Help for Heroes struggling

[NutLoose]

They appear to be in dire straits :(

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54178526

[BEagle]

What a stupid, scaremongering post! Are you some closet Daily Mail leader writer, or what?

From the website:
Today we announced the difficult decision to undergo a major restructure in order to protect our life-changing recovery services from the devastating financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As a charity, we rely on public donations for 97% of income but this has reduced hugely over recent months with all planned face-to-face fundraising events and activities since April either cancelled or postponed. We are also anticipating a 30% reduction in Help for Heroes regular income over the coming years with the ongoing economic recession.

This loss of income, coupled with a significant surge in demand for our recovery services during the height of the pandemic, means we have no choice but to review our service delivery and put 143 staff roles at risk.

Melanie Waters, CEO, said the decision was extremely tough but that we had a responsibility to ensure that the lifelong support promised to the men and women who suffered life-changing injuries or illnesses as a result of their service could continue against the backdrop of the pandemic.

She said: “In 2007, we made a promise on behalf of the nation to provide lifetime support to wounded veterans, and their families, and we are striving to keep that promise.

The crisis has had a devastating impact on the whole UK charity sector, with lasting consequences, and it has hit us hard. These tough decisions have been made to protect the future of the charity and have been taken with our beneficiaries in mind.

We remain absolutely committed to our wounded and their families and will continue fighting for, and changing the lives of, those we support for as long as they need it.”

With significant uncertainty around the economy and ever-changing Covid restrictions, we will continue to focus on face to face community and digital services. This means that we will not be operating out of three of our Recovery Centres for the foreseeable future; Catterick, Colchester and Plymouth. We will be returning to centre-based services in a Covid-secure environment from Tedworth House over the coming months and we are also working to reopen our community office in Wales. We are also building our new Community Rehabilitation Teams from October, which will initially increase the number of staff we have working on the ground in the North, South, East and West of England, and in Wales.

We were quick to adapt our support in March, despite having to furlough nearly 40% of staff for up to seven months. We have continued to deliver virtual and remote support through our fellowship, welfare, clinical, grants and psychological wellbeing services ever since. We will continue to provide our world class recovery support to those who need it.

Demand for support rose significantly during lockdown with a 33% increase in new people coming forward for support with their mental health in May and June 2020 compared to the same period last year, as well as nearly 30% more new referrals into our physical health focused service.

If you need support, please get in touch (https://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/get-support/get-support-today/).

To donate and give much needed support, please visit https://helpforheroes.org.uk/donate-online/ (https://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/donate-online/)

[salad-dodger]

What a stupid, scaremongering post! Are you some closet Daily Mail leader writer, or what?

From the website:
Some people love to share bad news. There’s always one wherever you go.

[NutLoose]

Putting 147 staff at risk and

“Three Help for Heroes recovery centres - in Yorkshire, Devon and Essex - will remain closed indefinitely as Help for Heroes focuses on face-to-face community and online-based support.”

what else would you call it but struggling to maintain the service it used to provide Beagle?

i do try to donate when I can and thought I would post it in case others felt the same. I would rather donate to this than some Woolly PC orientated charity.

[woptb]

Salad and Beagle, what crass comments!
Highlighting an issue with this charity is important to me and I’d hazard a guess, some others.
Did someone pi55 on your cornflakes?

[dctyke]

As a related issue I usually take five boxes of poppies. I have been trying to find out the situation as regards door to door selling and putting boxes in local pubs without getting any answers from my local rep. I know one of the local pubs has removed all its collection boxes from the counter to aid cleaning plus no one actually goes to the bar counter now. I fear this years effort will not be very productive.

[tbwtg]

Salad and Beagle, what crass comments!
Highlighting an issue with this charity is important to me and I’d hazard a guess, some others.
Did someone pi55 on your cornflakes?

Hear hear, this is an important issue. Also, this is supposed to be a Rumour Network ie fairly open discussion forum. Criticising people for flagging up bad news suggests you only want to hear good news, eg in the context of military aviation, celebrating military bravery, success etc. That sounds a bit Pollyanna-ish.

I guess problems for Help for Heroes will be another emerging story as the world adapts to the long-term effects of the pandemic. Let's all try to leave space for people to express different views.

[Sideshow Bob]

What a stupid, scaremongering post! Are you some closet Daily Mail leader writer, or what?
Typical BEagle reply, you don't agree with his world view therefore you must be an idiot!!

