Latest news with #Suffolk-based
Daily Mail
02-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Charities at risk due to donors' reluctance to cover 'unexciting' running costs like energy bills, warns Alzheimer's Society boss
Charities are being put at risk due to a reluctance to donate towards 'unexciting' running costs like energy bills and travel expenses, the head of the Alzheimer's Society warned today. Kate Lee, who is stepping down as CEO of the care and research organisation after five years in the post, said charities were struggling with rising prices at the same time supporters had less money to give due to the cost of living crisis and broader economic uncertainty. But she claimed these issues were being exacerbated by a preference for funding high-profile projects like scientific research rather than the basic costs of doing business. 'Unlike exciting research and life saving services few donors step forward to pay our increasing utility bills, the uplifts minimum wages for many of our service delivery and fundraising staff,' she told a Westminster event hosted by People's Postcode Lottery. 'They don't want to cover the travel expenses of our incredible volunteers who can no longer afford to volunteer their time and money. 'They don't want to pay for our cyber security training, the upgrade of our safeguarding system, reducing our carbon footprint or increasing insurance premiums to comply with changing legislation. And yet this is our life blood.' The National Living Wage for those aged over 21 rose from £11.44 per hour to £12.21 per hour in April, while the rate for 18- to 20-year-olds increased from £8.60 to £10.00. Ms Lee also referenced Chancellor Rachel Reeves' hike to employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) as among the additional costs facing charities. Kate Lee, CEO of the Alzheimer's Society, addressing an event in Westminster The rate of employer NICs rose from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent from April 6, as the Treasury attempts to raise around £25billion a year. In March, regulated rail fares in England and Wales increased by 4.6 per cent, while energy bills for the typical family went up by 6 per cent in April, reflecting rising wholesale costs that will also affect charities and businesses. Ms Lee said many charities were relying on the People's Postcode Lottery - a subscription lottery that raises money for good causes - to cover their running costs. Under current legislation, each charity lottery is called at selling £50m worth of tickets each year, but the Alzheimer's Society chief called for this limit to be removed to free up more funds to help charities deal with rising costs. 'I get that the burden of doing business is growing as the state grapples with its finances,' she said. 'But here is a simple and cost-effective way the government can help protect the future of its thriving voluntary sector, something which remains the envy of the world, at the heart of every community, something we cannot allow to become extinct.' Several charities have closed in recent months after struggling with rising bills. They include Bridge Project Sudbury, a Suffolk-based project helping adults with learning difficulties that has gone into liquidation after 30 years in operation. The rate of employer NICs rose from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent from April 6, as the Treasury attempts to raise around £25billion a year The trustees said in a statement: 'Rising costs - including higher wages, National Insurance contributions, and the overall impact of inflation - have made it impossible to continue operating. 'Despite exploring every possible option, we have reached a point where we can no longer sustain our services.' Age UK Lindsey, a local branch of Age UK operating in Lincolnshire, also closed this week citing 'the Covid-19 pandemic, cost of living crisis and increases in National Insurance and the minimum wage'. Meanwhile, a pet rescue charity revealed earlier this year that it faced closure after receiving a demand for £51,000 from its energy supplier. London-based Dogs on The Streets (Dots), which provides vet care for and rehomes pets formerly owned by homeless people, was paying roughly £500 per month for energy bills at its centre in Enfield, North London. Dots founder Michelle Clark said problems started in January 2024, when she contacted an energy broker to see if she could switch suppliers and cut the charity's costs. As most of the charity's volunteers spend their time working with the dogs outside - and it does not use the heating - she felt its bills were too high. But the proposed switch prompted their new energy company to review Dots' account, after which it took a shock one-off £5,000 direct debit from the charity's bank account.
