Tens of thousands of volunteers support social action projects in England run by churches including winter night shelters, lunch clubs, credit unions and food banks. Many of these volunteers are retired people, whose skills and experience are crucial to the success of this work. We spoke to six Church of England worshippers who are retired or describe themselves as in ‘phased' retirement and are involved in work from street pastors groups to helping people in debt.

George Martin, in his 70s, a worshipper at Southwark Cathedral, who formerly worked in international sales and at Buckingham Palace, is chair of the trustees of the Robes Project, the churches’ winter night shelter in the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark.

The shelter started in 2007 with seven church halls and has grown over the past 10 years to 30 church venues of all denominations, supported by 800 volunteers. The project has a major fund raising drive every year with a Sleepout at Southwark Cathedral, raising £97,000 for its work last November with the organisers hoping this total will rise to £100,000. Over the past six years, the sleepout has raised almost £500,000 towards the running costs of operating the shelter. “I have done all the voluntary jobs, cooking, washing up, meeting and greeting, I have stayed overnight, I have done the breakfast run. I joined the team at Christ Church Blackfriars  for their night shelter and I will doing the cooking once for 20 guests over the next 10 weeks – that number rises to 28 or more because we all sit down together to eat, the guests and the volunteers, ” he said. “Some people say that as chair I am too hands on but I feel that is my role. I do it from the heart, because I believe that what I am doing is what the church should be doing. Robes has saved lives over the past 10 years. As chair, I go round as many of the venues as possible.”

Avril Loveless, 61, in ‘phased retirement’, works part-time as Professor of Education at Brighton University. 

A worshipper at All Saints Church, Hove, she acts at coordinator of the night shelter at the church, part of a network of churches in the area hosting the shelter over 18 weeks between November and January. “I coordinate one day a week of the shelter. We have around 40 volunteers on our books and provide a hot meal and overnight accommodation for around 15 people who need it. Four people take turns to stay awake overnight in pairs in four-hour shifts. It is quite a precious time, just sitting quietly as the guests sleep. Some of the guests in the shelter go to work the following morning, so they have to get up early and freshen up. We serve them with a light breakfast and other guests then go off to a place called First Base which is a charity in Brighton that offers a full breakfast, showers and housing advice. The voluntary work is inter-generational and across all walks of life. We have energetic younger people who also volunteer for the lifeboats and people in their 80s who volunteer to do the overnight shifts. Over the last year, I have learned about the power of volunteers to come together as communities and keep a light burning during dark times.”

Dr Andrew Miller, 69, a retired NHS consultant in respiratory medicine and a worshipper at St Aldates Church in Oxford, has worked voluntarily as a street pastor since 2010 and is chairman of the Oxford group.  “We are a group of 19 trained volunteers from across the Christian denominations. We are in partnership with the police, night clubs and the council. We try to work in a group of at least three every Saturday and one Friday a month – especially after pay day when many people go out and celebrate. We leave our base at around 1045pm and we finish usually around 3.45am the next day. Our motto is ‘caring, listening, helping’ and we help people in a range of situations – handing out water and a space blanket for warmth, flip flops where clubbers have abandoned walking in their high heels, or lollipops as a way of defusing tensions. There are people who want to talk – I recently met somebody who had just been to a friend’s funeral and was pretty distraught and just wanted someone to listen, as do some rough sleepers. We don’t tell people what to do, we don’t preach, we let them talk and we listen. We walk six to eight miles a shift and we walk slowly, if you walk at normal speed people don’t tend to stop and talk to you. People are often curious and baffled as to why we do this work for nothing but they are glad we are there as a presence on the streets. We are a range of different people working as street pastors. In south London, where I worked as a street pastor before, we had two 83-year-old team members; one was so famous for her work that she was known on the streets as ‘The Legend’.”

Jewel Ahumibe, 67, a specialist neonatal nurse, from Birmingham, retired after nearly 40 years in the NHS in 2012.

