Dundee Bairns:
Our story in 2023/24
by our chair David Dorward
Objectives and activities
The aims and objectives of Dundee Bairns are to improve the welfare of Dundee’s children, young people and their families and enable them to have access to services that will improve the quality of their lives and assist in reducing the attainment gap.
Achievements and performance
This is the seventh Trustees Report of our charity Dundee Bairns.
Dundee Bairns has continued to receive outstanding support from Dundee City Council, Tayside Contracts and our funders and this has meant that the charity ends the financial year in a stable financial position, and that will allow us to continue with our work in Dundee into the future.
Fun and Food Programme
The Dundee Bairns Fun and Food Programme has been delivered every school holiday since 2016.
The Easter 2023 Fun & Food programme went very well and without a single hitch. 3045 meals were served, 700 funded lunches and 560 breakfasts as well as a series of activities. The total expenditure on the activities was £2,677. It was good to see that the programme had returned to the levels we had prior to the Covid lockdowns.
The Summer 2023 Fun and Food was extremely successful with delivery of 27,356 meals across 6 weeks to 87 different community and school projects. We received great feedback, and this was covered by STV news.
The October 2023 Fun and Food Programme saw a continuation of our successful programme with delivery of 3,720 meals.
In the Easter 2024 Fun and Food Programme we saw a significant increase in meals with the delivery of 7357 meals.
Tea Clubs
Dundee Bairns approached primary schools with a view to encouraging Tea Clubs to run after school clubs in areas of most need, running from October 2023 to March 2024 to help provide children with nutritious hot meals over the winter months.
Dundee Bairns continues to work to identify an alternative food provision to meet the growing demands for food provision throughout the City. At present we are entirely reliant on Tayside Contracts to supply all our food, and we believe we need to identify an additional food provider to supplement the excellent service we receive from Tayside Contracts.
In October 2023 Tayside Contracts introduced a menu change – a more snack based menu was provided including items such as paninis, fish fingers and nuggets. Overall, the snack based menu was well received by the children. There were 8 Tea Clubs in operation delivering over 2,500 meals over the course of the winter period.
The Science Centre Outreach delivered sessions at Dens Road Primary School, and these went very well. The Science Centre also provided 100 free tickets per Tea Club.
The Tayside Contracts staff who provide the meals for the Tea Clubs are key to the success of this programme, and we are truly grateful for their commitment.
Cooking Clubs
There has been a considerable interest in developing Cooking Clubs from schools and community projects. The Dundee Bairns Cooking Clubs are operated within primary schools. Dundee Bairns provided funding to the schools for them to purchase food and cooking packs. The NHS Healthy Eating team have provided support to the Cooking Clubs. During 2023/24 we funded 5 Cooking Clubs at Craigiebarns PS, Ardler PS, St Peter and Pauls PS, Fintry PS and the Maxwell Centre.
In addition, Dundee Bairns issued small grants of up to £500 to the following organisations: Rosebank, £500 for Best Foot Forward: Craigie High £500 for a food larder: Enable £500 for a youth club: Maryfield, Front Lounge a tea club, adventures of the little people Craigiebarns PS £500 for oven hotplates and microwave instead.
Christmas 2023
Dundee Bairns agreed to provide Aldi vouchers with higher value vouchers to be given to larger families of £40, £50 and £60. The Christmas 2023 provision was by far the busiest yet, in terms of the total number of children we supported. The total value of vouchers issued to families was £31,720. In addition, the Apex Hotel provided 50 hampers for families, and as this is the 5th year they have delivered this service, we are truly grateful. In total the vouchers and hampers scheme supported 1500 families and 8516 children. The Bairns at Home project provided ample support to Christmas provision with additional food parcels, toys and home goods for families referred.
In 2022/23 we were the recipients of an Aviva crowd funder targeted at the provision of the cooking clubs and at the end of 2023/24 we still have £6,367 of these restricted funds to carry forward.
Cosy Bairns
In 2020 Councillor Lynne Short brought a proposal to Dundee Bairns which was named Cosy Bairns. The idea was to create a project which would provide winter clothes and footwear to vulnerable children to help them keep warm in the colder weather, especially during Covid pandemic where much school activity was taking place outside and/or in highly ventilated classrooms. This is the third year we have operated the Cosy Bairns scheme.
