2024 has been a difficult year for many in the charitable sector, but Northumberlandbased Blyth Star Enterprises seems to be breaking the mould. Julie Dixon, Blyth Star's Chief Executive, comments on the charity's "remarkably unremarkable" year.
As a third sector organisation, where your day-to-day business is so focused on the welfare of others, it can be difficult to find the time to sit down and take stock of the bigger picture in terms of your own success.
For 37 years, Blyth Star Enterprises has done exactly this, we’ve kept our heads down and have been quietly going about our business, providing living support, day services and vocational training opportunities for adults with complex mental health needs and learning disabilities. At its essence, 2024 has been no exception, it has been a remarkably ‘unremarkable’ year, but in an economy where many charities are struggling to even survive, we’re grateful to still be here and be able to continue our vital work supporting some of Northumberland’s most vulnerable residents.
That’s not to say we haven’t had our share of newsworthy moments. In the past year, we’ve enjoyed some wonderful success with our philanthropic activities, raising funds towards two major projects – an extension for our residential apartments in Blyth to create an improved social and skill development space for our live-in service users, and the creation of a new horticultural learning centre at our Stakeford Nurseries day service. A successful grant campaign also saw the delivery of a new, all-electric delivery van to improve the carbon footprint of our operations at The Woodfuel Centre – our vocational day service which reflects a real factory environment producing woodfuel products.
2024 also brought with it an influx of new commercial partnerships. The Woodfuel Centre is now the supplier of choice for two local restaurants (Davanti Italia in Whitley Lodge and Porky’s in Blyth), supplying over a tonne of air-dried logs per week to each venue to fire their respective pizza ovens, while our green-fingered gardeners at Stakeford Nurseries won a fantastic contract to supply all of the hanging baskets and planters to Morpeth’s Sanderson Arcade Shopping Centre. Staff and service users at our Woodwork Department have also been busy, making outdoor play equipment for local primary schools.
Despite our successes, we never get complacent. Our commitment to providing quality services for the individuals in our care and our determination to not just survive, but thrive year on year means that we have to stay focused. The surplus raised from all of our activities is directly reinvested into Blyth Star and the further development of our services to ensure that we stay relevant and of course, future-proof.
Looking ahead to 2025, while the stability of the charitable sector as a whole may look uncertain, we hope that Blyth Star continues to flourish in the face of adversity. Having already survived for 37 years, we hope to still be around for the next 37 and beyond – continuing to create quality jobs for local people and provide opportunities for our service users to live independent, fulfilled lives within their communities.
www.blythstar.org.uk