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A YEAR TO SHARE MORE

2018 started slowly due to illnesses but thankfully with additional volunteers coming ‘on board ’The Bread Run, Food Bank collections and distributions continued.

Following on from our success in previous years we decided to expand what we do even more with an emphasis of giving more to the residents of Derby.
 

January

Following lengthy discussion we were awarded another contract. This one gave us exclusive rights to collect any surplus items from M&S Simply Food, Royal Hospital, Derby resulting on the first collection being made on 22nd January.
Due to the wide range of foods donated we were, again, able to expand our Food Bank Service, allowing us to focus more on the elderly and disabled in Derby by providing ready meals, sandwiches, prepared salads, fresh fruit and pasta dishes.
 

March
Lunch Clubs

Lunch Clubs re-started at Osmaston Park Community Centre offering a 3 course meal every other Friday.
We expended the Lunch Club and the Bramblebrook Lunch Club started a few weeks later but on every other Tuesday. 
Both Lunch Clubs costs guests just £2.00 for a 3 course meal, with free juice. Tea and coffee was available for just 50p a cup.
Mother’s Day Lunch
11th March we hosted our first Free Mother’s Day Lunch, which entitled all ‘Mummies’ who were members of Derby in Need CIC or one of associated groups to a 3 course lunch with a glass of wine, when accompanied by a child.
A comprehensive 3 course menu was available to other adult guests too for just £3.00 and there was

also a Kiddies Favourite Menu for £1.50 for 3 courses.

Friday After School Café
16th March saw the launch of our Friday After School Café offering 16 meal choices for children for £1.00 each and discounted meals for adults. The Friday After School Café opened  every Friday from 3pm – 7pm providing meals as mentioned above to make life easier for busy parents after a busy week. Sadly due the demand of the School's Out Café it was closed down at the start of the summer holidays.

Easter Schools Out Café
26th March – 6th April we re-opened the School’s Out Café with new expanded menus and new prices.

April

Easter Party & Egg Hunt
On 1st April we hosted our Easter Party which included free Easter Eggs for all children with a meet and greet from the ‘Easter Bunny’, an Easter Bonnet parade, with special prizes for our winners, a family disco and hot and cold at our usual low prices. 118 guests attended.

St George’s Day Celebration
22nd April saw our St George’s Day celebration party and Karaoke. 98 invited guests enjoyed celebrating our Patron Saints day with fun games, ‘sing alongs’ with our special character guests leading and a special ‘meet & greet’ with St George’s tamed dragon.
Following all the fun we provided a free cold ‘finger buffet, and a disco with more karaoke. Free juice was available to all kiddies and hot drinks were available to all.

May

Friday After School Café
4th May saw our Friday After School Café again offer free Kiddies Main Course Meals. 106 people attended. The After School café continued to open every Friday until the School’s Out Café re-opened for the summer holidays.

School’s Out Café
On 28th May we re-opened our School’s Out Café for the week, serving 103 main course meals to kiddies for £1.00 each, 49 Adult main courses and 75 desserts, customer numbers were dramatically reduced due to poor weather. During opening hours we also gave our members a chance to win vouchers for free meals, half price meals or 25% discount.

JUNE

Father’s Day BBQ
17th June - Father’s Day BBQ and more. All Daddies received free BBQ food and a glass of beer plus they had the chance to take part in our Mega Meals Challenges.

Each challenge had an individual entry fee and anyone who could beat the challenge would receive all of the money taken on that challenge. To beat the challenge all of the food must be consumed (eaten and drunk) by one person. Challenges included:
‘The Cereal Challenge’ Entry Fee £3.00
4 challengers were given 10 minutes to eat 750g of the Daddies favourite cereal with 4 pints of semi-skimmed milk. No one beat the challenge.
‘The Mega Breakfast Challenge’ Entry Fee £5.00
7 challengers were given 20 minutes to eat 8 sausages, 8 rashers of bacon, a tin of baked beans, a tin of plum tomatoes, 4 fried eggs, 4 scrambled eggs, 4 hash browns, 4 slices of black pudding*, 4 slices of fried bread, 4 slices of buttered toast, a large portion of crispy potato cubes and a pint of either orange juice, semi skimmed milk, tea, coffee or shandy. No one beat the challenge.
‘The Mega Burger Challenge’  Entry Fee £5.00
9 challengers were given 15 minutes to eat 4 x 4oz Beef Burgers, 7 slices of cheese, 2 sliced beef tomato, 4 rashers of bacon, all stacked in 2 large burger buns PLUS 10 onion rings, 1 kg portion of chips and either a pint of milk, orange juice or shandy. No one beat the challenge.
‘The Mega Hot Dog Challenge’ Entry Fee £5.00
3 challengers  were given 20 minutes to eat 4 American Style Jumbo Hot Dogs (all served in a bun with fried onions and a slice of cheese), each served slightly differently starting with just a plain Jumbo Hot Dog with mild mustard and ketchup, the next with a mild sweet chilli sauce, then a hot tomato salsa sauce and to end the first phase a very hot chilli sauce all served with a bowl containing 1kg of French Fries and a pint of either flavoured milk shake of choice.
Followed by a second 'wave' of Hot Dogs....two Jumbo American Style Hot Dogs with mustard, ketchup and onions followed by two English 'Hot Dogs' aka Jumbo Pork Sausages served fried onions and half a pint of shandy. No one beat the challenge.