The Guardian
15-04-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
The rise of the digital fishmonger: how Covid helped customers buy fresh from the boat
The seafood chef and restaurateur Mitch Tonks recalls the moment things for him changed dramatically. It was March 2020, the start of Covid, when a local fishing boat skipper called him in a panic. 'Nick was having a tough time; nobody was buying his catch, so I emailed our customer network,' he says. Tonks asked people to bring cash and containers. The next morning, Nick landed his boat at Brixham, the south Devon port that is England's largest fish market by value of catch sold. 'About 150 people turned up to buy his fish. Many asked 'why can't we just buy fish straight off boats like this normally?'' 'That was my lightbulb moment,' says Tonks. 'The seafood retail industry is pretty broken: so much fish gets wasted; supermarkets are closing their fish counters. So I've worked backwards from the problems to streamline a very clunky supply chain.' Fortuitously, a year earlier he had built a dedicated premises at Brixham, next door to the fish market, to be able to bring fish direct to his own restaurants from the boats. But it was the pandemic that became the catalyst to enable home delivery – and now customers buy directly from the quayside through his company Rockfish's online seafood market, a digital fishmonger platform that supplies 12,000 homes with fish. Tonks is far from alone. Five years ago, with fish markets and restaurants closed, it looked like the end of the line for many fishers and fishmongers – then something changed. A combination of word-of-mouth and social media gave some of those who fish off the UK's shores the chance to reach new customers, resulting in new business models that have brought about a long-term shift in how some British fish is sold today. Mike Warner, a Suffolk-based seafood consultant, saw his business come to 'a grinding halt' during the pandemic, so he pivoted quickly. 'With fish markets closed, nobody could get any fish. But the sea bass season was about to begin on 1 April – that's a premium catch so I started working with Felixstowe fishermen.' He borrowed a van, arranged a licence, then drove their catch to independent fishmongers in London. 'I'd arrive at Rex Goldsmith, the Chelsea fishmonger in Cale Street, or the Notting Hill Fish Shop with a load of bass or lobster at 9am. There'd be queues of people, all socially distanced, waiting for us – it was quite something,' Warner says. 'London was like the set of a disaster movie – there was nobody there. It was an odd time, but a very lucrative time.' Once fish markets reopened, Warner could not compete with the buying power of mainstream suppliers. As that 'golden time' of lockdowns ended, he switched to supplying local restaurants and opened a fishmongers in Woodbridge, but not all fish retailers adapted. 'Some have gone bust, wound down or sold out,' says Warner, who is closing his shop this month as his online sales and consultancy get busier. Warner noticed a move towards online retail during Covid. 'The fish-box scheme had been proven to work. We started supplying the Wright Brothers [a premium seafood supplier] in London and the Wild Meat Company – they stopped doing wholesale completely. With just online retail, their turnover dropped but margins increased, so they became more profitable.' Catches can now fetch good prices, partly thanks to digital innovation, says Warner. Newlyn in Cornwall and Brixham fish markets have 'electronic clock' online auctions, rather than traditional 'shout' sales, so the fresh catch can fetch competitive prices from a wider range of buyers. Jeremy Grieve buys fish from Brixham at 6am while drinking coffee in his home office, 180 miles away in Guildford, Surrey. When Grieve joined the Fish Society, an online fish-box retailer, in 2016, the 'tide was beginning to turn' for e-commerce. By 2019, the company had developed a more advanced digital platform, but customers were not convinced that fish sent by courier would arrive fresh. 'We had an online fish-selling Ferrari, we just weren't in the right race. Covid gave us the opportunity to flex our muscles,' says Grieve, now chief executive of the Fish Society. On 23 March 2020, the then prime minister, Boris Johnson urged people to stay at home and use food-delivery services. Overnight, the Fish Society turnover grew by 400%. 'Business changed considerably – we went seven days a week, 24 hours a day for an extended period. 'Our team grew from about eight people to 30,' says Grieve. 