WESLEY VILLAGE APPEAL
Background
Since 1890, Methodists in Dunedin have been responding to many of our community’s social services needs. We started by operating orphanages and aged care homes, and have moved to early learning, adult learning and youth training centres, as well as running programmes to provide community social workers, advocacy and support. As society has changed so have the social and community issues.
The Methodist Mission, under its various names, has evolved to meet those changing needs. Based now in South Dunedin, but operating in Dunedin City, Mosgiel, Milton, Balclutha and Oamaru, The Mission is again looking to the future.
When the board and staff of The Mission reflected on the future of our community and our services at the end of last year, we looked for opportunities.
Today, South Dunedin has been assessed by the Ministry of Social Development as having high levels of “social dislocation”. The issues faced in South Dunedin are complex, entrenched, intergenerational and for inhabitants can represent an inevitablity. South Dunedin is unlikely to be renewed through market forces or regentrefication, not having the appropriate conditions for either.
The Mission saw that the resources of The Mission and the church could best serve South Dunedin and other areas through the creation of a new community and childcare facility on Hillside Road: WESLEY VILLAGE.
Although The Mission and Wesley Parish currently have buildings on this site, these are well beyond their economic life, and present more risk than benefit to The Mission’s clients. Our mission... South Dunedin is a community in need
The Mission’s work in Dunedin is increasingly compromised by the inadequacy and delapidated state of the facilities it currently uses; five venues scattered across the city’s southern suburbs.
THE NEW WESLEY VILLAGE
The new Wesley Village will enhance all operations in a modern, flexible and safe complex. Wesley Village will provide a purpose-built facility which will include:
• Community lounge and hall
• Childcare nursery and early learning centre
• Community and Social Services offices
• Child and Family Services offices
• Meeting rooms
• Administration offices
• Edible garden learning and resource unit
Wesley Village will allow The Mission to develop new
and existing programmes and services, including:
Support and advocacy community workers door knocking and meeting people in their streets and homes; identifying issues, finding leaders, working with them to plan how best to create local resources and local solutions, and building tools and skills within that street or home.
A home for community law clinics, PFLAG South and other groups to provide their support services within a community-owned facility
Supporting older people, providing a way for them, their health workers, carers, social services, family members, other support agencies and advocates to work together.
Day centre activities to reduce social isolation, improve parenting skills and support family literacy, including:
• Celebrating Mums
• Celebrating Dads
• Managing on a Benefit
• Personal Relationships
• Family Health
• Just Who is the Parent?
• Making Chores for Children Fun
• Moving Up and On
• Around the House
• From a Child’s Eye.
In these The Mission will continue to honour its longstanding tradition of thoughtful and responsive involvement in social services.
Where You Come In
Methodists in Dunedin, friends throughout Otago, businesses and professional people, caring families and individuals . . . you are invited to show your support for this remarkable project by investing with us in the development and construction of Wesley Village.
A personal approach will be made to you by a member of the Wesley Village Appeal Committee. Members have already pledged their own generous gifts. They are able to discuss with you any aspects of the Appeal and will suggest that you complete a Wesley Village Appeal Pledge Card indicating the level of your generous gift.
This card serves as a record of your gift and how you plan to make
it.
It is a statement of your attention and not a legally binding commitment.
Appeal Organisation
The Wesley Village Appeal Organisation is led by John Gallaher.
Members of the Wesley Village Appeal Committee:
Executive Chair - Neil Thomson
Designated Gifts Chair - Nigel Pitts
Arrangements Chairs - Dave Henry & Charles Pearce
Appeal Treasurers - Lynley Kloogh & Dave Stewart
Publicity Chair - Laura Black
Special Prospects Chair - Donald Phillips
Teams Chair - Austin Banks
Divisional Chairs - Colin Gibson & Nigel Pitts
This organisation will be responsible for implementing the Wesley Village Appeal by setting standards with their own generous giving and approaching others for their subscriptions.
How the Appeal Works
It is entirely up to you to decide the amount of your gift and the frequency of your giving. Once you have done this and signed your Pledge Card, it will be returned to the campaign office and acknowledged. To help keep you up-to-date, we will remind you as your contributions fall due.
