Community Activity 2025

Community Activity 2025

26/04/2025

Time For Tea And Reflection In A Peaceful Woodland Glade

Ambitious volunteer workers have transformed an overgrown woodland into a haven of peace and tranquility - which includes a public tea room in the trees – thanks to a second injection of cash from Durham City’s Freemen.
 

Staff at Lionmouth Rural Centre started work on their £10,000 woodland project, adjacent to their Broadgate Farm site, located between Esh Winning and Ushaw Moor, last spring.

The freemen’s charitable trustees initially pledged £1,000 towards the woodland development but last autumn promised a further £3,000 to help underwrite costs of the wooden tea room, destined to meet fresh public demand at the centre’s thriving plant nursery.

More that two dozen local people aged from their teens to mid-60s - some struggling to cope with social or learning difficulties, others suffering or recovering from mental health issues - attend the centre. They are supported by two full-time and three part-time staff, backed by a team of 16 volunteers.

The attendees are offered day care support and training in woodwork, horticultural, art, pottery, cookery and conservation.

A once overgrown plot at the centre containing trees and shrubs - some of them rare - are now embraced within the new managed woodland venture. The development work, tackled by staff and clients, offers public access along a featured pathway now lined by scented plants and shrubs and leading into an open glade with seating, benches which enjoy a view of the nearby River Deerness.

The addition of a tea room was dovetailed into the project to meet “consistent and continuing demand” from visitors dropping into the nursery.

Brigid Press second from the right

Centre manager Brigid Press explained: “We had a thriving tea room before Covid but were forced us to close it down. We then had to utilize that area to provide chairs, desks and sufficient space for clients to allow us to re-open. Now clients have been reluctant to give up their own little pieces of territory and the change happily works better by allowing us to take on more clients.”

She admits the new wood-built tea room in the trees – with its own power supply - will be a scaled down version of the original. But it will have additional seating, as well as a gazebo providing shelter.

Although operating with an element of self-service the tea room will be staffed by some of the day-care users who will cook and bake the produce they will be serving.

“Those involved will be playing a larger public-facing role than they have in the past and will be trained and certified in food safety before starting,” added Brigid.

Eric Bulmer, chairman of the Charitable Trust, said: “Once again the Lionmouth staff, supported by its many volunteers, have demonstrated their enthusiasm and dedication to continue developing the site for the benefit of its vulnerable clients, local community and visitors.”

31/03/2025

Freemen Gift Blood Bikers An Infusion Of Cash

A dedicated band of motor bikers, operating a vital night-time service delivering vital blood and medical supplies to the region’s hospitals, healthcare sites and the Great North Air Ambulance, have themselves been on the receiving end of an important gift – a donation of £1,000.

The cash, from Durham City’s Freemen, will help meet the biggest running costs of the Northumbrian Blood Bikers regional fleet of dozen bikes and eight cars which burn their way through more than £7,500 worth of fuel annually and run up a £26,000 insurance bill.

One of the most frequently used bases is just a few hundred yards from the University of Durham Hospital, with its unpaid riders and drivers drawn from surrounding villages.  One of the team is Steven Laws, who lives in the city and qualified for right of entry into the Freemen’s ranks on completion an apprenticeship more than 30 years ago.

Over the last decade, the Durham riders have completed nearly 5,000 runs. The volunteers deliver the service free to the NHS, receive no Government funding and rely entirely on donations and fund raising.

Kirsty Lawrence, a trustee of the bikers’ charity, said: “We don’t make any charge for the service we provide, not least so the money the NHS saves in transportation costs can be put back into their front-line care of patients. We rarely find out who we have helped but one day we might be the ride of your life.”

The chairman of the freemen’s charitable trust, Eric Bulmer, said: “Once again a group of volunteers, whose work goes unseen and often unacknowledged and yet provide a vital service for our local community.  We are delighted to provide the support they surely deserve.

24/03/2025

Freemen’s “Fantastic” Tonic For City Hospice  

A crisis-hit hospice, forced into make “heartbreaking” staffing cuts to help solve a series of Government-inflicted financial headaches, has been given a major boost by Durham City Freemen’s Charitable Trust.

In January St Cuthbert’s Hospice, on the outskirts of the city with 124-strong workforce, had to axe 18 jobs in the wake of crippling National Insurance contributions announced in last year’s budget coupled to other key annual ministry support failing to match inflation.

Since opening in 1988 the hospice has been offering free 24-hour pain management and end of life care, as well as dementia and bereavement support to a total of 1,000 people annually. But managers now warn the enforced economies may result in up to 150 people missing out on day care services, with 100 more losing access to bereavement support.

