Millions spent on Cat and Church vanity projects
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Surely as the funding pots in question are non-public you need to take it up with the relevant organisations in question?
The Diocese of St Asaph deals with Church of Wales stuff and even as a staunch atheist I think they can do what they please with the monies in question.
Likewise Cats Protection Adoption Centre deals with homeless and abandoned cats and is primarily funded by white haired old dears who love nothing more than cats. Ask them to start funding ‘common street urchins’ and you watch the donations quickly dry up.
How do we even define a vanity project in this day and age? Is the £2.5m funding secured to move Techniquest to TJ Hughes a vanity project?
Don’t even get me started on Ty Pawb.
If we were to just spend all these allocated millions on the properties in question to convert them to homeless shelters – then there’d be 4 large shelters/soup kitchens or rehab centres. This wouldn’t eliminate the homeless problem it would mean the facilities in question would just attract more homeless from farther afield.
You can just imagine the Chester powers that be shipping them all off on a bus to town – they do that already.
The reason that there are so many homeless sustained in Wrexham is because the facilities on offer – particularly relating to drug rehabilitation are the best in North Wales.
So you can weigh it up more cats and god botherers in town or more homeless.
I’ve argued on both sides of the fence relating to homelessness in the past. I think the organisations in question are doing the best they can considering difficult circumstances but that are still individuals on the street who won’t accept the right type of help because they’d rather just get high.
Matt not sure where you get the information that Wrexham has the best facilities in North Wales for homeless and drug users.
The waiting list for drug detox is longer than ever, the completion rate from the service is showing less people completing a detox programme, there are no facilities for anyone who has substance issues and mental health problems, Wrexham Council does not prioritise people onto the housing list if they are single.
The night shelters are just that 8.00pm to 8.00am with very limited day provision.As far as the funding goes people who donate to the Cats Protection will welcome the facility- church goes making donations through their collections on a Sunday thinking it is going for the work in ‘their’ church will be astonished to see so much going from central funds to set up another church building when others can hardly stay open- what better way to wind people up and collect donations from one cause and then invest it in a project that competes against your own – no doubt it will be up to church congregations to work out the rights and wrongs of what has happened.
As the summer moves along, millions of pounds will be spent by Premier League Football teams on improving their squads. Millions…….
What privately owned organisations do with the money they raise is entirely up to them. In fact, what they do with their money keeps the world spinning in a largely beneficial way.
I have absolutely no idea what this post is actually about
[quote quote=170416]I have absolutely no idea what this post is actually about[/quote]
I share your confusion, Alun. I contribute to the Cats Protection League and I put my trust in them to use the money/goods/time donated by me and others to help cats. If they instead used the donations to help with Wrexham’s substance abuse community I feel it would be unethical of the Cats Protection League to have asked for money under false pretences and I would never donate to them again.
I am an athiest but, like Matt, I don’t have an issue with the church spending its own funds on “churchy” things. As a general principle I think the church & other religious organisations could do a lot more to help those most in need in our society – but it’s an issue of practising what they preach for me, not how they spend their money. I might feel differently if I attended church & contributed to their collections.
Substance abuse is not the only issue out there nor is it necessarily the worst. If you donate to a ‘homelessness’ charity then is that wrong because you’re not donating to, say, research into cancer or Parkinson’s disease?
Donating to charity is not mandatory – benefactors still pay their taxes and are choosing to then spend some of their net income on charity, whereas others might choose instead to spend their disposable income on luxuries such as holidays and hobbies. The Cats Protection and church funds are donated to by people who are under no obligation to donate this money to anyone at all. How is it wrong of them to voluntarily contribute to a registered charity of their own choosing?
Where someone donates money to is clearly a persoanl choice – it is however worth looking on the Charity Commission and Comapnies Hiuse web site to see if your donation will be used or just saved. Cats Protection has over £100 million in investements etc- it is a persoanl choice to decide is this large or small and will ‘my’ money be used for what I think.
There are lots of charoties with really fat bank accounts- don’t even start on the wealth of the Churches and how far removed many of them are from the principles of Christian life by helping and supporting ‘everyone’ in society and not just preserving buildings.
I can’t help wondering how much research has been done by the one who claims that the Churches in Wrexham do very little for the community; Have they taken into account
1) Weekly homeless drop-in run at the Salvation Army but supported by volunteers from a range of churches.
2) Very successful Job Club and one-stop shop for unemployed also at the SA
3) A large proportion of the town’s toddler and playgroups provided by Churches
4) The ‘Street Pastors’ – International Christian organisation whose leading Welsh branch is in Wrexham and about whom Wrexham’s Chief Inspector of Police said ‘“Wrexham Street Pastors are a valuable asset to the night-time economy in Wrexham. They are a visible and reassuring presence in the town at key times and offer a service which significantly reduces vulnerability and demand on other public sector resources.”
5) The ‘Just Across’ ecumenical (Inter-Church) group that meets weekly at Regent St Methodist Church above Primark. It’s run in collaboration with the Red Cross and offers a range of services to refugees in the town.
6) Many Church-based lunch clubs for pensioners.
7) Weekly provision of food at the weekend for the homeless and also for school children in poverty due to lack of school lunches during the school holidays.
8) The town Foodbank is administered by and largely (though not exclusively) run by Christian volunteers.
9) The Youth Centre and School Pastors that work in Caia Park and Rhosddu due to a combined effort of local churches, particularly the Methodists who own the building and the Church army (Anglican) who staff it.
Where on earth did you get the idea that they spend all their money and time on church buildings? Not from any form of research or personal knowledge clearly!
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