In 2023/24 Dundee Bairns continued with the Cosy Bairns project and we were able to provide recipients with a £50 Primark voucher per child, though this was sometimes increased to £100 where a family was facing crisis and needed more support. The charity received applications for the clothing vouchers through the Council’s School Family Support and Development Workers, some Health Visitors and some Community Workers.
In the period April 2023 to March 2024, we helped 543 children. A £50 voucher being the standard level of support with the option of £100 if necessary.
In December 2023 Dundee Bairns received £100,000 from Dundee City Council to deliver the Cosy Bairns project through the winter. The programme was very well received, and we have carried forward £46,885 into the following financial year to support more children.
Bairns at Home Multibank project
Dundee Bairns continues to develop and respond flexibly to new anti-poverty initiatives. We launched a new and exciting project in Dundee in September 2023.
It is a new multibank service for families with children and is being launched in Dundee as a collaboration between Dundee Bairns and the Fife-based Cottage Family Centre’s Big Hoose Project.
The Dundee Bairns project is called Bairns at Home and commenced in late September 2023. We anticipate that Bairns at Home will see millions of pounds’ worth of household goods distributed for the benefit of children and families across the city. It is both an anti-poverty initiative and a project to tackle unnecessary waste.
The partnership comes after the success of the Big Hoose Project which has seen over a million items distributed to families in Fife. The service has worked with hundreds of children’s services workers in Fife to deliver vital goods such as bed linen, clothing, food, kitchen utensils, and electrical items to around 40,000 families since its launch in April 2022.
Amazon UK partnered with The Cottage Family Centre in Fife to develop The Big Hoose Project, which has since seen further partners come on board, including Fishers Linen, Pepsico, Morrisons, Tesco, Purvis, Craig and Rose Paints, Semi-Chem and many more businesses offering their support as the project grows at a rapid pace.
Dundee Bairns was excited to begin the rollout of Dundee’s Bairns at Home project, which offered a similar resource for professionals working directly with children and their families, to help them with goods they might otherwise struggle to access.
It is important to stress that Bairns at Home project will only take referrals from professionals and organizations/ agencies that work with children and families in Dundee. The project will not accept any requests directly from members of the public. The project commenced in late September 2023, with a small number of partner agencies currently in place. The Bairns at Home service aims to increase the number of referrers over time as the project grows.
The Bairns at Home project is funded by the Northwood Charitable Trust, which has committed £120,000 funding over 3 years to help get the project off the ground. The Big Hoose project has provided Dundee Bairns with £15,000 to cover the transport costs of the project. Finally, the Dundee City Council Criminal Justice has provided £20,000 of annual funding for 3 years in order to support children associated with their service.
Bairns at Home has also received support from Dundee Rotary Club, The Nine Incorporated Trades of Dundee and local businessman Jim Pickett.
The Bairns at Home project has 69 referrers, mostly from the School Family Support and Development workers, the Criminal Justice Team and Social Workers. In addition, we take referrals from projects like Homestart and One Parent Families Scotland
We have linked up with the Dundee Food Larder network delivering toilet rolls, towels, soap and goods that do not come from Amazon. Alexander Community Development is doing a weekly delivery of toilet rolls, towels, etc. to the Community Food Network larders.
Beds for Bairns
This is a new project that was brought about through a partnership with the Hillcrest Foundation, Help for Kids and Dundee Bairns. The Hillcrest Foundation provided a grant of £20,000 to provide beds for children who need them.
Fab Bairns Fund
Within Dundee Bairns we had a discrete fund called the Fabiola Fund, which provides grants to allow children and young people to take part in chosen leisure, sports and cultural activities.
During the year the charity decided to rename the fund as the Fab Bairns Fund and plan a relaunch in 2024.
A system of referrals was put in place to allow School Family Support and Development Workers to make referrals to the Fab Bairns Fund, with details added to the charity’s website and Facebook page. A written application is required before formal funding is approved. During the financial year 2023/24 donations of £1,850 were received for the Fab Bairns Fund and during the year awards of £434 were made for individual children for activities including dance and various sports.
