Fundraising Assistant Vicky Jones safely completed her sky dive last Saturday, 9th March. Here is an extract from her full account of the jump:

“We landed well, on our feet and the realisation of what I’d just done hit me.  I had really done it!  The adrenaline continued to pump though me for some time afterwards.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  I had achieved something amazing … Jumped out of plane raising vital funds for The College.  I have to say thank you so much to everyone who has supported and sponsored me, I really couldn’t have done it without you all. You have helped raise money for this wonderful charity. Thank you!”

It is not too late to sponsor Vicky by visiting her JustGiving page, sending a donation by texting VJSD80 and an amount of £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10 to 70070, or send a cheque payable to “The College of St. Barnabas” to: Vicky’s Jump, The College of St. Barnabas, Blackberry Lane, Lingfield, RH7 6NJ.

You can also visit our Facebook page to see her action video.

On Saturday 7th March 2015, College Fundraising Assistant Vicky Jones will skydive from a plane to help the College care for its most needy residents.

“It’s shattering my nerves just thinking about it,” she says, “but I want to do something personally to help the College. This is really a wonderful place and is home to some amazing people, but we need help to look after them. No one is turned away if they can’t meet the cost of living here, but the College receives no government grants or financial support from the Church of England.

“This is why I have decided to do something extreme … I have agreed (despite my mind and body telling me I must be crazy!) to jump from the skies to raise some much needed funds to benefit the lives of the elderly here who have given so much for others.”

If you would like to sponsor Vicky, you can do so by visiting her Just-Giving page at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Vicky-Jones17, sending a donation by texting VJSD80 and an amount of £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10 to 70070, or send a cheque payable to “The College of St. Barnabas” to: Vicky’s Jump, The College of St. Barnabas, Blackberry Lane, Lingfield, RH7 6NJ.

Please, make her jump worthwhile!

Mrs Simpson, who moved to the college in its centenary year of November 1995, celebrated her own centenary there in June this year with a tea party for family, friends and fellow residents. They all enjoyed a glass of champagne and cake made by Mary Nagel, daughter of Mrs Sally Thomas, a long time friend of Mrs Simpson, who sadly died in March this year. In addition there was a ‘cake’ covered with 100 candles carved by her Canadian son-in-law from a Juniper tree, which he carried from B.C via Spain and Portugal to the College.
Her first marriage to clergyman Fr Edgar Saunders left her a widow in 1960, when she was not only grief-stricken by widowhood, but threatened with homelessness and financial hardship.
Clergy wives more than 50 years ago seldom worked, and having lost her husband she also had to leave their Gloucestershire vicarage, when she discovered that somehow her husband had managed to save £2,000 – which was enough to buy her a modest home.
To secure her own financial future and that of her teenage son, Mrs Simpson went on to train as a social worker, and it was while involved with placing a baby for adoption that she met her second husband, Fr Clarence Simpson.
The couple married the following year and Mrs Simpson found herself with three step children in addition to her son David and daughter Biddy.
‘I was to go on and lead a very busy life,’ she recalled. ‘It was something I never expected but it was wonderful and I couldn’t have imagined that I would go on to be married for 32 years.’
In 1995 the Simpsons made the decision to retire to the clergy home in Dormansland, but Fr Clarence died just 18 months later.
‘He knew that moving to the College was the right thing to do and that I would be safe if anything happened to him,’ said Mrs Simpson. ‘He was right – there is a lovely community here, the countryside is beautiful and I have made many friends.’

The College’s roots and our enduring mission stretch back to the early 1890s when our founder, Canon William Cooper, first began to moot the idea of a hostel in London and a convalescent home in the country, at a time when many elderly Anglican clergy and returning Missionaries “had no refuge but the Union Infirmary or the common ward of the Workhouse”. To this day, our mission is straightforward: to ensure that elderly, impoverished or infirm Clergy, Clergy spouses, widows, widowers and other Anglicans benefit from the best possible care.

The College has had ties with the local community for more than a century, and as we move towards our 120th anniversary, we are currently working to celebrate, strengthen and extend our community links through a range of interesting, informative and entertaining activities.

While we already benefit from the splendid efforts of a thriving “Friends” organisation, we are now looking for new volunteers around the country to become involved in these activities and to help us further develop our services. In some ways this replicates the involvement of local volunteers in the late 19th & early 20th centuries who worked to build awareness of the need for the College and who sought to make it an enduring reality.

In addition to this website we are also on Facebook and you can follow us on Twitter, but if you would like more details of our range of volunteering opportunities, please call on 01342 872813 or send an email to social@collegeofstbarnabas.com.

Your Help is urgently needed

We need your help urgently. As you may know, the College of St. Barnabas has for more than 100 years has been quietly and effectively carrying out its life-changing and sometimes life-saving work.

Originally established thanks to donations from Victorian philanthropists, the College is open to all Anglicans. The people we work with have quite complex long-term healthcare and social welfare needs, are frequently among the “oldest old” i.e. over 85 years of age, and are among the most vulnerable in society. They are often lonely, afraid and feel very isolated, often in declining health and frequently have complex care and support needs.

We never turn people away on grounds of cost but it is a harsh reality that without our charity, many of our residents would be homeless, afraid and alone, their life bounded by the walls of a hospital ward or the confines of some other anonymous institution. In fact, never having had the opportunity to save for their old age they find themselves caught in the funding gap in which social security pays just a fraction of the true cost of providing the care these frail, vulnerable and infirm people so desperately need. Despite this, we refuse to abandon them.

As a result, the College currently faces a shortfall in income of roughly £10,000 a month. Nonetheless we cannot and will not turn our back on the sickest, the poorest and the weakest among us.

That’s why we urgently need your help. You can best do this by setting up a regular standing order from your bank account to ours. This is not only a convenient way for you to give your support but it also helps keep our costs down. Most importantly, you are helping us with the regular, predictable income needed to provide the care that is so desperately needed by these frail, vulnerable and infirm people. You can download the Standing Order & Gift Aid Form here. Simply fill it in, send it to us at our FREEPOST address and we’ll do the rest.

We do honestly understand that some people are simply unable to set up a standing order while others do not want to enter into that sort of commitment with us. If you prefer to give by cheque or by CAF Voucher (or similar “charity cheque”) please make it payable to The College of St. Barnabas and send it to our FREEPOST address.  Alternatively you can donate through JustGiving.

If your donations are eligible for Gift Aid, please do complete the appropriate section of the downloadable Standing Order & Gift Aid Form, and return it to us by post or as an email attachment.

If you use online banking, you can usually set up standing orders directly with your bank and make one-off donations as well. You can get our bank details by downloading the Standing Order & Gift Aid Form. If you decide to help in this way, please do let us know that you have done it – a simple email is fine – so that we can set up the appropriate records and check eligibility for Gift Aid.

Thank you so much for your kindness, compassion and consideration.

The first visit by the College of St Barnabas to CRE Midlands at the NEC Birmingham proved to be a resounding success with over 150 visitors seen in two days.

There was lively interest in coming to live at the College, as well as supporting us with prayers and giving.

So worthwhile was this visit, that we have booked for 2014, to be held in Manchester. Meanwhile, we shall once again be at CRE International, Sandown Park, Esher, from Tuesday 13 – Friday 16 May  2014. Please come and visit us then.

To be included on our list for complimentary tickets, please email the College.