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Home-Start Uk Trustee of The Year WINNER
After being nominated by the team behind him at Home-Start Lorn, our chairperson, Mark Feinmann and Manager travelled to London for this year's Home-Start Uk Volunteer awards where he WON!!
Mark, whose dedication to Home-Start Lorn has earned him Home-Start UK’s Trustee Award. Far exceeding the traditional role of a trustee, Mark has taken on multiple key positions, from Treasurer and Interim Manager to Group support volunteer and Development Officer, ensuring the charity’s survival and growth.
In the past few years, he has played a huge part in the formation of sister scheme Home-Start Lomond, seeing it through from its beginnings to its establishment as a full, independent Service. Hannah Gillies, Manager at Home-Start Lorn said: “Mark has been an essential support and lifeline during my first three years of managing the service. He has supported me in becoming the Manager I am today, both physically and emotionally. He goes above and beyond in all aspects of his role as Chair, and I don’t know where we would be without him.”
The Home-Start UK Volunteer Awards, on Thursday, 27th March, honoured volunteers whose remarkable efforts have transformed family lives. Held at the prestigious RAC Club in London and hosted by TV personality and long-standing Home-Start ambassador Kirstie Allsopp, the awards celebrated powerful examples of Home-Start’s support for families in communities across the UK.
After hosting the event, TV presenter Kirstie Allsop said: “It’s been an absolute joy to come together and celebrate the incredible work of Home-Start’s volunteers. They are the lifeblood of this wonderful charity, bringing warmth, empathy, and unwavering support to families when they need it most. This year’s winners embody everything Home-Start stands for kindness, commitment, and a genuine sense of community. It’s been wonderful to honour them, along with all the amazing volunteers across the UK who make a real difference every single day."
Since 1973, Home-Start has supported over 1.5 million children with almost 180 local Home-Starts supporting 79,000 children in 44,000 families in communities across the UK last year.
Home-Start Lorn Chairperson Reaches Finals of National Volunteer Awards
Mark Feinmann the Home-Start Lorn chair, has been shortlisted for the Trustee Volunteer category of the Home-Start Volunteer Awards for 2025. Out of over 160 nominations, he made the final shortlist of just 19.
Mark was nominated for his outstanding efforts over the past few years.
Since the Covid lockdown Mark has gone over and above what was expected of the average trustee having taken on a variety of roles in order to keep the charity afloat, these included along with being the chair, "interim scheme manager", group volunteer and development officer.
In the past few years Mark played a huge part in the formation of our sister scheme Home-Start Lomond (in Helensburgh), seeing it through from its beginnings to its establishment as a full, independent service. Mark was hands on in finding funding for not only the Lomond service but the ever expanding Lorn service, taking the total staff from 2 to 7 full time employees. Mark also oversaw the expansion of the service to offering more than 10 family groups per week (at our peak).
Mark stays involved with all aspects of our Home-Start, from chairing meetings to focusing the boards key aims, to attending groups to help out, to arranging meetings with potential new funding opportunities and so on…. Mark helped to secure funding for a new Home-Start Family Centre which opened on the 19th February 2025. The centre has brought a new, free community space to Oban where we can not only run the Home-Start from, but also hold groups (from coffee morning fundraisers and family groups to volunteer training sessions), recruit volunteers and offer a fresh, safe space to families.
Colleagues and volunteers alike have echoed Mark’s nomination, a couple of examples below:
“Mark’s always available whenever I need guidance on all things Home-Start.”
– Saskia – Family Co-ordinator, Home-Start Lorn.
“Mark always has time to help out, regardless of the hour or day. When I first began the job he helped to guide me through all aspects of the service and I’m not sure I would have continued the job without his input.”
– Andrew – Administrator, Home-Start Lorn.
The award ceremony takes place in London on the 27th March, so we’re all wishing Mark the best of luck in bringing home the award on behalf of Home-Start Lorn!
If you’d like to find out about becoming a trustee, email Andrew on admin@homestartlorn.org.uk
New Family Survey 2024
At the end of May we launched an anonymous Family Survey to gather feedback about the service we offer. We strive to be family-led and the data collected will be very helpful for shaping the future of the service. We have asked questions about one-to-one support, the groups we currently offer, and requested ideas for future activities, or any gaps in the service which we will try to meet. The response so far has been fantastic, and we have already received some interesting feedback. 83% of families who have completed the survey so far report that they access one-to-one support with a Home-Start volunteer or staff member in order to enjoy a couple of hours respite. We know that the raising of young children is an all-consuming and highly demanding job. Sometimes a 2-3 hour weekly break can make an enormous difference. If you would like to know more about this option, please contact manager@homestartlorn.org.uk. Huge thanks to everyone who has taken part. The survey was open until Wednesday 24th July. Please find the link on our social media pages, or request it from any staff member.
BookBug Hero 2024!
Our wonderful volunteer Jane (on Mull)has been awarded the “Bookbug Hero award for 2024” after being nominated by our families. This is a huge achievement—well done Jane! A detailed article can be accessed on the Scottish Bookbug trust website:
Home-Start Lorn’s Latest Projects
Free Baby Massage Classes
Home-Start Lorn (via our trained staff member Kelly) have been offering Baby Massage classes to groups of parents and their babies at Atlantis Leisure.
