|
to people with life-disrupting problems |
Home Page
Introduction
Crisis Centre Ministries, or 'CCM', is a local charity based in Bristol, England. We are sometimes referred to locally as 'The Crisis Centre', which is fine as long as people know us. But please don't confuse us with Crisis, the national homelessness charity!
We are open throughout the year, providing a Christian response to the needs of people with life-disrupting problems - the poorest and most vulnerable adults in our society. Many of them are called 'street people' but whether or not they are or have been homeless, many of their lives are shaped by issues such as poor mental and physical health, addiction, debt, unemployment, crime and violence.
Latest News
The Queen Vic
Various items of work have been identified which were not part of the original plan. An end wall was found to have insufficient strength, as was a section of the back wall. We also found problems with a piece of flat roof (not a complete surprise) and some rafters, and several wooden lintels have started to rot and needed to be replaced. None of this work could have been identified until we started to pull bits of the building apart.
The problems with the roof are so serious that the decision has been made to replace the whole roof. This will obviously cost a fair amount of money which we will need to find, and also means that the whole project is delayed by about a month.
So: the current situation is that the target date for completion of Phase One (the date on which we can move the Coffee Shop and start serving people from Stepleton Road) is now the end of October 2010.
If we can afford to continue the work, the target for completing Phase Two (most of the upstairs work) is mid-December.
All of this assumes we find no more significant pieces of work, and all the scheduled work takes place as planned.
The Charity Shop
On Monday 19 July 2010, 'Changing Lives in Clevedon' opened for business.
Thank you to all those who worked so hard to make this possible, and to everyone who prayed through so many problems and delays.
Now, please support the shop, and pray that it goes on to be a success.
The Queen Vic
We have it!
After months of hard work, patience and prayer, we bought the Queen Vic pub in Easton on Friday 12 February. It's been a marathon to get to this point... and now the hard work begins!
Of course, this makes fund-raising (like the Sleep Out - see below) even more vital. So, thank you for helping us get to this point, and please carry on working and praying.
The full estimated cost of the project at present is around £450,000 but we anticipate some of this will be provided as gifts in kind.
The Secret Millionaire
Towards the end of 2009, Channel 4 asked if we would mind them filming part of a program in our coffee shop for a few days. Of course, we said they were welcome, and they came and it all went very well. Then they came back and revealed that it was not actually a program about volunteering after all...
The program was broadcast on Channel 4, on Monday 1 March at 9 pm. Lisa was an absolute star! Dawn Gibbins, the 'Secret Millionaire' donated £100,000 towards our £450,000 project to purchase, renovate and refit the Queen Vic so we can move the Wild Goose there.
Sleep Out, 26 February 2010
The Sleep Out went really well. Thank you to everyone who supported us, by taking part, or sponsoring someone, or by helping to publicise the event.
We have 84 people recorded as taking part, and there were probably a few people who were present but not included on that list. On the night, reported sponsorship for all the 14 registered organisations was £13,800 - a wonderful figure. Several people did not know how much they were likely to raise, so our current guess is that the total will be at least £15,000 once it is all collected.
Details of the sleep out can still be found on the BCAN web site, on the Sleep Out page, and there is still time to sponsor the CCM staff team by visiting the JustGiving CCM Sleep Out Team page.
Prayer Meetings
From September 2009, we have decided to try moving the monthly evening prayer meeting from the last Thursday to the 4th Monday evening of each month - apart from December! - from 7:30 to 9 pm.
So the next few evening prayer meetings will be:
- 28 June 2010
- 26 July 2010
- 23 August 2010
- 27 September 2010
We will continue to have a monthly lunchtime prayer meeting, the details of which are circulated by email as soon as we have worked out the best day. You are very welcome to join us at any of these times.
The staff and volunteers also have a short 15 minute Bible reading and prayer time each day at 10 am. Anyone who is around at that time is welcome to join us.
Hopes and Dreams
The ministry has been based in our building at 12 City Road since 1986. The premises have served us well, but are now very inadequate for the work we are trying to do in them. For many years, we have been seeking larger premises for the Coffee Shop, and we are finally working on renovating the former Queen Vic pub in Stapleton Road, Easton, for this purpose.
As part of the long term vision, we have always wanted to have two centres: one where we welcome people off the street, in the middle of their chaos and addiction; and another where we welcome people who have started to move on and who want to keep away from the drug dealers and their former friends who are still drinking and using illegal substances.
We had assumed that we would need to find a new building in a nicer part of Bristol for this other role, but in fact much of the drug dealing and chaos which used to be common on City Road has now moved towards Easton, and City Road is much calmer than it used to be - especially our end of City Road.
So it is possible that the new building in Stapleton Road can meet the need for those in the middle of chaos and addiction, and the old building in City Road could become the new base for our ministry to people on the way to rebuilding their lives.