Meal delivery
Prepared meals delivered five days a week from eight houses, principally to people living alone after a hospital discharge. Referrals come from district nurses, not from us.
58,900 meals last year
Public Work
The work is unremarkable and it is the point.
A practice that produces nothing for the place it stands in is a hobby with a vocabulary. Each house commits a fixed share of its members' hours to work outside the Institute.
Wall repair, Fell House, second work period
Hospice support
Trained members sit with the dying, at home or in ward, in shifts arranged so that no one is unaccompanied overnight. Members do not discuss the Institute in these hours. This is a rule, not a courtesy.
7,340 hours
Restoration
Trail, wall, seawall, and building repair under agreement with local authorities. Materials are paid for by the Institute. The work is not signed.
26.8 km maintained
Conservation
Book and document repair for public libraries and parish records, carried out at South House and the North House, at no charge.
2,610 bindings
Community education
Free evening courses in reading, letter writing, household repair, and end-of-life administration. Open to all; no attendance is recorded.
41 courses
Winter provision
Fuel, transport, and check-in visits during storm periods, in the four districts where our houses are the nearest occupied building.
Nine districts served
Conditions we place on ourselves
- No recipient of public work is invited to an observance by the member serving them.
- No work is undertaken in exchange for access, publicity, or property.
- No external grant is accepted, and no work is named after the Institute.
- A member who cannot continue a commitment says so to the steward, not to the recipient.
These conditions were adopted in 1993 following an internal dispute, the record of which is held in the archive.
From the archive
Return of hours, 1993.
Hours are returned each October and printed without comment. The return below is the one that accompanied the adoption of the conditions above.
HOUSE MEMBERS HOURS GIVEN HOURS RECEIVED RECIPIENTS
North 91 5,410 188 14
Shore 54 3,002 121 9
Marsh 61 3,884 96 11
River 28 1,610 40 6
Fell 47 2,776 210 8
Ferrand 39 2,041 55 7
Karst 22 1,120 18 4
Briar 19 905 12 3
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TOTAL 361 20,748 740 62
Hours given are counted by the recipient organisation where one exists and
by the steward where one does not. Hours received are entered separately and
are not deducted. One house is not returned above; its figures are held at the
North House and are included in the total.
REP/1993/07 · North House
A large part of this work is not done by the houses at all. Each local circle carries one outward obligation of its own choosing, entered in its Circle Book and returned annually through its affiliated house.