You may already know that tax laws for charitable giving have changed, and individuals are now able to claim a 33.3% tax rebate for donations, up to a value equal to your annual taxable income.
Companies and Mãori organisations are similarly entitled to a deduction for donations made to donee organisations, limited only by the amount of the company’s net income.
The 3 Steps towards
making the Perfect Gift . . .
consider these three questions . . .
1. How important is the work of The Methodist Mission to me/us?
2. What are all my other commitments?
3. Weighing up these, what is the best response I/we can do over the
next three years?
Three Year Plan for Giving
By giving over a period of three years (or three years and one day), givers are able to be as generous as they wish without the limitations of an immediate cash donation.
Legacy Gifts
A tagged gift provides you with an opportunity to express your hopes,
dreams or gratitude, and acknowledgement of good times past, either
for yourself or someone dear. The Wesley Village Appeal offers a fresh
opportunity for those willing and able to make a substantial gift
to select a specific part of the development as a living memorial.
Individuals, families and organisations can take this opportunity
to express support and in doing so ensure recognition for yourself,
a relative, associate or friend.
Each Legacy Gift will be appropriately acknowledged.
Designated Gift Opportunities
Name of complex - negotiable
Early Learning Centre - various opportunites
Hall - $25,000
Nursery - $15,000
Lounge - $10,000
Covered playground - $5,000
Edible garden - $5,000
Meeting rooms (3) - $5,000
Meeting rooms (2) - $3,000
Other elements may be negotiated.
A Legacy Gift may be reserved pending a final decision.
Please telephone the campaign office for more information;
phone (03) 466-4600 or visit The Mission building, corner of
King Edward Street and Macandrew Road in South Dunedin.
It is my privilege to serve this important appeal as its General Chairperson. With your support we are about to realise a vision which has taken a number of years of careful work to craft. The Mission and Wesley Parish, by combining their resources, are developing the future of our communities.
When completed, Wesley Village will provide
opportunities for transformation in the lives of many in our city
and provide a base for serving Dunedin and greater Otago. I invite
you to be part of this challenge. Help us raise the $5.6 million necessary
to build this village, and deliver hope, help and wellbeing to all
who will enjoy its benefits. This is your opportunity to invest in
a facility of which we can all be proud and one which will support
the way forward for those of our community in need. We are determined
to offer them the options of a better future. I am giving this appeal
my wholehearted support and I urge you to do the same.
John Gallaher, General
Chairperson
It is time to hear more about those agencies whose actions are at the “top of the cliff”, committed to socially just and meaningful life experiences for all. Although this work happens in New Zealand’s most socially deprived communities, it is not often heard or seen in the news. It is complex and difficult work, and requires a long-term commitment; there is little of it that is dramatic enough for prime time. Yet this work is the future of social change: beyond the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, beyond “prevention”, it is the work of digging out and supporting lives of opportunity and possibility.
The Methodist Mission has a 118 year history in this work, built on 280 years of commitment to social justice in the Methodist tradition. We are engaged in some of the most critical issues in our city: family functioning and resilience, core life capabilities for individuals, social isolation and deprivation. These are the issues that lie at the heart of the “poor life outcomes” we see so often in crime, health, education and economic statistics. And which we see most starkly in the numerous reports on the lives of those in South Dunedin.
What these reports don’t describe however, are the opportunities and possibilities that lie within this community, and which we believe will provide, with the assistance of professional and skilled social services, the pathway out of the statistics that so horrify us all. Social change demands a long-term support and advocacy for people, in their communities, for the things that matter to them, in ways that work for them.
The Mission’s response to this is to provide enough support and challenge to risk a better future. Ours is a longterm, opportunity-focused, ground-up partnership with people toward that better future. Ours is the complex, difficult, and rewarding work at the top of the cliff. Regrettably, our current facilities do not support The Mission to do this. Wesley Village will provide us with a base in the most “socially-deprived” community in the South Island, and a centre from which to reach out from South Dunedin, into Dunedin City, Mosgiel, Milton, Balclutha, Oamaru and further.
Your support will help make Wesley Village
possible. With thanks,
Laura Black - Chief
Executive, The Methodist Mission.