'Our turnover this year will be about 700% higher than the year leading into Covid.' As well as delivering 1,500 weekly orders to customers, fish portions are sold to recipe-box companies and cruise ships. That is only possible, Grieve says, because fish is sold frozen. This minimises waste – if kept refrigerated, it's more likely to get thrown away when it approaches its expiry date. Before Covid, food was couriered in polystyrene boxes but as e-commerce markets expanded rapidly, so too did sustainable packaging options. The Fish Society switched to cardboard packing formats; Rockfish uses recycled ocean plastic containers that can be returned to the company in exchange for a credit towards subsequent purchases. Covid has provided opportunities for consumers too. 'If you want to know the provenance of a catch, to know what you are buying, you can find out. The traceability is there,' says Warner. 'Not everyone can buy online yet [due to often restricted delivery areas] or visit a local fishmonger, but it's a nettle that the industry has grasped.' Forecasts suggest that 2.3 million people in the UK will use food subscription boxes – or meal kits – this year. The pandemic had a 'seismic' effect on how people consume food at home, according to Seth McCurry, UK and Ireland senior commercial manager for the Marine Stewardship Council, the organisation that sets globally recognised standards for sustainable seafood. 'The rising profile of e-commerce platforms has offered unique opportunities for the seafood industry to connect with consumers in new ways,' says McCurry. 'This has been particularly true since a number of major retailers permanently closed their fish counters in the years following the pandemic.' Meanwhile, Tonks is trialling a virtual fish counter – a touchscreen that displays fresh fish for sale – at Gloucester motorway services on the M5. Soon, that will be rolled out into his own Rockfish restaurants across the south-west. 'To have sustainable fisheries for the future, not only do we have to change practices on the water,' he says, 'we also have to change practices on land.'
BBC News
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Woolpit and Horringer choirs revive forgotten Easter cantata
Two choirs have come together to revive a piece of Easter music rediscovered by their musical director as he was sorting through his father's music scores. Gethsemane to Calvary was composed in 1906 by John S Witty, a composer and teacher from Yorkshire who appears to have "fallen into obscurity". Kevin Slingsby, director of the Suffolk-based Horringer Singers and Tudor Rose Singers, said: "The more I looked at it, the more I liked it - it's got some nice moments." It will be performed at St Mary's Church, Woolpit, near Stowmarket, at 19:00 BST, and at St Leonard's Church, Horringer, near Bury St Edmunds, on Wednesday. "My first thought was, let's look it up and see if any scores are available online - but all I could find was two had been sold on Ebay," said Mr Slingsby."I then thought, well, someone will have performed it on YouTube, everything's there, but there was nothing at all."The 68-year-old retired music teacher unearthed two scores for the cantata among his father Geoffrey's music - one marked up by his grandmother Dolly and the other by Geoffrey. Dolly Slingsby was a member of St John's Church, Bury St Edmunds, and by the early 1930s, Geoffrey was one of its boy singers."Looking through, I could see my grandmother's writing in pencil, saying, 'stand' or 'sit' - and I surmised it must have been performed at St John's in the '30s," said Mr Slingsby. All he could find out about Mr Witty online was a census return, describing him as a teacher and composer of music who had been born in 1865 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, and lived most of his life in Hull and Bradford, Yorkshire."I thought, the piece must have fallen into obscurity, let's do it," he said - and the amateur choirs shows influences of well-known Easter pieces like Stainer's The Crucifixion (1887) or John Maunder's Olivet de Calgary (1904), according to Mr Slingsby. "But unlike Stainer, it tells the whole Easter story from Gethsemane to the triumphal Resurrection," he said. "Sometimes, the more you do music, the more it grows on you and this has grown on me - and it seems to have hit the spot with the choirs." Follow Suffolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Nansemond Indian Nation says Virginia is withholding Medicaid funding in new lawsuit
