We do one thing slowly, and try to do it well.
The Eure and Smale Charity exists for a single, very old purpose: to keep ten almshouses in good repair, and to look after the twelve neighbours who live in them. Everything else we do — befriending, gardening, the small library — is in service of that one purpose.
What we hold to
Our values are not a marketing exercise; they are the working assumptions of a small body of unpaid trustees, trying to discharge a duty written down before either of them was born. We have set them out as plainly as we can.
1. Housing first, and well.
The almshouses themselves are the work. They must be warm, dry, safe, and quiet. We will spend the charity's resources on slate, lime mortar, oak frames, coal, and small domestic kindnesses long before we spend them on anything else. Where there is a choice between a glossy brochure and a new chimney pot, we choose the chimney.
2. Care of place.
These buildings are listed and matter to the streetscape of Oswestry. We treat the fabric with respect — we use the same Welsh slate where we can, the same lime mortar, the same oak — because we know we are passing the houses on to whoever sits in our chairs in 2075.
3. Companionship without intrusion.
A resident's almshouse is their home. We knock; we wait to be asked in. Befrienders are paired with residents on a one-to-one basis, can be declined, and are reviewed annually. We do not pry.
4. Quiet accounts.
We publish our annual report on time each year, in plain English. We do not employ fundraisers or pay commission. Our trustees serve without payment, as the Charity Commission's register confirms.
5. Local first.
The original endowments were for the godly poor of this parish. We have widened the area of benefit to the former Oswestry Borough, but no further. We are not an Oxfam; we are a part of one town.
Our theory of change (such as it is)
We are an old institution and dislike the phrase “theory of change”. But our work, set out simply, is a chain of three steps.
A small, steady income.
Rents from the modern lettings on the upper Beatrice Street site; a quarterly dispatch and donor base; investment income on the consolidated fund; occasional bequests.
Six standing programmes.
The Almshouses, the Repair Fund, Hearth & Hand, the Garden at Eure's Row, the Winter Coal Allowance, and the Trustees' Library — six programmes that fill our small year.
Twelve neighbours, well housed.
Twelve people, in ten dwellings, living quiet and self-determined lives within walking distance of the parish church, the library and a bench in the walled garden.
We resist measuring our work by anything other than the lives of the residents. We do not count Twitter impressions or volunteer-hours-equivalent. The trustees know each resident by name, and visit. That is our measurement system.
An honest paragraph
It would be dishonest to write a mission page without also writing this: we have got things wrong. In 2017 we tried to set up a small day-centre in a former coal cellar at the rear of Smale's Cottages. We had imagined a quiet room for residents to gather, with a small kitchen and a library corner. It did not work. The room was too cold; the residents preferred their own kitchens; the volunteers grew dispirited. After eighteen months we abandoned the project, returned the cellar to storage, and apologised to the volunteers who had given their time. We learned something important from it: that almshouse residents are not a community to be engineered. They are neighbours. They will choose their own gatherings, on their own terms, and we should be on hand for tea, not for programmes.
“We are not building a community here. We are tending one that already exists, between ten doorways, in its own time.”
— Reverend Paul Trevor Darlington, chair
What we do not do
It is worth being explicit. The Eure and Smale Charity does not:
- Provide nursing or medical care. Where a resident requires care, we work with the resident, their GP, and Severn Hospice. We are a landlord, not a hospice.
- House under-60s. The original endowments and the 1979 Scheme are clear on this. The minimum age at appointment is 60; the average age at appointment is currently 74.
- Fundraise nationally. Our donors are almost all from Shropshire or have a personal connection to Oswestry. We do not buy mailing lists or run cold appeals.
- Run media campaigns. The quarterly dispatch and this small website are the whole of our communications work.
- Discriminate. The Scheme allows the trustees to consider need; it does not allow us to discriminate by faith, denomination, ethnicity, sexuality, or family circumstance. The clerical link is historic; residents need not be churchgoers.
What lies ahead
The Eure's Row roof appeal is our largest piece of work for the present quinquennium. After that, the next big task is a thermal upgrade of Smale's Cottages — secondary glazing, draught-proofing, and a small heat-pump trial in No. 9, the only cottage with a south-facing back wall. We hope to have this done by 2028. We will write about it in the dispatch as we go.
Beyond that, the trustees take the long view. The houses have stood for three centuries and a half. With careful work, they will stand for three more.