.
Patrons and Partners
In May 2021 we were delighted to announce that the author Neil Forsyth had agreed to become a Patron for the charity. Neil joins our existing patrons of Jamie Scott and Bill Campbell, Lord Provost of Dundee.
Dundee Stars Ice Hockey, who also delivered lunches for us over lockdown and summer, are now corporate charity partners for Dundee Bairns during 2022 and 2023.We have had some wonderful support from the local hotel, Malmaison, who have gifted us the use of premises to hold events and meetings, and who also delivered a staff team to walk the Kiltwalk in August 2023 for Dundee Bairns.
Volunteers
Since 2016 Dundee Bairns has always relied on volunteers to help us deliver meals through our various food programmes. Without our volunteers we would not be able to deliver our programme. Many of the volunteers are now also helping us with the delivery of our Bairns at Home multibank.
We are so grateful to our volunteers, and we held a volunteer celebration on the 29 September 2023 at the Malmaison Hotel.
We were delighted to see our partnership with the staff team at Royal Bank of Scotland continue, and we welcomed new volunteers from W L Gore, Brightsolid and Smiths Interconnect.
A Volunteer Induction Pack was introduced. This takes into account matters such as GDPR, photograph consent, under 18’s parental/guardian consent.
For the Fun and Food Programme in the Summer of 2024, we had the support of 55 volunteers. As a charity we would wish to acknowledge the commitment and support of our volunteers, they are very special people, and we could not deliver our services without their support.
Staffing
In April 2020 we appointed Genna Millar as our first full-time employee as the Dundee Bairns Manager. We were able to take this action due to the generosity of the Rank Foundation who provided three years funding for this post. The charity is very fortunate to have appointed Genna on board. She has a real passion for helping children and families, and since her appointment she has delivered an outstanding performance. The charity is extremely grateful for Genna’s contribution since she joined us.
In September 2022 we appointed Ewan Sayers as an intern, and this was funded entirely by the Rank Foundation’s Aspire Programme. Euan left us in September 2023 and became a catering student at Dundee and Angus College.
In addition, Susan Maxwell was appointed as Project Worker on 7 September 2022. Susan had been one of the most regular volunteers with Dundee Bairns for a long time and she therefore hit the ground running and has taken the lead on many initiatives, especially with the Fun and Food Programme, Tea Clubs and the coordination of volunteers.
In September 2023 the staff for the Bairns at Home multibank were appointed and David Wimhurst, Brian Johnston and Declan Smith joined the Dundee Bairns staff team.
The Dundee City Council Whole Family Wellbeing Fund provided 3-year funding to Dundee Bairns to allow us to appoint a Healthy Eating Coordinator and we were delighted to appoint Lauren Bell on the 15th of July 2024.
Dee Pearce was a new volunteer who was keen to have an administrative role within our organisation. She created online forms to streamline the application process for Fun and Food which has made a huge difference. Dee joined the organisation as a part-time member of staff in August 2024.
Ann Anderson has also recently joined us as our part time Finance Officer.
Premises
In February 2023, The Circle advised us that they were closing the facility at the Michelin Athletic offices. The Circle were extremely helpful and offered us a vacant office in their facility at Dudhope Castle, Barrack Street, Dundee and we were delighted to move into that office on the 1st of April 2023. We were very grateful to The Circle for their assistance in finding our new office.
With the introduction of the Bairns at Home multibank the charity had to lease a warehouse to host that project. Initially we rented a single warehouse, Unit 29, but as the project grew, we moved into a double warehouse at Units 24 and 25 at 10 Tom Johnston Road, Dundee on the 31st of May 2024. After having moved into the double warehouse, we were then offered the adjacent warehouse at Unit 23, and this included a sizeable office space. We moved out of our office at Dudhope Castle and into our new office at Unit 23 on the 12th of August 2024. This meant that all the Dundee Bairns staff are now located on a single site, and this will improve our overall effectiveness. We would wish to thank The Circle and Kirsty Thomson for their support in providing Dundee Bairns with office accommodation for the last 2 years.
