MID-CHESHIRE Samaritans is proud to announce the appointment of its new Director who will be running the branch and its community outreach activities from Northwich.

Annie was nominated by her fellow listening and support volunteers to lead the team, which is based opposite the station on Manchester Road, Northwich.

Annie has been at the branch for 8 years as a Listening Volunteer answering calls for help from people struggling to cope. She has also taken on the responsibilities of mentoring and has been part of the leadership team as Deputy Director for Training for the last 5 years.

Whilst the team continue to maintain the high standards of service in the branch, they also want to concentrate on their Outreach programme and re-establish links in the community which have been sadly curtailed in the last few years during the pandemic. They did however stay open taking calls and responding to callers all throughout that period.

Northwich Guardian: New Samaritans Director AnnieNew Samaritans Director Annie

Annie says “I’m honoured and excited to be taking up this post as Branch Director at Northwich Samaritans. I feel passionate about what we do, not just within the branch but as an organisation, striving constantly to support those in need.”

“We have a strong team of dedicated Volunteers here in Northwich, who want to contribute, not only in the Branch, but also reach out and work with our local community.

Recruiting new volunteers and training them, watching them grow in confidence as they deal with difficult calls, being there for people in distress, is one of my passions, and we are always looking to recruit new Volunteers…we never have enough! If you are interested in finding out more about the Samaritans, and the work we do or how you can help, please go to our website  www.samaritans.org and scroll down to ‘Volunteer with Us’. If you apply and select Northwich, you will receive a response from Anne, one of our Deputy Directors responsible for recruitment, or alternatively if you want more information, or just to chat it through, you can contact her direct on

Mid-Cheshire.BranchRecruitment@samaritans.org

Next year will be our 60th anniversary here in Mid Cheshire, something we are very proud of, and we want to continue to support both our callers nationally and our community here for many more years.

As you may know we are a self-funding Charity and, as such, we will always be looking for ways to secure income. We will set up and host events where possible to raise money, or perhaps the community would like to invite us to have a presence at one of their events……that would be amazing, all working together to help others. And of course, we never say ‘No’ to donations or sponsorship to help us keep our premises open.

We are proud to be part of a network of 201 branches with over 22000 volunteers, spending more than 1 million hours a year responding to calls for help. We are supported by our Central Office team and our wider family of wonderful supporters.

The Charity has just launched its latest 5 year strategy which will continue to help us deliver our vision of ‘Fewer people die by suicide’.

Our Mission is always to be there 24 hours a day for anyone that is struggling to cope. We make sure everyone has someone to turn to when they need it most. We will continue to work with local communities to let people know we are here for them and campaign to make suicide prevention a priority.

I would be happy to discuss any of this with anyone, at any time, and we also have brochures we can share with you if you want to get in touch.

My email is Mid-Cheshire.Director@samaritans.org       

Thank you, Annie

Anyone in need can contact Samaritans FREE on 116 123 from any phone.

Northwich Guardian: