CHEDISTON UNITED CHARITIES TRUST

(Registered Charity Number 206742)

TRUSTEES 2010

Mr.Pat Gregory Chairman Ash Farm - 785392

Mrs.Janet Mantell Vice-Chairman Rosecroft Farm - 785440

Mr.Gilbert Burroughes Ambleside - 873344

Mrs.Wendy Burroughes Burfields - 785283

Mr.David Fossett Clerk Mount Pleasant Farm – 785389

The Chediston United Charities Trust aims to help & support parishioners in the Chediston community.

At Christmas time each year the Trust gifts a financial donation to all children in full time education up to the age of 18 years. It also offers a financial donation to all adults or couples who have reached retirement age. The Trustees also consider cases of genuine need & hardship. Money can only be donated from interest generated from the capital in the Trust fund.

At Christmas 2007, £20 will be distributed to all eligible children, & £100 or £120 to all adults & couples who were eligible & had agreed to receive it.

The Parish Council is asked to endorse the appointment of Trustees who, however, operate independently & with sole discretion under Charity Commission guidelines. The Trustees are bound by the conditions of the Trust & act with integrity & fairness.

Annual financial reports are submitted to the Charity Commission for audit.

Should any parishioner feel that they have been forgotten if retired or that due to ‘hardship’ they or their dependants may benefit from the Trust, they should apply to the Clerk & the Trustees will consider their request. The Trustees may also consider requests for assistance towards transport costs for essential hospital visits, transport costs to Further Education establishments in Suffolk & Norfolk for students in continuing education post 16, & towards the cost of books for students studying towards a university degree.

Funds in the Chediston United Charities Trust have been acquired over many years as a result of legacies bestowed upon it. These include the ‘Henry Smith Charity’, which has benefited hundreds of similar parishes across the country (see attached), & from the sale of the Harry Claxton almshouses (now demolished).

Further information can be obtained from the Clerk.

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THE HENRY SMITH CHARITY

Henry Smith was born in Wandsworth in or about 1545 & died in 1628.

He was a Salter by trade who grew rich & purchased estates in various parts of England. He had no children & during his lifetime created a number of charitable trusts for the relief of the poor; one of these trusts has been for the relief of the poor of 202 specific parishes.

Rumour has it that Henry Smith would dress as a tramp & visit rural villages asking for ‘alms’. If he was welcomed & treated well he remembered that village in his trust. Chediston folk must have impressed him !

It is recorded in Whites Directory (1897) that the ‘Smith’s Charity’ for Chediston ‘now amounting to about £10 10s. per year, is given away in flour at Christmas’. More recently it was given away in coal.

However, the charity excluded ‘any persons given to excessive drinking, whoremongers, common swears, pilferers or otherwise those whose servants they have been, or any vagrants or such as should not have inhabited the parish for 5 years or being able, should refuse work’.

Today the Trustees of the Chediston United Charities Trust use the interest from the trust fund to gift all youngsters & all pensioners (who would like to receive it) a gift at Christmas. This gift is distributed in the form of cash or vouchers.

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