Headline posts

We're delighted to announce that LASSN has successfully converted to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (Association style), or CIO for short Our Members voted for this change at our AGM in January 24 and (after a few hiccups with the paperwork that required another vote at an EGM in August 24) the Charity Commission have finally approved our application. What does this mean for LASSN?  On a day-to-day level, very little changes. Our Mission and purpose remain exactly the same. We retain our charitable status and we even keep the same Charity Number. Our banking details remain the same, and all the Gift Aid declarations made by our donors and supporters still apply. The main differences are we are no longer registered with Companies House, which means we are now regulated exclusively by the Charity Commission. This means we only have to file one set of accounts, and update one lot of records when things change (eg when Trustees resign). our Constitution is completely up-to-date, and our governance procedures are clearer and less open to interpretation. Consequently, our original 15 page Constitution has now become a 25 page document. If you'd like to read more about the implications of this change, here's a paper we presented to Trustees as they were deciding if they should recommend the change to Members. Get involved  LASSN needs Trustees from a wide range of backgrounds, to make sure we have the right balance of decision makers. We particularly want to recruit Trustees from ethnically diverse communities. Although most of the folks we work alongside are from racialised communities, most of our Trustees are not. We want more Trustees to be drawn from the diverse communities we serve, or to have direct experience of migration to the UK. Younger Trustees. The average age of Trustees is currently 57, and we'd love to get some younger folks involved in how we run things. If you'd like to find out more about what being a Trustee at LASSN involves, and the support and training we can provide, please look at our Trustee Information pack, or contact our Director, Jon Beech [email protected] for an informal chat.

Although the Pandemic restrictions mean we can't meet up in person, we'd still love to meet with you, to share even more about what we've been up to over the last year. As usual, we hope it will be fun, entertaining, informative, and a chance for us to share some of the challenges and triumphs of the last 12 months. As well as meeting other our supporters, volunteers and well-wishers from across the city, we hope you will find out more about the last year at LASSN, and the progress we have made towards securing our aims, hear about our plans and priorities for 2020/2021 ask questions vote for Trustees to join our Board cast your eyes over our finances and hear about how we've secured and spent money appoint our Accountants for the coming year Sadly due to the logistics of delivering food to everyone at home, it will be self- catering this year.  How to join us Please click on the Meeting link:http://bit.ly/lassnagm20 If you are prompted, the Meeting ID is 816 6912 7820 and the Meeting code is: 12345 If you have not used Zoom before, or a bit uncertain about how things will work, we will be having a practice run at 18:00 that evening, to make sure your camera and microphones are working ok. We'd love to see you, so if you can, please come and join us.

We’re using Refugee Week as a way to explain how the work of LASSN has changed during Lockdown. Each day we’re offering examples of how we’ve adapted what we do, to make sure asylum seekers and refugees and other migrants at risk of harm remain supported, empowered, and integrated. What's changed? Like all the other LASSN projects that depend on face to face contact and support, Lockdown has been very disruptive. New referrals have been put on hold and we've suspended volunteer recruitment until we can do this safely. However, we've also been able to ensure that people who are still waiting to be matched with a CO befriender have not been left on their own. We've trained and deployed existing volunteers to become temporary ‘CO Telephone Befrienders’ to make sure everyone on CO Befriending waiting list has some form of contact during lockdown. As cafes and trips out are no longer possible, Volunteer Befrienders are now reliant on phone contact, Whatsapp, or Zoom to keep in touch. Everyone has been offered extra phone credit to help to make this happen and some matches are speaking more regularly now they are not meeting face-to-face! We've developed a weekly peer-support session for all LASSN volunteers called ‘Monday Meet Up’ to help share ideas and sharpen our online support skills. The online learning resources developed by English at Home have been particularly useful for Befrienders looking for virtual activities to do with their Befriendee A few participants decided to postpone Befriending for the time being – because they are too busy with childcare responsibilities, or – due to the emotional strain of Covid-19 - they just don’t feel able to focus on Befriending right now Our ‘Tea and Talk’ sessions have moved online, thanks to the energy and enthusiasm of our brilliant volunteers. Taking a large-ish social group running in a massive cafe in town on line is no small feat - and takes a lot of energy to rapidly overcome the barriers of confidence, technical knowledge, and equipment to get online, get into the meeting, feel welcomed and supported and for it also to be fun! We've done this by focusing on what's important to the folks who attend tea and talk - using a ‘Tea & Talk’ Whatsapp group to make communication easier and to choose topics for conversation. We've also made us of a lot of visual aids to facilitate conversations, i.e. ‘Show and Tell’: sharing an object that is special to you with the group, and explaining why it's special; sharing decorations made during Ramadan, photos and recipes. “Thank you…You don’t know how much I enjoy these lovely two hour talks. Time really flies.” I’m Laura . I’m Egyptian. I have been in the UK since 2014. I came first to North Wales. I stayed 2.5 years there . I felt so lonely . I didn’t know anybody there. Nobody asked about me . I felt very depressed. After this my husband came to Leeds and started a [...]