[Tashengurt]

Suffering from the perennial forces problem, out of sight, out of mind.
Without a war dominating the news every day the plight of poor old 'Tommy' soon fades from public interest.

[Nige321]

Beagle

With 147 jobs and three centres at risk:
we will not be operating out of three of our Recovery Centres for the foreseeable future; Catterick, Colchester and Plymouth.

Did you actually bother reading what you posted.
Well done Nutloose for bringing the issue to everyone's attention...

What a stupid, scaremongering post! Are you some closet Daily Mail leader writer, or what?
No, are you?
Only one stupid post on this thread...

[xenolith]

NutLoose. Thanks for posting that; I hadn't noted that H4H were in trouble. Time to reassess donations I think.

BEagle & salad-dodger. REALLY? What is your problem?

[Just This Once...]

There must be quite a number of serving and former-serving personnel caught up in this. The PRC course are mandated for our serving wounded, injured and sick and are part-manned by Service personnel.
The MoD has become totally reliant on their charity sector partnerships and I can only presume there are a lot of folk left dangling in the breeze at their time of need. For those employed by the charities directly this must really bite as it is as much a vocation and passion to them and not just a job. Their experience and skills will be almost impossible to replace.

[BEagle]

The news from the Help for Heroes website hardly indicates that the organisation is, as was alleged, in 'dire straits'.

I trust that those of us who have been making regular contributions will continue to do so.

[woptb]

The news from the Help for Heroes website hardly indicates that the organisation is, as was alleged, in 'dire straits'.

I trust that those of us who have been making regular contributions will continue to do so.

Three centres closed indefinitely, funding down by a third and 140 plus made redundant, doesn’t sound like good news?Absolutely no need to knock Nutty.
Nice virtue signalling,just to demonstrate you really are just a misunderstood bon oeuf and not a curmudgeonly old so and so.

[salad-dodger]

No problem here from me. I happened to agree with Beagle and also noted that the OP seems to enjoy presenting bad news. Some people do. I also thought that he had over done the thread title.

Doesn’t look like dire straits to me. Certainly not good either, but then the whole charity sector is struggling at the moment. H4H are one of many in the same boat. Someone also mentioned poppies. I had heard locally that there will be no local collecting this year - not sure if that’s a local thing or national.

[Krystal n chips]

More than a touch of irony when Beagle suggests Daily Mail histrionics ..........and proceeds to emulate said rag thereafter.

The letter needs no clarification as to how dire the situation is becoming for H4H and frankly, the CEO should be commended for her openness...( unlike many politicians and other CEO's I am sure we can all think of ).

H4h has risen to significant prominence since the origins, and justifiably so, appearing at many events every year. Herein lies a teensy problem in terms of revenue generation....there ain't been any events.

Obviously, they have, presumably, multiple revenue sources, but, as the well know saying goes "every little helps ".

They are facing the same dilemmas as every charity therefore . Whom we donate to is our private business, but I will say we support a local hospice who have retail outlets, and a warehouse. The footfall in the warehouse has diminished markedly since March....quelle surprise ! plus they now have to quarantine donated items...which is more time, and, invariably, voluntary labour being used. The same applies to other charities operating on similar, very tight, margins.

The above is intended to illustrate just how badly affected the charity sector has been by the pandemic and subsequent reactions to contain the virus.

So there was no "scaremongering " only the cold, hard, simple economic facts of life presented with, as I say, commendable clarity.

[teej013]

NutLoose, Cheers for the Heads up,

Boys & Girls, Play Nicely...

[Martin the Martian]

Regarding poppies, my neighbour is heavily involved with the local RBL. It rather seems that there will not be any collecting tins this year due to you-know-what.

[Kiltrash]

One of the usual ways to collect is shopping centres and supermarkets, I cannot see them being very busy IF allowed to set up stalls, also sporting crowds late October but with no or limited fans?
However I can see online collections set up with virtual Poppies awarded
I normally am involved with a charity collection for our Hospice that looked after Mum but they are saying to me they don't advise our usual means will be allowed this year, well not till a vacine

Ps Nutloose please keep promoting News stories you come across. Facts cannot be suppressed

[Lomon]

For a charity that had £86m in net assets last year I'm sure it isn't all that bad, maybe their 17 executives that earn more than £60k pa could take a one year pay cut instead!