Happy New Year from Goodwill! Before you all write in to the Editor concerned that Goodwill have finally lost it, I should explain that we’ve just held our AGM in the Village Hall, including looking back on all that we got up to in 2022, and electing the new committee for 2023. So it is the start of a New Year for us! 2022 was an excellent year for the Wrestlingworth Goodwill Fund. With Covid restrictions behind us we were able to run a full programme of fundraising and Goodwill events, resulting in receipts of £4,578 and payments of £2,894, for an increase in funds for the year of £1,684. On the fund-raising front we held two very well attended Quizzes in the Village Hall and of course the summer fete and raffle in the amenity field behind the Chequers. All of the events had a real buzz to them with great attendance from the villages. In the year we also received a number of oneoff and regular donations from village residents and we very much appreciate all of these which enables us to continue our goodwill activities. It’s worth recapping the main Goodwill activities we do do each year as a comment made at the AGM was that not everyone knows what Goodwill does and how we support the villages. We run two main events a year, a Pensioners Tea Party in April and a Santarun in December when we distribute Christmas goodies to all the pensioners in the villages of Wrestlingworth, Tadlow, Eyeworth and Cockayne Hatley, as well as sweets to any good children we find on our journey! So if you know of anyone in our villages who is aged 65+ and isn’t receiving an invite to the Tea Party or the Christmas goodies, please do let us know so we can add them to our list. Throughout the year we provide a small goodwill gift to anyone in the villages who is returning home from a hospital stay, anyone new moving into the villages, and to celebrate the birth of a baby in our villages. Again, if you know of anyone that falls into any of these categories, please do let us know as we can’t give Goodwill gifts if we don’t know when these things happen. Additionally we support the Wrestlingworth Lower School each year with equipment they need. Last year we bought a new set of reading books for the school and this year we are planning to buy musical instruments. For older children, aged 16+ we offer a resource award to help students buy equipment, books or what they might need when starting college or university. Unfortunately despite advertising the resource award twice last year we had no applicants and thus made no awards. We will be making the 13 resource award available again in the summer for students starting in September, so do look out for it on our Facebook page if you would like to apply. The Goodwill fund exists to do Goodwill activities in the villages and this can include one-off grants to people in need. If you know of someone who is struggling and needs our assistance, please do let us know. All such requests will be treated in strict confidence. Returning to the AGM, we were delighted to see a number of new faces at the meeting from Tadlow and Cockayne Hatley, a number of whom agreed to become ‘Friends of Goodwill’. The Friends are basically our extended list of helpers who can support the committee with running our events, and just doing some of the practical things like baking cakes for the Pensioners tea or dropping leaflets door-to-door. There is no specific time commitment to being a Friend, it’s just to be a willing pair of hands if we need help. Unfortunately we are going to need more Friends and more help over the next year as a number of our long-standing committee members stood down at the AGM and we have a much reduced Goodwill committee as a result. The Goodwill committee are trustees of the Goodwill Fund (as we’re a registered charity) and we meet about every 6 weeks to plan and organise the events through the year. We are of course always looking for more helpers, either to become a Friend or to join our committee and help run Goodwill, if the above sounds like something you’d like to get involved in, please do drop us a line. Looking forward to a great 2023