Surrealistic Penguin

The Citizens Advice 1066 benefit CD has arrived! It features songs from 22 local bands and artists and is available from shops and cafes around Hastings. The cover price is £5, but please feel free to donate more!

You can also listen and/or buy on Bandcamp here: https://ca1066.bandcamp.com/album/a-brighter-day.

Keith Rodway:

Our thanks go out to all who contributed their work to the CD – it’s a wonderful snapshot of the vibrant arts scene Hastings is renowned for and so rightly proud of. Thanks also to Peter Quinnell for his fantastic artwork. Those who contributed their work: Polo Piatti, Anita Jardine, Kat Lee-Ryan, Josephine Claire Hamill, Philip George Thornton, Nick Monaghan, Tim Scullion, Carol Prior, Otti A-i, Toby Warren (Elf and Stacey), Fritz Catlin, Simon Charterton, Dave Arnold, Richard James Burley, Tim Hoyte, Alice Trueman (CLUBBS), Charlotte Tingley and Leo Snook (Chasing Shadows), Keith Foster, Steve Stone, Tony May, Phil Little, Ken Edwards (The Moors) . Thank you all!

Citizens Advice 1066 is a local charity which provides help at the heart of the community. The service is available to everyone in the community of Hastings and Rother. Most clients are likely to be experiencing financial hardship and many are experiencing physical or mental health problems. Each year CA1066 help around 7,000 people who have, between them, 22,000 issues.

The service is run by 15 paid staff and around 50 volunteers who are assessors, advisers, receptionists, administrators and research and campaigns workers. Training and support is given for all roles and varies between 8 weeks for an assessor and around 1 year for an adviser. Volunteering helps individuals gain new skills and experience, build confidence and this often leads to paid work in similar fields. If these volunteers were paid at the going rate, it would cost over £300,000 a year.

Citizens Advice aim to help with any type of enquiry but if they can’t find an answer they aim to find someone who can. This could be with a local partner agency or maybe a national organisation or a solicitor. At present the main enquiries are benefits problems including sickness and disability benefits and Universal Credit, debt, housing problems, employment issues, consumer problems, family and personal matters, immigration, utilities and more.

Advice can make a major difference to people’s lives by relieving stress, gaining additional income, helping people get the benefits they are entitled to, restoring financial stability, helping people stay in their homes, deal with family breakdown and access to children, sort out problems at work and stay in employment, challenge unfair practices and discrimination. These things benefit the wider community and increase community resilience.

As well as giving advice, CA 1066 also gather information about the problems people are facing and look out for unfair policies or practices and campaign to change or improve these. These can be local issues or national issues.
There are many ways in which you can support the work of Citizens Advice 1066 – you can make a donation, help fundraise, you can volunteer or follow them on social media :-
twitter@Hastings1066CABor
facebook.com/citizensadvice1066
You can contact them by phone on 03444 111 444 or send a message viawww.citizensadvice1066.co.uk or drop-in to the office
Renaissance House, London Rd, Saint Leonards-on-Sea TN37 6AN