Thanks for the Donations

Thank you to all the shoppers in Oxford who put money in our collecting tins on the 3rd September: £260 was donated to our appeal. Thank you also to all the volunteers and Gatehouse guests who came to help with this event.  Your support was really appreciated.

Sponsored Gig this Sunday

Sorry for the relatively short notice, but if you're around this weekend you might be interested in coming to this benefit gig for the Moving Home appeal.

We've got a group of really interesting performers together: see the flyer below for all the deatils. It's this coming Sunday, 18.30-22.30 at the Bullingdon, Cowley Road. The price is £6 (but for anyone going on the sponsored walk in the afternoon - it's free!).  

 All the ticket money is being donated to the Moving Home appeal (minus a bit for refreshments for the musicians). An enormous thank you to Bruce for organising this.

Poem from a Gatehouse Guest

Here is a poem given to me by one of our guests for the blog. Hope you like it!

 

Eating out of bins

Eating out of bins

And making friends for life.

Sharing a find of meat pies

Cannot carry them all

Out of date today

Share them around.

Next time your new friends

Share some of their finds.

Never go hungry.

Hot tea and a sandwich

At the Gatehouse.

 

Back to say hello, years later.

Bins still over flowing

As we remember.

Let the works commence ...

We're really happy to be able to show you (for the first time) some photographs of the building work as it continues at the St Giles Parish rooms (see here for news that the work has started). 

For those of you who've been in to the building as it was: you'll be delighted to see these!

But please remember, the Moving Home appeal is definitely not over: this is only the first phase and we need your support more than ever! Thanks from all of us.

(1) The main hall:

(2) The meeting room:

Donations

A message from Gatehouse Director, Andrew Smith:

I opened the post yesterday and in the letterbox were six envelopes: all of them with a donation inside. Five of these were towards the appeal: a total of £775!  

In most cases there was a message of goodwill and encouragement. One of them read as follows:

I've recently received an unexpected back-payment of housing allowance in my new job. So am happy to be able to make this contribution. I still miss the Gatehouse. This is a way I can continue to show my support and care.

Thank you so much!

Thanks to the Church Urban Fund

A big thank-you to the Church Urban Fund who have awarded us a grant of £5,000 to help with equipment and moving expenses.  

 

 

 

A shopping list for the new Gatehouse

Great news to all followers of the Moving Home appeal: the work has began on St Giles' parish rooms.

However, this doesn't mean that we're there yet! In fact, our fundraising efforts have become all the more urgent, because we need to raise the money for the first stage of the building work within the next 9 weeks, if possible.  

The target for this part of the appeal is £75,000 - so we have £33,000 for go!  

Here is part of our shopping list:

Electrical works  £2,000

Painting              £1,900

New WCs           £1,000

Doors                 £1,000

Flooring              £3,600

New walls           £2,500

Kitchen              £12,000

If you would like to help by sponsoring or making a donation for one of these items, please contact Catherine on ghappeal@gmail.com  or make a donation on our Justgiving Page.

And here are some photos of the site as it currently is: we'll be offering 'before/ after' shots as much as we can!

Every donation, however big or small, will help the Gatehouse move into our new home. Thanks.