Vehicles
During 2022 we successfully applied to Dundee Climate Fund for a grant to purchase an electric van. In addition, the charity was very fortunate to receive a second electric van donated by Auto Services Perth and we are incredibly grateful to the company for this kind donation.
Originally, the two electric vans were used solely for our two food programmes, however they are now used almost exclusively for the delivery of the new Bairns at Home multibank. This has meant that all the referrers, being school staff, social workers and family charities do not need to collect the items for families, they are delivered to their school or work base.
Christmas Card Competition
In November 2023 we ran our third Christmas Card competition, and we received over 50 entries and three winners were eventually chosen who each received a £50 voucher. The winning cards were then printed and used by Dundee Bairns to send to our stakeholders and volunteers.
Caroline Bairner Award for Kindness
Among the donations we received during 2020, was a notable donation made by the family of Caroline Bairner, who was a community worker in Dundee for many years. She passed away very suddenly on New Year’s Day 2021 and many in the community were left devastated. Her son got in touch to say that they had a collection for his mum of over £3,000 in lieu of flowers at her funeral and that they wanted it to go to Dundee Bairns. The Trustees agreed that there should be an annual award to a Dundee primary school child for an act of kindness. The Caroline Bairner Award for Kindness annual winners will receive a trophy and £50 voucher.
Funding and Fundraising
Dundee Bairns has been very fortunate with regards to funding in 2023/24. Dundee City Council are our major funder for our Fun and Food Programme and for our Tea Clubs. The Northwood Charitable Trust was again a very generous funder for Dundee Bairns as it has been since we were founded in 2016 and provided an annual grant of £20,000 for the Fun and Food Programme.
In 2023/24 the charity was fortunate to receive many donations from a wide variety of charities, businesses and private individuals and these totalled over £112,681. It is always worth noting that the Fun and Food Programme is 50% funded by Dundee City Council and the Tea Clubs expenditure is 50% funded by individual schools’ Pupil Equity Fund.
Dundee City Council generously donated £100,000 to Dundee Bairns for the charity to deliver vouchers to allow families to purchase children’s clothing and footwear during the winter months.
In 2023 our patron Neil Forsyth penned a new book entitled “With My Head Held High: The Very Best of Bob Servant”. Sales of this comic book about a fictional Broughty Ferry character were made through the Bookhouse, Broughty Ferry and Waterstones, Dundee, with these outlets taking no commission on the sales. A total of £13,616 worth of books were sold, with all the proceeds donated to Dundee Bairns. We are truly grateful to Neil for this very generous donation, and to the Bookhouse and Waterstones for taking no commission.
We were successful with our grant application to the Dundee City Council Climate Change Fund and received a grant of £20,481 towards the purchase of our first electric van.
We have had corporate donations from Barratt, NFU Mutual Sainsburys, Lennox Hannoy Charitable Trust, Iain Esslemont, Beaverbrooks, St Katherines Trust and RBS. In addition, we received a donation of £4,550 from the crew on the Valoris oil rig which was being refurbished in the Port of Dundee.
In August 2023 the Dundee Bairns Kiltwalk team raised £ 8,679, a fantastic achievement. We are profoundly grateful to all our Kiltwalkers including the team of staff from the Royal Bank of Scotland High Street branch.
The Dundee Stars charity match was held on the 6th of April 2024. As part of the match, we held a “Design a jersey” competition. The shirts were prepared in time for the game and Dundee Bairns received 15 jerseys free to sell. In addition, Dundee Stars successfully auctioned off Dundee Bairns hockey strips and the net proceeds were donated to the charity. Dundee Bairns received £2,200 from Dundee Stars.
The Rank Foundation have recently provided a total grant of £75,000 towards funding the employment of our Project Manager over a 3-year period. In addition, the Rank Foundation paid us £5,000 to allow our manager to provide mentoring to an intern we hosted during 2022/23.