 A worshipper at St John’s Sparkhill since 1980, she began work as a volunteer helper at the Good Companion lunch club, part of the Narthex centre, in Birmingham last August. The lunch club meets on Tuesdays with around 16 elderly people attending. The Narthex Centre provides community facilities and services from the church, including a food bank, a resource store for refugees and asylum seekers and a youth club. “I am healthy and I know that there will come a time when I need help as well. I thought ‘why not give my time when I can?’” she said. “The clients arrive before the lunch and we have a bit of a chat, and then they play Bingo. They do some exercises and then they have lunch before they get picked up by the Ring and Ride. Last week we had a trip to the Pantomime and saw Dick Whittington. The people who come along are really appreciative.”

Phil and Christine Bromwich, from All Saints Church, Murston, Sittingbourne, Kent, work voluntarily at Murston Community Bank, based in the church and a savings club at Sunny Bank Primary school in Sittingbourne. Phil, 68, worked previously in costing and estimating work for a manufacturing company and Christine, 70, is a former school office manager. The couple, who first met when they were working at Barclay’s Bank, were able to use their expertise to help set up the community bank, a branch of Kent Savers credit union, three years ago. They now work for the bank a morning a week, and help administer a branch through a savings club at Sunny Bank Primary School in Sittingbourne, Kent, two mornings a week. They are planning to set up a debt advice centre at All Saints Church. “People come to the bank in all sort of situations.  It is very satisfying to meet people who have come to us severely in debt, knowing that you may not have solved all their problems, but you have been the catalyst for change for the better in their lives,” Phil said.

A year ago, Tynedale Community Bank was launched in the North East by the Archbishop of York with strong support from the Church of England. Canon Dagmar Winter, Rector of Hexham, assesses the progress of the bank

Tynedale Community Bank was set up with the aim of offering an alternative to pay day lenders, serving anyone living or working in Northumberland. Based on the local and social ethos of a traditional credit union, the community bank has the ability to offer loans to people before they become members.

We are thrilled to say that we now have more than 100 members, with over £230,000 on deposit and £30,000 in loans already granted, and significant donations received for the further development of the community bank. Not bad for what is essentially a “start-up” social enterprise with limited funds and resources.

The bank was back in the news last week as it took part in the launch of the LifeSavers financial education programme in the North East with children and teachers from local primary schools. A project started by the Church of England, LifeSavers encourages children to save and develop other good financial habits from an early age.

Five schools in the local area are taking part in LifeSavers in partnership with Tynedale Community Bank and more local schools will be joining the programme next year.

Children will be able to save small amounts of money regularly and set themselves savings goals, giving them practical experience of handling their own money. Parents and staff will also be encouraged to join, helping to raise awareness and expand membership of Tynedale Community Bank within the wider community.

None of these achievements over the last year could have happened without a great deal of hard work. Founder Member and Coordinator Lauren Langton, who worked in the banking world, gives Tynedale Community Bank an enormous amount of energy. Hexham Abbey has been involved from the outset and welcomed the community bank with open arms when they needed a base. Lauren rallied a team of volunteers to staff the main information point in Hexham Abbey’s Parish Centre which the church offers rent-free one afternoon a week.

We are working closely with Northumberland County Council and, following a successful bid, are partnering with them to supply basic financial products for the most excluded and access to affordable credit, especially at the point of crisis.

A Volunteer who is an ex-banking colleague of Lauren will be part-paid from these funds to lead and deliver this piece of work.

A partnership with Hexham Job Centre is well established, working with staff and clients. The Job Centre has also agreed use of their office and meeting rooms for loan or other appointments, which is the perfect vehicle to deliver the work agreed with the County Council as outlined above. Cooperation with ISOS, the largest social housing provider in Northumberland, is also due to develop further.

It’s been an exciting and encouraging journey and now, on its first birthday, I look forward to what the coming years have in store.