Café DinDin
14th June, Café DinDin catered, free of charge, for the Creative Carers Annual ‘Get Together’ serving over 120 hot meals and a cold buffet.

Friday After School Café
Throughout June the café opened offering free main course meals to kiddies and discounted adult main course meals. The Café closed its doors for the summer holidays on Friday 27th June with a planned

re-opening once the school holidays were over.

The Heroes of Derbyshire Awards
Kevin, our Managing Director was nominated for the Volunteer of the Year Sector of the Heroes of Derbyshire award and attended the presentation night as a Finalist, with three volunteers and was acknowledged as Runner Up for the second year.

July
Lidl Contract

In July we were granted contracts to collect surplus food from two Lidl stores in Derby.
The volume of food was such that we had to very quickly expand the Food Bank scheme, resulting in the number of volunteers increasing to 92 allowing us to help over 1500 families and 253 elderly people weekly. 

Summer School’s Out Café
On 30th July we re-opened the café, later than planned due to essential maintenance taking place at the community centre and thanks to a very generous donation of £1000 from the Asda Foundation all main course meals (excluding breakfasts) were reduced in price so they were free to all members who had signed up to our new School’s Out Café Voucher Scheme during May.

To add to the fun we took our guests on a ‘virtual’ culinary tour around the world serving meals from India, Italy, The Far East, and The United States of America returning to the UK for our final day of opening.
During the four weeks we were open we served 2590 main course meals plus 1763 desserts, a massive increase of 198% on 2017.
Unfortunately due to planned  works at the Community centre we couldn't open every day of the holidays.

August

As an addition to the School’s Out Café we introduced some of our Mega Meal Challenges from Father's Day which included:

The Mega Breakfast Challenge
On the 7th August we set up a challenge to eat 3 Rashers of Bacon, 3 Pork Sausages, 3 Fried Eggs, 2 Fried Slices, 2 Hash Browns, a tin of Baked Beans, a tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 rounds of buttered toast and a pint of tea, coffee or fruit juice in just 10 minutes. Entry fee £3.00. To our amazement Guy beat the challenge eating and drinking it all in just 9 minutes and 14 seconds.
His prize was a bespoke T-shirt and his money back. 7 others tried but failed.

The New York Stacker Burger Challenge
23rd August saw another ‘big eat challenge’, this time to eat:
Two 4oz* cheese burgers, two 4oz* chicken burgers, two rashers of bacon, two 2oz* beef burgers, two 2oz* chicken burger, with sliced tomato and lettuce stacked in two large toasted buns topped and 2 small toasted buns with a vertical Jumbo Style American Hot Dog surrounded by ten onion rings, served with a large portion of fries and a pint of ice cold milk within 15 minutes? Entry fee £5.00.
Once again to our amazement Guy ate and drank it all in just 13 minutes and 55 seconds. His prize, another bespoke T-shirt and his money back. 4 others tried the challenge but failed.

T.E.S.C.O. Café
On 30th and 31st August our School’s Out Café moved venue to St Marks Community Centre and coupled with The Aspire Wrestling Alliance to host the ‘The End Of School Café Open’. This menu was smaller but all meals were free for kiddies and just £1 for adults, thanks to a donation from Tesco and the Tesco Bags of Help Scheme. In total we served 252 main courses and 178 desserts.

October
Kiddies Halloween Party
Hosted at Osmaston Park Community Centre on October 28th 121 guests enjoyed a fun filled evening of scary entertainment with a Wizard of Oz theme, free buffet, party games, ‘a walk to the Emerald City’ avoiding the Flying Monkeys and various other traps set by the Wicked Witch of the West, then we judged the pumpkin carving competition and had a ‘spooky’ disco to follow.

December

The Christmas Project this year included:

Osmaston Lunch Club Christmas Lunch
7th December we hosted our own free Lunch Club Christmas Lunch, attended by 65 guests who were served a 3 course traditional Christmas Lunch with a present from Santa. All guests accumulated 'Bonus Points' for attending Lunch Clubs throughout the year.

Bramblebrook Christmas Lunch
On 11th December we jointly catered for 76 guests at Bramblebrook Community Centre’s free Christmas Lunch, sponsored by The Asda Foundation. Serving staff included local councillors and members of Derby City Council.

Kiddies Christmas Party
121 guests joined us at Osmaston Park Community Centre for our Kiddies Christmas Party on 9th December. The guest were all selected to be invited and enjoyed a free buffet, party games, character visits, disco and of course ‘a meet and greet’ with Santa.
The party was sponsored by The Asda Foundation with gifts being donated by local businesses.

Christmas Day Lunch
This year Christmas Day Lunch was hosted by St Martin's Church Hall and the catering facilities of the Chatterbox Café were also donated free of charge and the staff of the café also donated a large turkey crown. In total 82 guests joined us on the day and we also delivered 32 lunches to guests who couldn't join us at the venue.
Presents were donated by a number of local groups and the event was paid for via funding from DACP LTD.
New Year’s Eve Party
We also planned to host our Free Family NYE Party for up to 120 guests which would have included a finger buffet, party games, character visits, disco and of course, a traditional welcoming in of the New Year but due to illness we have to cancel the party.
Funding arranged for the party was re-invested in the events of 2019.

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Thank you
In addition to the people/groups/companies etc mentioned above we had support from many others who wish to remain anonymous.