On Thursday, 20 November, we held our Branch Annual Meeting. Every year, the branch gathers so we can reflect on our achievements over the past 12 months, celebrate each other’s hard work, and look ahead to the future.
This year the meeting was held at the Gordon Centre in Bognor Regis, where it was fantastic to see so many volunteers together in one place. After catching up over food and drinks, everyone made their way into the main hall for the meeting to begin.
Branch director Paul Brady led the meeting. We’ve had a jam-packed year, so there was plenty to cover.
The first order of business was to appoint three key roles for the coming year: the branch treasurer, branch secretary, and branch elected member. Sharon 108, Jo 106, and Chris 29 have all done excellent work in these roles, and the room unanimously voted to re-elect them all. We are delighted to have them continue in these roles for another year.
Then it was time to look back on all we’ve achieved this year. Paul began by thanking every listening volunteer for the many hours they dedicate to supporting our callers, as well as all our support volunteers who work behind the scenes to ensure the smooth operation of the branch.
It’s because of our volunteers that our branch has had a record-breaking year of listening. We’ve answered 18,054 calls (a 22% increase over last year), completing 4,991 hours of listening by phone. That’s in addition to the 321 hours of email shifts. These figures are a testament to how amazing our volunteers are. We are also doing far more ‘hours of need’ nighttime listening than ever before, which is crucial as these are often the hours when callers need us most.
Our outreach work has also been a success. The outreach team, led earlier in the year by David 249 and now by Rupert 280, attended 88 community events and completed 184 hours of outreach work. Many of these events have featured on our news feed, and you can read more about a few of them here.
Paul continued to speak about the year’s standout moments. He highlighted how we have continued to grow our presence in the local community with events such as Brew Monday and Samaritans Awareness Day, and how we have continued to develop our listening skills by successfully completing new training and attending educational events on key issues, including dementia and loneliness. Our fundraising events, such as SamsFest and our supermarket collections, have been a huge success, putting us on course to meet our annual fundraising target. Paul also reflected on our volunteer meet-ups and social events - the volunteer picnic and book club, for example - which have helped strengthen the sense of community within our branch.
Also on the agenda were the upcoming changes to our shift rota in the new year. These changes are designed to help us listen for more hours than ever before, especially during the night. We also hope to recruit more night-time listeners so we can increase our listening capacity during these crucial hours.
The meeting also featured a talk from Mark Wildey, regional director for the south. Mark had travelled all the way from Bournemouth to be at the meeting, and we were all pleased that he could join us. He spoke about the potential changes and challenges facing our branch, and highlighted the need for embracing new ways of working so we can continue delivering the best possible service to our callers.
During the evening, we also heard updates from the deputy directors. Susan 308, deputy director for volunteer engagement, spoke about various topics including how we are continuing to build a volunteer community. Su 247, deputy director for recruitment, talked about training and upcoming recruitment campaigns, and Rupert 280, deputy director for outreach, who took over the role from David 249 this year, discussed the vital role the outreach team plays in creating awareness of the charity among the public.
After a short break for more refreshments, all the attendees split into groups to think about how the branch can improve further. The topics discussed included fundraising, recruitment, ongoing training for volunteers, and boosting listening hours. Each group tackled the most pressing questions surrounding each topic and then shared their ideas with the room. It was useful to hear everyone’s suggestions, and it gave us all great ideas on how we can best reach our goals and ensure our service is always there for our callers when they need us.
We finished the night with a raffle and a celebration of our long-serving volunteers. Several volunteers have reached important milestones this year. We would like to celebrate:
Kate 178 and David 87, who have both completed an incredible 20 years of service.
Kate and David
Stan 6, Glynis 88, and Mel 84, who are celebrating 10 years of service.
James 232, Jo 106, Catherine 250, Colin 252, Danielle 254, Su 247, David 249, and Judith 251, who have all been with us for five years.
Su, James, David, Judith, Catherine, and Colin
And Heather 222 received a special thank-you for all her work as deputy director for Volunteer Support.
Heather with Paul
All our volunteers do truly incredible work, and we would like to thank each of them for their dedication to our branch. It was a productive meeting, and it was great to have so much engagement and discussion from our volunteers. With everyone’s help, we will be ready for whatever the future holds, and we’re looking forward to welcoming new volunteers to the team in 2026.
At the beginning of the meeting, we also played a slideshow of all our activities in 2025. For a snapshot of all our activities, take a look below: