Welcome to Darnall Forum's Community Website: December 2015

Friday, 18 December 2015

A video produced by Sheffield Muslim Community Forum about the Food Bank Appeal.

Sunday, 13 December 2015

Food Bank Appeal Up-date

Sheffield Muslim Community Forum and Darnall Forum have been working very closely with volunteers and local food banks for months to encourage one another, share ideas and work out how best to tackle some of the challenges of food poverty in our local communities. Great things can happen when like-minded people get together and work to build a cohesive society.

God bless everyone who came out yesterday to support us and to everyone who donated food and cash for our Food Bank Appeal.

Saturday, 12 December 2015

Real donkey to head nativity procession on Saturday 19 December

Messages of Christmas 'Peace and goodwill to all people' and 'Good news for poor and oppressed people' will be at the heart of this year's nativity procession through Darnall. That hope has been kept alive by carols sung on the streets down the centuries.

Nearly 200 years ago, in Sheffield and many other parts of Yorkshire and North Derbyshire, the local carols, (with different words and tunes from the traditional ones), were seen as too much about the rights of all people to a better world for the local squires and industrialists to stomach, and they had them banned from the churches !

It is in the spirit of good-neighbourliness and hope for peace that the Darnall Churches invite people to sing along with our Nativity Procession - a new route from last year and this time a real donkey !

St Alban’s Church, Chapelwood Road – set off at 2.00pm with stops for traditional carols on:

Basford Street, Balfour Road, Barnadiston Road, Gainsford Road, Ronald Road, outside The Terminus pub, Main Road,

to finish at Church of Christ, Station Road which will be open for hot refreshments from 3.00pm

Saturday, 5 December 2015

Small Business Saturday

Darnall Post Office is just one of 5 million small businesses across the UK. We're not owned by the Queen or the goverrnment. We're a non-profit organisation owned by the local community.

If you don't use your local post office, and your local shopping centre, you will lose it. Please support us and other small businesses. And by use us we mean please give us your custom.

Buying stamps on-line, or franking your own mail and dumping big bags of it in our office, does not help to keep us open. How far would you have to go to post pre-paid mail if we closed? Handsworth? Attercliffe? Pond Street in town?

Find out more at www.smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com.

How to join in

1) Follow us on Twitter @darnallforum
2) To post a comment, click on the link beneath the post or previous comment to which you want to respond and write your message in the box.
3) Complete the word recognition box, which is designed to stop spam.
4) Then, if you have one, you can enter your Google username and password.
5) Alternatively, you can click 'other' and enter your real name, or a nickname which you would like us to display, or you can click 'anonymous'.
6) Then click 'Publish'. Your message will be sent to us for checking.
7) We will know who you are but, if you have used a nickname or chosen to be anonymous, no one else will know.

How our community team can help

Chris, Nazia and Zahira are the friendly voices on the end of the phone line when you call us and the people who deal with your visits, letters and emails.

They work closely with community groups and individuals who want to make a difference to Darnall. Chris is our Lead Key Support Worker, helping people who are over 18 and currently out of work, to find jobs, education or training through Sheffield CIty Council's Pathway to Success programme.

Zahira is currently covering Nazia's learning Champion role and is the person to contact regarding our education programme.

We also have a team of adult community learning tutors who work closely with us. They help us run courses in IT, ESOL, employment skills, driving theory and other subjects.

If you want help with something which isn't listed here, and you live in Attercliffe, Darnall or Acres Hill, why not give us a ring anyway and we'll try to signpost you to the right place.

More about us

Darnall Forum’s day to day business is managed by a Board of local volunteers. Its vision statement is:

To create a listening space for the community, and
To work in partnership with other agencies and organisations to improve local services and help regenerate Darnall.

The Forum has four part-time staff who with local people to implement a Community Action Plan that was drawn-up after extensive consultation with all sections of the local community. The members of the Forum Board are drawn from the different faith and ethnic groups represented in the area and are elected by the members of the Forum at its AGM.

Darnall Forum is currently funded by Sheffield City Council, the European Social Fund and a small number of charitable trusts.

Darnall Forum also trades under the names D F Enterprise and Darnall Forum Trading, which reopened the community post office in 2010 and ran it for nearly eight years.

The Main Aims of Darnall Forum are:

To create a forum where people can meet to raise issues of local concern, where the agenda is set by local people and where leadership and direction remain with local people.

To work together as women, men, young people, elders, black, white, disabled or able-bodies, of different faiths or none, recognising, respecting and valuing our differences.

To form links with key agencies and local enterprises in order to work in partnership with them, discuss their role in the area and – where necessary – challenge them.

To gather resources to support and deliver initiatives begun and supported by local people.

To ensure that there is a clear and agreed process by which the Forum makes and acts upon its decisions, and to ensure that the Forum Board is accountable to the membership.

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