Fishing Point Healthcare's original clinic in Portsmouth opened in 2024. It's since opened one in Newport News, with plans for further expansion. (Photo by Laura Philion/WHRO) By Ryan Murphy/WHRO The Nansemond Indian Nation is accusing the state of Virginia of undermining its sovereign rights and violating federal law by refusing to pay out $1.7 million in Medicaid claims. The tribe alleges in a new federal lawsuit that state agencies and officials are trying to shift the blame for Virginia's financial mistakes and coerce Fishing Point Healthcare, a clinic operated by the tribe, into a new structure to compete less with other private providers. 'Rather than partnering with a federally recognized Tribal Nation to improve health-care access for low-income families and stabilize Virginia's own faltering healthcare infrastructure, Virginia officials have instead weaponized the Commonwealth's administrative machinery to punish a Tribal Health Program that dared to step into the breach,' reads the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday. The filing says Virginia appears to have thought Fishing Point would only be serving tribal members. The suit says state agencies likely claimed an incorrect amount for Medicaid payments for non-Native American patients than allowed, 'thereby creating a substantial risk that the federal government would reclaim millions of dollars from' the state. The tribe says the state argued after the fact that some of the services Fishing Point was providing were not authorized for Medicaid reimbursement 'so they could shift any repayment obligation' onto the Nansemond. The state also pushed the tribe to rework its clinic structure, away from the federally-recognized Tribal Health Program and to a model similar to private companies contracted with the state. The tribe argues the state's pressure was intended to limit Fishing Point's competition with other private providers. The filing alleges the state has refused to pay out any Medicaid reimbursements for some services since October, and as of March 31stall of Fishing Point's Medicaid claims were frozen – a total of 7,650 worth about $1.7 million – 'thereby weaponizing the billing process to coerce Plaintiffs into capitulating to Defendants' demands.' Efforts to reach Virginia's Department of Medical Assistance Services, which manages Medicaid in the state and is named as one of the defendants in the filing, received no response Wednesday. Fishing Point says it's continuing to provide care to both tribal members and non-Native American patients, but the funding freeze 'represents a financial chokehold that threatens to cripple Fishing Point's ability to sustain operations,' according to the lawsuit. The Suffolk-based tribe started Fishing Point Healthcare in 2023, five years after it was federally recognized. Federal recognition allows tribal nations to provide health care to its members and serve anyone using federal healthcare assistance like Medicaid. The system started with a clinic in Portsmouth and Fishing point just opened its second clinic in Newport News. Fishing Point CEO Lance Johnson told WHRO earlier this year the health system has plans for expansion to other cities over the next few years, including a Norfolk clinic already in the works. This story was originally published by WHRO Public Media, the Hampton Roads region's largest media company.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
On this day: Dog health business recognised by Dragons' Den star
On this day in 2024, the East Anglian Daily Times reported that a Suffolk-based dog health business was recognised by a prominent entrepreneur. Born To Run, located in Thurston near Bury St Edmunds, provides pain management support for dogs suffering from mobility issues, including arthritis, through tailored massage and exercise programmes. Angela Day, the owner of the business, expressed her gratitude after winning a small business award from Dragons' Den star Theo Paphitis on February 12, 2024. The Small Business Sunday initiative, established by Mr Paphitis in 2010, aims to support local firms across the UK and has celebrated thousands of winners. Owner of the business Angela Day (Image: Angela Day) Ms Day said: "We never thought that we would stand out over the hundreds of incredible product-based businesses who took part. "We work very hard to make every client feel like the special dog owners they are." She added: "But to be chosen as a winner of Small Business Sunday and be mingling with CEOs of some of the best-known household brands is just incredible." The support from Mr Paphitis has been invaluable for Ms Day, who said: "It's fantastic to have support from Theo because as a small business it's difficult to be in enough places to raise your profile to the level that's needed to reach more dog owners, who may not even be aware of the help available for their dogs when they struggle with mobility and pain from conditions like arthritis. "Theo has recognised our hard work and helped spread the word about what we do. "I am beyond grateful." In addition to this accolade, Born To Run had also been announced as a finalist for the Animal Star Awards. Mr Paphitis said: "My vision is that everyone who has ever won an #SBS re-tweet from me becomes part of a friendly club of like-minded individuals who can share successes and learnings." [From the East Anglian Daily Times of March 8, 2024]