Announcing the charitable trust’s immediate decision to gift £15,000, trust chairman, Eric Bulmer said: “We have long been aware of the vital service delivered by the dedicated staff and volunteers at the hospice and have made significant contributions over the years. We felt duty bound to act in the present crisis.”

The hospice’s annual running costs have latterly topped more than £3.5 million, covering all services, particularly specialist medical and nursing care. The support from commissioning organisations, including the NHS, have been meeting less than half of the yearly bill.

Patricia Boynton, the hospice’s trusts and grant manager, offered a “massive thank you” to all the freemen for the donation.

She added: “When I heard the fantastic news I couldn’t wait to tell everyone at the hospice.  We continue to rely on charitable funding and this gift means so much. We have always believed what we offer should be accessible to all.” 

Eric also explained the freemen’s decision was particularly poignant, following the “wonderful care” received by Alan Ribchester at the hospice in the final days before his death at the end of January.

Alan, a leading chartered accountant in the region, had been the instigator and driving force behind the establishment of the Freemen’s Charitable Trust. 

16/03/2025

Obituary:- Alan Ribchester MBE Gentleman Freeman

Alan Ribchester, who was in his late 70s, lived all his life in Durham and was married to Gina. The couple have two sons, Richard and Robert, as well as four grandchildren.

Until his retirement Alan headed a chartered accountancy practice now based in Belmont Business Park employing four partners, one of them son Robert along with a staff of 20. He also played a key role in the development of Ribchester, Smith and Law, an accountancy firm based in Newcastle’s Stowell Street, serving the area’s Oriental community and staffed entirely by Chinese-speaking financial advisers.

After leaving the Durham Johnston Grammar School in 1963 with three A-levels he was articled to a large firm of chartered accountants on Tyneside until he qualified four years later. In the early 1970s he took charge of his own company in Durham, operating for many years from offices in Saddler Street.

For 30 years Alan was District Treasurer of the Durham Scouts, Durham Citizens Advice Bureau and director of the Durham Indoor Market where he was once company secretary.

For more than two decades he was treasurer of the Shakespeare Temperance Trust in North Road and trustee and honorary treasurer of Durham Rotary Club.  He was also a long-standing trustee of Durham Union Society and a member of the finance committee of the Governors of Northumbria University.

In 2009 he was awarded an MBE for his charitable and community work within the city.

In addition to being a member of the Mayor’s Bodyguard he accepted an invitation to become a member of the freemen’s trustees more than fifteen years ago and he steered the freemen through new legal regulations, qualifying their organisation for charitable status. The move significantly increased the freemen’s ability to offer financial support to a wide range of organisations across the city.

Alan was sworn in as a Gentleman Freeman in February 2019, joining the Cordwainer’s Company and was subsequently followed by son Robert into the same company.

A service of remembrance was held in Elvet Methodist Church on February 18, following a private cremation service.

16/01/2025

Butchers Look To Save Their Ancient Craft Skills

Newly apprenticed butcher Rachael Lister is a cut above the rest at the start of her chosen career - thanks to an award from Durham Freemen’s Charitable Trustees to help meet the cost of the tools she will need.

And the 22-year-old’s benefactors – whose own links to the meat trade stretch back more than 500 years - hope the move will help preserve some of the centuries-old skills which are threatened by progress.

Rachael, from Stanley, was working in the café at Broom House Farm near Witton Gilbert when she was offered a switch to their on-site nationally acclaimed shop and butchery, last year voted the best in the country.

During the last 12 months “her potential and enthusiasm” was recognised by the craftsmen in the shop and she accepted the offer to take up an apprenticeship.

Scrutiny of her on-the-job training will be monitored until 2026 by the industry specialists Meat Ipswich until 2026 through a series of assessments.  Her supervising mentor at Broom House will be one of the shop’s own time-served butchers, Vincent Syson.  As well as being a Durham City Freeman Vincent is also deputy warden of their Butchers’ Company, which welcomed the 500th anniversary of the granting of its charter in 2020.

Rachael will use her £400 award from the Freemen to buy a set of knives, sharpening steel and chain mail apron and glove.

“We are tremendously proud of our award-winning status and the home reared lamb, pork, beef and mutton which we sell through the shop. We are also committed to making sure our craft is preserved and ensuring our farm-to-fork skills are passed on to future generations,” said Vincent.

“We work with whole carcasses of meat reared on this farm, which come to us in their entirety.  It’s something of a dying art but provides customers with a better quality and wider choice of cuts of meat.  The alternative, known as ‘boxed beef,’ is a cost-cutting convenience adopted by many butchers – a practice which involves animals being cut up at slaughterhouses before being sent out ready to be put on display,” he added.

Eric Bulmer, chairman of the charitable trustees, said: “I am delighted the trust is able to support Rachael on her journey towards developing skills in a craft which has historic connections with the city and we wish her every success.”