To keep one small parish bequest doing the one thing it was set down to do, well, in the same valley, for as long as we can.

Our mission, set in words a trustee could explain to a neighbour in the lane, is to give a little plain help — in cash or in kind — to the older widows and widowers of the parish of Horton-in-Ribblesdale, and to any other neighbour whom the trustees know to be having a hard winter. The whole purpose is local; the help is small; the visits matter as much as the envelopes.

The exact wording of the original purpose — taken from the records the Charity Commission for England and Wales holds for us — is this: 'financial aid monetary or otherwise to Widows and Spinsters over 60 years of age, Widowers over 80 years of age, and the poor of the Parish of Horton in Ribblesdale.' The phrasing is the founder's. We have not modernised it. We have, with the agreement of successive boards of trustees, allowed ourselves a small interpretive latitude over the years — chiefly in adding a second distribution in February for fuel — but the heart of the mission is unchanged.

What that mission asks of us, in practice

Three things, mainly. First, to know the parish well enough that we do not need a means test to spot need. Second, to keep our overhead at zero, so that every pound of the dole's income reaches a household. Third, to write to the parish — through the parish magazine, through the newsletter we send once a year, and through this small website — so that everyone can see, if they wish, what was done in their name.

None of that is difficult. The difficulty is staying patient. The temptation, when one is a charity in 2026, is to grow — to take on a second parish, to add a third programme, to start a social-media presence. We have, more than once, considered each of those, and have, each time, decided against. The minute book has a small phrase that captures the trustees' reasoning: 'enough is the right size'.

Our values, plainly

These have not been workshopped. They have been read out at meetings, agreed by nodding, and written in the minute book.

• Stay local. The parish only. We will not be tempted into the next valley by a request that ought to be answered there.
• Stay small. We do not chase growth. The right size is the size at which a trustee can still walk an envelope to a door.
• Stay quiet. We do not photograph recipients holding dole envelopes. We do not publish names. We do not make our neighbours' need into our own story.
• Stay honest. We file on time. We say what we have done. We say what we have not done. Including the next paragraph.

One paragraph of honest limitation

In 2019 the trustees agreed to set up a small JOHN WILLIAM FOSTER befriending scheme — a more formal version of the visits some of us were already making — with a notional aim of pairing every dole recipient with a regular monthly visitor. We did not do it well. The rota slipped within a few months; two trustees took on more than they could manage; one recipient politely told us, the following winter, that she did not actually want a visitor, only the envelope. We learned from this and quietly stood the scheme down. We now visit when we are wanted and not when we have decided in advance, and we are slower to add programmes than we used to be. We mention this because no charity is owed anyone's trust by claiming only its successes.

The most honest thing a small charity can do is stay small, and say so, and refuse to grow into a shape its founder would not recognise. — David Maurice Gallivan, Chair, in the dispatch of January 2024

And so

That is the mission. It is short because it ought to be. If you would like to support it, the donate page is here; if you would like to write to the trustees with a question, our address is [email protected]; if you would like to read what we did last year, the most recent annual report is on the reports page.