Bendlowes Trust

Bendlowes Trust

2019 is a very different world to when William Bendlowe set up several village charities in 1573. Times have changed dramatically, and we feel that the best way for Bendlowe’s to serve the villagers is for the charity to promote The Community by organising and encouraging people to meet and socialise. Many benefits come from people knowing their neighbours including vulnerable people feeling less vulnerable, lonely people feeling less lonely or isolated and some people feeling less depressed as they have somewhere to go and look forward to.

With this objective in mind we have been promoting the William Bendlowe’s charity as People Working For People as we feel these four words demonstrate our motive which is to enrich people’s lives and not to make a profit. We feel that the charity is very fortunate in being able to cater for the minority as well as the majority. During our events I have heard someone say:

So, it is not just the event people enjoy it is the “knock on” effects. Even when people attend an event which is not really their “thing”, the knock-on effect of them being there is that someone else enjoys talking to them!

The main event we organise to achieve our objective is Meet & Greet held at Shalford Village Hall on every first Friday of the month. Approximately 25 to 30 people now attend and enjoy lunch of sandwiches, savouries, cakes, tea and coffee. Some people just talk whilst others play board games such as scrabble, card games, dominoes etc.

It is run from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. and we are very relaxed regarding people from other villages joining us as William Bendlowe himself set up charities for various local villages. We are also very relaxed about the age of people joining us as we feel that it has many benefits for the various ages to interact.

We do not charge for Meet & Greet which has now been going for just over a year, although there is a donation box for a small contribution to pay for the food as we aim to run this event at break-even in order for us to continue it indefinitely

We are also arranging other events throughout the year which, again, we aim to run at break-even. We do run one or two fund raising events in order to raise sufficient funds to pay for the charity’s running costs.

Please see our >>About Us<< page on the website for a list of our other events or contact myself Alice 07850 264518 or Sally 07785 235000.

The old adage “united we stand, divided we fall”, is still very true; so, let’s have a United Community in Shalford.

PEOPLE WORKING FOR PEOPLE

Charity No. 241285
Originally Willian Bendlowes
Known as ‘Bendlowes Trust’ – Now ‘Bendlowe’s (Working name Feb 2021)
Their main site at https://bendlowe.co.uk