk about mental health.
We have celebrated with Open days at our training centre for local Rotary clubs, supporters of Crumbs, Friends of Crumbs, residents, customers, key-workers, referrers, friends and families. We gave tours of our new training facilities, meeting the staff, trainees, interns and Board members.
We have given talks to parents, carers and teachers at Linwood School, members of Ferndown Golf Club, New Horizon Widows group, rotary clubs and other local organisations.
It’s been a fabulous year for funding and donations. Thank you to everyone who has supported us this year.
The BIG Lottery
Lloyds Bank Foundation
TSB in Boscombe
Hilton Hotel in Bournemouth
The BIG GIVE – Christmas challenge
Talbot Village Trust
Esme Fairbairn
Incorporated Bournemouth Free Church Council
Panache
Hit Training
JP Morgan
Nando’s Jurrasic Coast Challenge
Ferndown Golf club
New Horizon Widows
Friends of the Bournemouth Quakers
The Training and Learning Company
United Church Ferndown
Hibberd Court residents
Mrs Josephine Seccombe
Mrs Almaz Lewis
Mr Peter Prior
Mr Richard Davis
Ms Marcia Owen
Tesco at Branksome and Kinson for gift donations for raffles prizes
Thank you to Lloyds Bank for their volunteer work at the Crumbs Centre, Alison and Irina from the Coop in Moordown and to the young people from NCS, for your work and the new bench which we have dedicated to former trainee’s Sean Pearman and Vikki Copland and former member of staff Stephen Gulliford.
Thank you to our other volunteers Bakery/kitchen – Andrea, Solome, Asmita, and Paul, Drivers – Jonathan, Rob, Sandra and Chis, Lunch clubs – Chris C, George, Kath, Admin- Janet and Annie.
Thank you to Skills & Learning Bournemouth, Dorset & Poole, Southwest Regional Assessment Centre (SWRAC), Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) and Hit Training for supplying tutors and assessors this year for literacy, numeracy, I.C.T classes and catering training.
We also welcomed two new members to our staff team Jane our new kitchen assistant and Derrick our new administrator to our staff team.
Well, I think that’s enough of us, however before we go please welcome Anne Gardner our life president with a few words.
“And thoughts on being elevated to Life President………………………. Seriously, at first, it sounded a bit pompous! Only “chair of funding and evaluation” sort of kept my feet sensibly anchored to the ground.”
“On another tack, a sense of pride that the staff team now at the helm, were putting their heads above the parapet and looking to take charge: ambitious to grow the business themselves, putting their acquired knowledge to good use for the advancement of our beneficiaries both now and into the future. Looking to have Crumbs recognised as further education for persons who, when they come to us, are often furthest from the workplace with a limited choice organisation from where to acquire the skills most relevant to independent living and some choice of employment.”
“And last, but by no means least, a sense of gratitude to Douglas and the Board for their commitment to setting Crumbs on a path to sustainability for the vulnerable adults who will always be a part of our Society.”
Anne
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you all in the new year!