TTBS Christmas message

By the end of this year, we will have distributed circa £170,000 of regular allowances and other benefits to our beneficiaries and our trustees have recently agreed to increase our allowances and benefits by an average of 25% from this December onwards to compensate for the rising costs of food, heating and lighting and all other household increases.

Our beneficiaries are helped in many ways with a combination of grants and allowances, including quarterly payments, TV licences, telephone allowances, payments in the spring and at Christmas, a winter fuel allowance and luxury Christmas hampers. We also make one-off grants for domestic appliances and disabled equipment as well as the occasional respite break, debt relief and help with funeral expenses.

Our beneficiaries are all hugely grateful for the society’s help and continually write, email and telephone to thank us and everyone supporting us.

The circumstances of the 2019/20/21 Covid pandemic has put an enormous strain on the society’s finances, with a massive fall in the value of our investment portfolio, built up over 124 years, which provides the basis for our activities and also with the cancellation of most of our programme of national and regional events, together with all the major industry events which support TTBS. Fortunately, there has been some recovery in our investment portfolio and events are now getting under way again – hopefully with no more lockdowns.

We are hugely grateful to the Timber Trades Journal, the London Hardwood Club, the Structural Timber Association,  the Timber Trade Federation and TTF/TDUK dinner, the Shippers Lunch, the Plywood Luncheon Club, Accsys plc, the Worshipful Company of Builders Merchants, James Donaldson and all other regional committees, individuals and companies who have supported us financially during the year despite the difficulties – thank you to everyone who has donated to help us continue our vital work to assist the retired and less fortunate from our industry.

We continue to seek out new beneficiaries and this will be an ongoing priority and, through company’s HR departments, the TTBS strives to ensure employees know where they can get help in the future. We also need some new blood in our regional committees, so if you feel you can help please get in touch at info@ttbs.org.uk and we will put you in touch with your local committee who will welcome your involvement.

Critically, the society continues networking with the timber industry to ensure that we are in the forefront for charity support.

Finally, we hope that 2022 will see an improving situation for us all and may we take this opportunity to wish you, your families and all your business colleagues the very best festive season possible and a healthy and successful year to come.

Ivan Savage
TTBS chief executive officer
(Past national president 2017 and 2018)