Latest news

A message from the TCF Trustees

We are delighted to announce that our charity is expanding. We are providing more support than ever, with new Local Contacts and Groups, a fully staffed Telephone Helpline, more Supportive Weekends, a thriving Online Forum and several new Facebook supportive groups. To manage all this, we are making some changes:

 

• Carolyn Brice appointed CEO
• Two new positions to be recruited
• An office move

 

We are excited at the changes underway in our charity and wish to thank everyone who has helped us make it all happen - all of you who donate to TCF, fundraise for us and most of all our fantastic bereaved parent support volunteers.

Carolyn Brice appointed CEO

We have promoted our wonderful Carolyn Brice to the new position of CEO.

Because the charity is growing, we need a CEO in place to run everything. This includes management of staff and volunteers, overseeing all the day to day activities; planning future events; fundraising; managing the finances and governance issues; as well as hundreds of other tasks. This job has been done superbly for the last few years by our Chair of Trustees - Dr Margaret Brearley - on an unpaid basis, with tremendous dedication. But Margaret is retiring at the end of the year, and the job is really far too big to be done on a voluntary basis, especially as we are expanding.

Carolyn, who is currently TCF's Charity Operations Manager, has been helping Margaret in this role over the past couple of years so is already familiar with much of what needs to be done.

Carolyn - who is a bereaved parent herself, having lost her beautiful daughter Rosie in 2004 - started as a Telephone Helpline Volunteer for TCF in 2008 and then in 2012 joined the staff as an administrator in the office. She previously worked in various different positions in publishing, training, teaching and retail, so has a good range of skills and experience.

Carolyn has proven herself to be a real star. She is enthusiastic and motivated, often working many additional unpaid hours. She sorts everything out in a calm and efficient manner, and she is literally the engine that runs TCF.

We have every confidence that Carolyn will step up to her new role as CEO with great success and that TCF will continue to go from strength to strength under her leadership.

 

Two new positions to be recruited

To help Carolyn with everything we will be recruiting two new part time positions - a Volunteers’ Coordinator and a Fundraiser. We will be advertising these roles shortly – so do look out for more details coming soon on our website and in the media.

 

Office move

Because we are taking on new staff, we will need more space and sadly have outgrown our wonderful home at Deptford.

The current TCF office is part of Jessica's Heart - a building bought and beautifully renovated by Stephen and Jannet Mathers and named in memory of their darling daughter Jessica. Stephen and Jannet have very kindly given TCF free use of the office and shared meeting room since October 2012 which has been a wonderful gift to our charity and has saved us many thousands of pounds, enabling us to spend more of our income on much needed support services. We owe Stephen and Jannet an immense debt of gratitude, and we can't thank them enough for their kindness.

But we are now in a new era - and with five staff needing housing in an office, we need a larger space. So we are hunting for new office accommodation in the London area. If anyone has any contacts that may be able to help us with this, we would love to hear from you.

We are excited at the changes underway in our charity and wish to thank everyone who has helped us make it all happen - all of you who donate to TCF, fundraise for us and most of all our fantastic bereaved parent support volunteers.

Huge appreciation and warm wishes to you all,

The TCF Trustees