Building for Strength Project
Tom Hudson has published a summary of his in Year 2 of the Building for Strength Project covers the period from February to December 2011. The work undertaken
has focused on building on the relationships founded throughout Year 1.
Download the report (pdf, 524k)
Reading Faith Forum Mapping Report 2011
Summary
Reading Faith Forum and the Christian community sent out a survey to map the huge amount of activities taking place in faith communities for the benefit of the wider community of Reading. From the 38 (29%) faith communities that responded a total of 168 groups meet throughout the week for the under 18’s. Adult groups meeting mid week total 55that include lunches; for the elderly, men & women specifically.
Social action in faith communities, which were mainly Christian and Jew, hold 12drop in coffee opportunities, some offer counseling, advice, befriending, money management, art & craft and bereavement support. The 38 faith communities support Ghanaian, Kenyan, Nepalese, African, Philippine, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Polish, Nigerian, Indian and Venezuelan cultural groups.
Report
Reading Faith Forum and the churches in Reading asked all faith communities about the groups that they organize, youth groups, toddlers & pre-school, uniformed groups, women, men and elderly groups, lunch clubs. We asked faith communities to list the various social actions they hold and if they have people from a particular cultural or ethnic background. The survey was in response to the Christian conference in March 2011 ‘Unlocking Opportunities’ to map the huge amount of activities taking place in faith communities for the benefit of the wider community of Reading.
35% responded, 46 filled in total (131 posted out), 38 (29%) faith communities (Christian, Christian Scientist and Jew) and 8 Christian voluntary organisations took part in the survey. Thank you.
The group details will be updated on Reading Voluntary Action’s directory.
From those that responded there are 23 youth groups aged 16-18, 32 groups aged 11-15, 30 groups aged 8-10 and 25 groups in the 5-7 age range. Pre-school groups number 24 and there are 34 toddler and baby groups. Each of these groups meets throughout the week. Uniformed groups, male total 4, female groups there are 5 and mixed groups amount to 8 that meet between Monday and Saturday.
Lunch clubs being held in faith communities totaled 7; there are 18 elderly groups, 4 monthly men’s groups and a total of 26 women’s groups meeting around the town.
There are 12 drop in, coffee or café type places scattered around the north, south, east and west of the town. Some Faith communities offer counseling, advice, befriending, money management, are and craft and bereavement support.
Cultural groups supported by the faith communities are Ghanaian, Kenyan, Nepalese, African, Philippine, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Polish, Nigerian, Indian and Venezuelan.
From the 38 faith communities that responded a total of 168 youth groups meet throughout the week across Reading. The 93 faith communities that didn’t respond include Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and some Christian communities. In each of these communities there are a large number of children and youth which we haven’t been able to map.
*****
Reading Faith Forum is looking for a new Christian trustee and for volunteers for administrative and organisational help to replace our Coordinator.
· Nigel Hardcastle, one of the two Christian trustees, needs to retire in the next year. Ideally he would like Churches Together, who appoint the Christian Trustees, to appoint someone else at their AGM on the 16th June. He can then help for a while until they settle in. Alternatively, someone might shadow him for a few months before taking over. This trustee needs to be a convinced and committed Christian. Contact Nigel for a chat about what this involves on vicar@lukeandbart.org.uk 931 3740.
· Jan Hearn, the Faith Forum’s Co-ordinator, stops work for us at the end of September as funding for her post comes to an end. We need to find volunteers, for example, to act as minute secretary to the trustees, edit the website, organise individual conferences or events.
Reading Faith Forum is a registered charity governed by 6 Trustees representing the 5 main Faith Communities in Reading. It exists to enable the faith communities to act together or speak out together when they need to. It is the representative forum for faith communities in Reading. It tends to work mainly in the area of social concerns since this is the area of greatest overlap.
The Council, LSP and various other bodies consult RFF on occasions. Tim Clewer represents us and the Voluntary Sector on the LSP.
RFF will continue to employ a development worker to work with the newer and more difficult to reach faith organisations for the next year or so.
***
Building for Strength - Hotdesking Facility
As part of the Building for Strength consortium, Reading Faith Forum is helping to promote a hotdesking facility for those groups without regular access to the internet. In order to find out more about eligibility and registering for this facility, please click here.
Information, funding and 'What we do'
Campaign
In the year 2008-2009 Reading Faith Forum have:
- Called for all people to vote in the 2009 European elections in order to reduce the chance of extremist groups gaining undeserved victories and publicity.
What we do for Reading
In 2006 RFF carried out research into Faith Communities and what they do for Reading. It tells us that Reading has a thriving faith community.
Research identified
- 109 worshipping faith communities
- An estimated attendance of around 20,000 people. About 3,900 are from world faiths other than Christianity. The responding 55 faith communities in the survey have 11,905 people attending
- The majority are churches with 5 mosques, a Hindu Temple, a Sikh Gurdwara, two synagogues, a Buddhist priory, a Buddhist community and various smaller groups
- A full list can be found on 'Where we are'
Faith Communities do a lot for Reading
The faith communities provide Reading with:
- At least 80 community halls and rooms
- The equivalent of between 250 and 400 full time staff in the form of staff and volunteers, whose value to the community is over £5 million a year
- This benefits between 5,000 and 15,000 people
- 34 faith-based charities that serve Reading (32 Christian & 2 Muslim organisations).
- Over 100 groups for the under 18s. (44 for youth, 18 for boys, 14 for girls, 19 for toddlers) In addition there are larger projects like the YMCA, PACT, REinspired and others.
The 2006 research results
can be found in three versions
Further research results from 2007-8