Farewell from Polly

After 6 years as a dedicated and passionate Trustee we say farewell, and thank you, to Polly Griffith. Here she shares her memories of her time with YWCS.

At the end of 2022, I will be stepping down as a trustee after 6 years of incredible change and progress for YWCS.  From a small NGO, it has grown into a strong organisation and I leave now knowing it is in the hands of very capable and dedicated women. I have found, working over the years with a number of voluntary groups where there is an ever-changing cast of characters, that the history of the group is often lost. I am the last of the “originals” at  YWCS. Because the wonderful women who are running YWCS now are relatively new, with an outlook going forward rather than back, as it should, I have taken the opportunity, in writing this blog, of telling the YWCS story. It is a great story and it would be a shame to lose it.

While I have been a trustee for only 6 years, in fact I have known the service from its very tiny beginnings in 1994-5. In those far off days, there was a Women’s Centre on Holgate Rd (now a private house) and some of the volunteers were trained counsellors who offered their services free-of-charge, using the rooms available at the Centre. Before long, clients were pouring in and more counsellors came forward to help. This led to applications from trainees who needed to make up the hours of counselling necessary to qualify for their certificate. Those of us volunteering at the Centre for other reasons found ourselves giving admin support for the counsellors rather than our own work which led to some irritation. It became clear that what had been a kind gesture was developing into a real service and that some proper organisation was necessary, a need that was more acute when the trustees of the Women’s Centre decided to close it in 1999.

Happily, after a period of temporary arrangements, the counsellors found 2 counselling rooms plus an office at CVS on Priory Street in which to put down roots and the YWCS was born in 2000. Several of the counsellors took on additional roles as volunteer administrators and trustees, ensuring that the service met national counselling requirements. They raised enough money from client donations and fundraising events to pay CVS rent rates and continued to thrive, with growing numbers of clients and counsellors. While I myself was not personally involved during these years, I kept in touch with developments because I was working with other volunteer health-related organisations based at CVS and often saw my YWCS counsellor friends there.

By 2015, everyone agreed that the service had reached a point where it needed a dedicated manager. A one-year grant from Joseph Rowntree that covered the salary made it possible to hire an experienced counsellor with managerial skills who organised the counsellors, holding regular team meetings, arranging CPD training sessions and offering day-to-day support. The first glimmerings of a differentiation between staff, trustees and counsellors began to emerge as I was asked in 2016 to join as a trustee, the first from the outside and the first non-counsellor. I brought my experience as a patient representative with the NHS and other related volunteer organisations to the group. A few months later, Samantha, newly arrived in York from running a London-based educational trust, also joined adding some real administrative professionalism.

However, before we could begin to make a difference, disaster hit. A combination of factors, including a lack of fundraising experience on the Board and rising costs meant that we faced a very precarious future and it was all-hands-to-the-deck to hold events and write funding bids to survive that difficult period. Samantha took over the role of Manager and we started to generate income in a more sustainable and organised way.

This is where the story of YWCS as we know it today really begins. During the years 2017-19, thanks to Samantha, we secured enough funding to ensure our survival and began to develop a board of trustees separate from the counsellors and staff. It became clear that, in addition to Samantha’s administrative work, we needed an additional staff member to work with and support the counsellors and Emma, already a volunteer counsellor, was hired. Susie, our current chair of trustees, joined in the summer of 2019 and worked closely with Samantha to develop strong administrative foundations. Samantha left in 2020, and we welcomed Charlotte to the team as the new Operations Manager.

And then in 2020, as we all know, came lockdown. While a crisis for many, it was ironically the making of YWCS as it gave us the time to move from being a small voluntary group to a well-managed, financially secure service.  From 4 trustees, one counselling manager, 7 counsellors and a worrying financial situation, we have expanded to 7 trustees, a counselling manager, operations manager and an office coordinator, 21 counsellors and enough funding to be able to set up a ring-fenced reserve fund.  

It has been an honour to be a part of these developments, to watch YWCS come into its own and know that it is ready for a bright future.  While I have played a small part in this story, I feel lucky indeed to have had the chance to work with such strong, skilled, dedicated and generous women.