Scouts & Explorers - Community Fundraising

Each year the Scouts and Explorers assist our local Round Table with their series of Street Collections, following Father Christmas as he tours the Borough in his mobile "house". Following the fantastic support we received from the Scouts this year, I can report that Round Table’s receipts for the collections the 30th helped with are as follows:

Wednesday 17th December - £580

Friday 19th December - £641

Tuesday 23rd December - £705

That makes a grand total of £1926 collected, a 9% increase on the same routes from last year. The 30th receive a £175 donation from Round Table for each evening we help with, so the Group will receive £525 to help towards equipment, etc.

One or two Scouts have asked which local charities Round Table make donations to, so below are two organisations which they have supported most recently.

At the beginning of December Round Table donated £2,000 to The Open House, a charity who operate a drop-in centre and two direct-access hostels for the homeless on the outskirts of Crawley. They give hostel places to 50 or 60 homeless people from Redhill and Reigate each year. They had an immediate request to hire a church hall during the recent severely cold weather so that they could accommodate the people they would normally turn away. They used the funds specifically to hire and staff the church hall and also to buy sleeping bags and underwear which they hand out (items that are not normally donated in sufficient quantities).

Last week Round Table donated £1,500 to Welcare East Surrey, a local charity supporting families with children under 9 years old who have social welfare needs. Their needs are often linked to divorce, death and disability in the family. Welcare have operations in Redhill & Merstham and they will use the funds to supply families in need with winter heating allowances and safety equipment for under 9’s (such as stair gates and car seats).

Round Table estimate that they will collect in total over £7,000 this Christmas. Therefore this remains by far their biggest fundraising activity of the year. It would not be possible to raise these amounts every evening without the generous support of the local Scout and Guide Groups. If you would like any further information with regard to the charities and causes they support (of which those above are just two examples) please feel free to contact their Community Service Officer, Nick Deacon ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).

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