What is MAYFACS?
Mayfield and Five Ashes Community Services (MAYFACS) is for everyone in the parish, not just the elderly. It is a non-ecumenical and non-political charity. If you have a minute, have a read of the information below and you will get more of an idea of what we are and what we are hoping to achieve. The history page is also worth reading too!
Our Objectives:
“To give local support to local people by providing community based services, information and guidance.”
Loneliness & Isolation
Recent studies have shown what a detrimental effect loneliness and isolation have on people's health and well-being. Loneliness can affect people of all ages, not just the elderly and one solution does not fit all. We wish to promote all activities on offer in our parish and make them available to all who wish to come along. We want to make sure there are affordable activities. We wish to work closely with existing organisations, the churches, doctors surgery and the schools to identify those who are lonely and isolated and encourage all ages to involve themselves in looking out for these people.
In the last census (2011), over half the population of Mayfield & Five Ashes were aged 45 or over.
We've lots of things going on in Mayfield & Five Ashes, why do we need another organisation?
MAYFACS would like to grow and be there as a helping hand to those organisations that ask us. Yes, there are a lot, but only a limited number of residents belong to them. Many of the volunteers, who run them, have been taking on organisational roles for many years and want to stop, but find they can't as they are struggling to recruit new members.
Our vision is that MAYFACS becomes an "umbrella" organisation, but first we need to evolve as a community, look at things in a different way, a way that fits in with our 21st century lives. That's going to take time.
In a survey carried out when MAYFACS first started the main reasons people were not able to get out were transport issues and not having someone to go with.
The changing faces of Mayfield & Five Ashes
If £1 was given for everytime long standing, local residents have said, "Mayfield and Five Ashes has changed since I came to live here", we would have plenty of money in our coffers to do all sorts of things! Shops, pubs, activities, people have come and gone and technology is playing an ever increasing part in our lives. Residents are having to work longer, life is busier, public transport less frequent, families live further apart so those that cannot keep pace with or can't afford to be part of all this hustle, bustle, change and progress find themselves becoming more cut off, isolated and lonely.