Holcot Charitable Trust

Holcot Charitable Trust … formerly the Friends of Holcot, registered charity number 1092332.  This website is considered primarily an informative one and updated on a semi-regular basis.

For information specifically on our group holiday centre please refer to:

www.holcotgroupholidaycentre.co.uk

For information on availability and prices etc, please email our Centre Manager:

Lesley@holcotgroupholicaycentre.co.uk

Trustees

Miss Christina Andrews, MA

Miss Lesley Andrews (Managing Trustee)

Mrs Audrey Batchelor

Miss Lauren Martin, BA

Mr Kieran Reed

Charitable Aims

We have two clear aims.  Our first is connected to our premises where we provide low cost but good quality, self-catering accommodation with special emphasis on groups of disabled children/young persons.   Our second is to improve the lives of local disadvantaged children and their families and is achieved through a series of very successful community projects.   To support our aims, we raise funds and manage volunteers all with the intention of keeping our core running costs as low as possible. 

Holcot History

Holcot (short for holiday cottage) is a strictly not-for-profit, Christian group holiday centre, set in the beautiful Kent countryside.  It operates on a self-catering basis providing a homely, yet well-equipped, facility for groups of disadvantaged youngsters to come together for fun and friendship.  Whilst part of the property dates back to the late 1800’s, Holcot itself was opened in July 1933 and the King George V Jubilee Trust Hall in 1935.

Friends of Holcot

In April 1998 a group of like-minded Christians, led by our founding Chairperson, Frances Andrews, came together to discuss ways they could prevent the sale and demolition of this much-loved place.   Frances herself had ties with Holcot dating back to the 1930’s but it was not until the summer of 1985 that she took up the position of Warden, and began fundraising in earnest. 

The Friends of Holcot Charitable Trust officially became constituted in 2002 and within five years Frances had single-handedly raised nearly £100k to refurbish the hall, improve double glazing, install a disabled persons’ wet room and construct a ball court in the garden as a safe place for children to play.

Frances was always looking for a new challenge and, even after she retired in the winter of 1997, she began running completely free residential camps for children who never had holidays.  These camps provided the opportunity for children from Frances’ old home town of Dagenham in Essex to come together with children from Edenbridge and were so successful that by 2012 they had evolved into our free memorable days out project for local disadvantaged families.

In the intervening years we have gone from strength to strength and have raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for our projects.  Holcot has now been completely refurbished, top to bottom, inside and out.  Our longest running renovation project was our hall which was finally finished in 2022 when we replaced the old wooden cladding with a modern composite. 

Community Outreach

Our community projects currently support just over 80 local families plus many other isolated adults through a series of initiatives that include family-based swimming parties, food poverty, hardship, wellness, Christmas hampers, educational laptops, social support lunch club and many more.   We also act as referral agents for larger organisations, and have helped our families access hardship grants and fuel vouchers worth the best part of £50k.

We were fortunate in the beginning and, when we needed help, we received free training and support through a mentoring project run by Kent Community Foundation which was also in its infancy.  We now run the same scheme providing practical support, advice and guidance to smaller groups especially in the area of formal paperwork, policy writing and fundraising.  

Awards

In 2022 we were honoured with the Sevenoaks District Charity Project of the Year Award, one of our Trustees received the BBC Radio Kent Fundraiser of the Year Award and, in 2023, another Trustee was presented with the Sevenoaks District Lifetime Achievement Award. 

Future

We have technically been going for 25 years now and, bearing in mind our future relevance, we have given a great deal of thought to where we go from here.  In the beginning our aim was simply to improve Holcot, to renovate and upgrade the facility whist providing all that was necessary.  Our community outreach project was something we ‘added on’ but over the years this side of our work has grown enormously.

As with many other charities, the pandemic years changed everything and we saw a dramatic increase in demand for our services.  So much so that our community projects now take prominence over everything else and probably equal 99% of everything we do.

Going forward, and considering our future relevance, we have decided to change our name from The Friends of Holcot Charitable Trust simply to Holcot Charitable Trust. 

The many families and isolated adults that are supported through our community projects will now (officially) become referred to as the Friends of Holcot.  Further information on these initiatives can be found on the Friends of Holcot facebook page …https://www.facebook.com/groups/432157200909509.

For further information on our projects or to speak to us direct, please email admin@holcotcharitabletrust.co.uk