We learnt today of the theft of yet another of our collection boxes, this time from the premises of one of our newly-joined Support Group members, Gary Melia, who owns The Barber Shop in the centre of Radcliffe. Gary tells us that the box was almost due for emptying, probably containing about £30, and he was most upset at this loss of charity funds from his premises, where the box has been sited, and emptied regularly, since 2010 without any previous problems.

This loss to our collection box income follows the recently reported theft of around £200 from our collection box sited at Vaughn’s Country Cafe at Roddlesworth Information Centre, Tockholes (see reports of 28th & 30th July 2013). We rely heavily on public donations to meet our annual running costs of around £30,000, so these thefts are disappointing news indeed.