Many thanks to all those who have already expressed support, and donated or offered other help, to Croydon Nightwatch as a result of Inside Croydon’s Christmas appeal.

We have noted before the proximity, and stark contrast, between the grinding poverty experienced by those who attend Queen’s Gardens each night for the soup kitchen, and the blissful insensitivity and luxury of some of those who inhabit the council offices in Fisher’s Folly and the Town Hall just across the road, including many of our elected representatives who are in receipt of publicly funded allowances worth £1.5million a year.

We thought Inside Croydon’s loyal reader might be interested to see what Croydon’s Mayor and some of our councillors were up to last week.

Keep it classy, eh Croydon?

Any and all councillors who opted not to attend this particular exercise of snout in the trough are welcome to post a comment to that effect below.

In the meantime, any one who did enjoy their gourmet dinner might wish to consider helping those less fortunate than yourselves:

• Donate cash – which could help to provide meals for several homeless people for one night this Christmas. Donations can be made online here
• Donate goods or clothes. Nightwatch’s nightly clients have increased from around 60 a couple of years ago, to more than 100 now. Not all of the clients at the soup kitchen are homeless – according to the charity, an increasing number are the working poor, unable to afford enough for food. Many of them have children who through no fault of theirs could face a joyless Christmas. You can help them. More details of this can be found here
• Or you can volunteer. Croydon Nightwatch’s small band of helpers work 365 nights of the year. Might you be able to give up a couple of hours of your time to see what you can do this Christmas time? Click here for more information about volunteering

• Click here for the Croydon Nightwatch charity annual report
• Click here to visit the Croydon Nightwatch website

Inside Croydon’s recent coverage of Croydon Nightwatch

• Police chief wants to have soup kitchen moved on
• Nightwatch charity chairman: “Our activities are legal”
• Soup kitchen PR disaster forces council U-turn – for now
• Council to use “all available bye laws” to move soup kitchen

Coming to Croydon

• Strange Air book talk, Upper Norwood Joint Library: Dec 14
• Surrey Street Christmas market, Dec 15 and 22
• Cinema Ruskin: Dec 21
• Steve Knightly at Stanley Halls: Feb 5

Related articles

• £80,000 pa croydon cop and the soup kitchen (snookcocker.wordpress.com)
• Homelessness news – Council ‘to use all available bylaws’ to ban Croydon soup kitchen (ukhomelessnessblog.wordpress.com)