Baby massage is known to be beneficial in the early stages of a baby's development and can help in a number of areas including to reduce stress and anxiety in both mother and baby, strengthening verbal and non verbal communication, deepening the bond between baby and mother, supporting healthy physical and emotional development, soothing the symptoms of teething and colds, easing discomfort of colic, constipation, trapped wind and reflux, improving sleep and helping the baby to feel safe, secure & loved.
Please contact us if you would like to know more.
Free Summer Holiday Groups
Our Home-Start Lorn & Mull teams have put on a number of extra summer groups to help keep parents and children occupied during the longer school holidays.
The groups featured a number of different types of activity that included Messy Play in Dunbeg, Wellbeing walks to Iona, the Stork Cafe toddler play session, swimming class at Atlantis, Trip to Taynuilt play park, a picnic at Ganavan beach, a Wellbeing Walk from the Corran Halls, The Oban boat trip, Sensory Play at Dunbeg, Walk to Dunbeg Castle, Visit to the aquarium, Bookbugs sessions, Trip to Kilchoan, and the Home-Start Summer Picnic!
Please contact us if you would like to know more.
Free Antenatal Classes
Our Home-Start Mull team in partnership with the Mull Midwife and Health Visitor, are offering a number of Antenatal classes on the Isle of Mull.
The various classes covered a number of topics that included late pregnancy, signs and symptoms of labour and how labour progresses, infant feeding workshop, outcomes of labour and early days with baby and many other areas.
Please contact us if you would like to know more.
Babies in Lockdown - Home-Start launches new report
Charity collective Best Beginnings, Home-Start UK and the Parent-Infant Foundation reveal key findings from an online survey of over 5,000 parents that highlight the chronic under resourcing of services for families, the inequalities in babies’ early experiences and its worsening forecast due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The three charities - who all work to improve outcomes for parents and children with a focus on the early years - warn that many families with lower incomes, young parents and those from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, will have been hit hardest by the pandemic.
Mombie – An honest account of our admin's maternity leave
So, I came back to work last week after 9 months of blissful maternity leave... Who am I trying to kid, it was far from blissful, don't get me wrong some of it was lovely but a lot of it wasn't.
At the beginning we really struggled with breastfeeding it wasn't the same beautiful easy experience that I had with my eldest, there was pain, there was blood and there was ugly crying from me, lots of it.
After a week and a half of trying my baby was checked for tongue tie and I was told that she was fine. I wanted to express and bottle feed but I was put under a lot of pressure from some of the medical professionals looking after us to keep going. I didn’t, I bottle fed my baby for a week and a half feeling like I had totally failed as a parent, after some healing time I attempted breastfeeding again and the cycle of pain and blood repeated itself, this time she was correctly diagnosed with tongue tie, I cried with the relief that it wasn’t my fault that we had been struggling. We did eventually re-establish breastfeeding from about 7 weeks old and her tongue tie was corrected at 13 weeks.
My baby wouldn’t be put down for what seemed like the first 6 months of her life, I would cook dinner for the family with her sat in her bouncer chair screaming because I dared to put her down, I would then have my partner cut up my dinner so I could hold her whilst I ate one handed. I had to wear her in a sling to get any house work done.
At around 6 months old she started sitting and was happy to sit and play on the floor for short bursts then she would want to be held again.
She slept really well, she would wake for her first feed between 4:30 and 5:30am then go back to sleep until around 7am the days might have been hard but she rewarded me with a good rest at night so I was able to cope with the following day.
Then teething started at around 7 months old, from that day forward she seemed to lose the ability to sleep, she would cry out in the night several times, some nights it was every hour, she teethed solidly for 3 weeks which was immediately followed by her first cold, I literally spent the following 2 months in a state of constant exhaustion and sleep deprivation. My return to work was fast approaching and I was terrified about going back feeling like a Mombie.
At 8 months old she started crawling, now my little baby didn’t want to be picked up and cuddled anymore she was mobile and wanted to do her own thing, the night before I returned to work she slept through the night until my alarm went off at 7am, halleluiah!
Maternity leave for me was a very lonely time, once my partner had returned to work and after the first few weeks the visitors started to die down it was mostly spent just me and the baby, my partner needed the car for work and the novelty of getting the bus into town soon wore off, especially if there were already babies on the bus and I couldn’t get on, I was then either faced with waiting an hour for another bus or the expense of a taxi.
Despite all the difficult times, she’s pretty full on and hard work, it takes one smile from her for me to realise that I’ve got this, we’ve got this, the first 9 months of her life have passed in what feels like the blink of an eye, I’m back at work and she’s at nursery. I love her with every ounce of my being but I’m enjoying the little break and breather from being a parent that going back to work has given me.
Am I allowed to say that?!
Carrie Hughes
We recently had a visit from Brendan O’Hara MP. Brendan knew a lot about the work of Home-Start and he was very interested to hear the personal stories from one of our families and a volunteer.
On 21st January, the Waterfront Fishouse Restaurant, Oban again hosted our Annual Burns Supper. A great night was enjoyed by all who attended, and the grand sum of £1,111 was raised for the ongoing work of Home-Start Lorn.
Angela (Gela) Rose with Kirstie Allsopp & Alastair Stewart, OBE, after receiving her award for longest serving volunteer (Scotland) at the Home-Start National Convention 21st March 2016
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