We submitted three applications to the local Whole Family Wellbeing Fund, for Fun and Food, Tea Clubs and the Bairns at Home multibank project. The Bairns at Home project submission was unsuccessful as the project was not deemed innovative enough. The application for the Fun and Food Programme was also unsuccessful, but we are to receive some funding, circa £23,000 for this programme through a successful application by the City Council. Finally, our application for Tea Club food provision and a Health Eating Coordinator was funded for a 3-year period. This award will allow us to deliver around 30 hot evening meals to up to 21 Primary Schools and to have a Healthy Eating Coordinator for the next 3 years. We are extremely grateful to the Scottish Government and Dundee City Council for this funding.
In respect of the Bairns at Home project there is a total annual expenditure of circa £105,000. We are truly indebted to the Northwood Charitable Foundation for annual grants of £40,000, the Robertson Trust for £30,000 and Dundee City Council for £20,000, all of which were 3-year grants for this very important project. The Big Hoose has provided a £15,000 grant to cover the transport costs of collecting the goods from their warehouse in Lochgelly. The Peter Vardy Foundation also made a one off £5,000 donation towards the Bairns at Home project.
Structure, governance and management.
Dundee Bairns is a charity SCIO, registered in Scotland and is governed by its constitution. The trustees are responsible for the administration and direction of the charity.
The trustees who served during the year and up to the date of signature of the financial statements were:
David K. Dorward (Chairperson)
Jacquie Roberts (Vice Chairperson)
Marjory Stewart (Treasurer)
Graeme Findlay
Sarah Winter (Resigned 26 August 2022)
Andrew Lorimer
John Fyffe
Bob Lauder (Appointed 28 March 2023)
Joanna Saigeon (Appointed 28 March 2023)
Oliver Howe (Appointed 28 March 2023)
Neil Lowden (Appointed 28 March 2023)
All the charity’s trustees are appointed or reappointed by the members at the Annual General meeting. New trustees are recruited on an ad hoc basis, as and when required. Each new Trustee attended an induction session on 11th May 2023 and received an induction pack. In September 2018, the Board held a governance and training session and a further governance training session in 2024.
We are extremely excited to have appointed 4 new trustees during the year. Each of these new trustees brings with them a variety of different skills which help to address the skills gap identified from the Board skills analysis exercise. The current trustees were delighted to endorse the new appointments and to working with them on fulfilling Dundee Bairns strategic priorities.
During the year the Board carried out an extensive piece of work on developing the Strategic Plan 2022-2025. As part of the Strategic Plan the Board wished to review the charity’s corporate governance and the following actions have already been actioned:
Increase the number of Trustees from 5 to 8
Child Protection training for volunteers and Trustees
Training and guidance for volunteers
Governance training: one session, delivered by The Circle and further sessions planned.
Scheme of Delegation
Subgroups established.
HR policies and contracts of employment.
A Fundraising sub-group was formed during the year, to develop and deliver a fundraising programme.
The Charity’s Constitution is being reviewed, including a review of the terms of office for our Trustees.
On the 5th of April 2024 the charity held a Strategy Day, and this was led by Beverly Francis. A revised Strategic Plan will be issued in 2024/25.
Conclusion
I would wish to close by thanking the people and organisations who make it possible for Dundee Bairns to deliver our services. Dundee City Council and Tayside Contracts are critical in the preparation and delivery of the meals, and we are indebted to the staff of both organisations who work with us on the Fun and Food Programme and our Tea Club. Our sincere thanks also to our main funders, Northwood Charitable Trust, Rank Foundation and Dundee City Council. Dundee Bairns is also grateful to the many local and national charities and individuals from whom we have received grants and donations in the financial year 2023/24. In the 8 years between 2016 to 2024 we have utterly relied on our many wonderful volunteers to help us deliver all our projects, and we are extremely grateful to them for giving up their time so freely. Over the 8 years Dundee Bairns has provided over 500,000 meals or meal equivalents to children and families, and clothing and footwear to around 3,000 children in the City of Dundee.
Finally, I would wish to thank the Trustees of Dundee Bairns who give their time and knowledge freely to make Dundee Bairns such an effective organisation.
The trustees’ report was approved by the Board of Trustees.
David K. Dorward MBE, DL
Chairperson
August 2024