Dear old friends of Aubourn — this is the spring letter from the Summers Bursaries pot, written from my kitchen on a sharp April morning, with the daffodils only just out along Church Lane and a cup of coffee gone cold on the dresser. I have been asked by the Chair to write a short account of what the Summers fund did between the September application opening and the January grant cheques.

How the Summers fund came to us

The Summers fund is the younger of the two endowments that make up our charity. Parish memory holds that a Mr Summers of Haddington — a draper, by some accounts; a small grocer, by others — set aside a fund in his will in the closing decades of the nineteenth century specifically for the young people of the parish leaving home to take up apprenticeships. The bequest was unusual in two ways. First, it named apprenticeships explicitly, at a time when the parish charities of Lincolnshire were mostly directed at general relief of the poor. Second, it tied the fund to the costs of starting work — tools, books, bus fares, a first uniform — rather than to maintenance. We have stayed faithful to those two intentions.

This year's awards

The application window opened on 5 September 2025 and closed on 31 October. We received eleven applications. The decision afternoon was Tuesday 9 December at the village hall. The four trustees in attendance read every application twice, asked one another the awkward questions twice, and settled on three awards plus a fourth, smaller one for a mature student we had not expected. All four awards were paid by bank transfer on 12 January 2026, in time for the spring term and the new placement year.

The four awards were as follows.

  • £200 · Tom, 19, of Haddington. Stonemason's apprenticeship at a yard near Lincoln. The award paid for his first set of chisels, a steel rule, and a leather tool roll. Tom wrote a short thank-you note in blue biro the week the chisels arrived; the note is pinned above the urn at the village hall.
  • £150 · Aisha, 18, of Aubourn. First term at the Lincolnshire College catering course. The award paid for her work shoes, a knife roll, and a college bus pass. Aisha was the first applicant from a family who had moved into the parish in 2022 and we had not previously met.
  • £100 · Megan, 20, of South Hykeham. First year of a healthcare assistant placement at a Lincoln NHS trust. The award contributed to her uniform and bus travel. Megan was already known to two of the trustees through Quiet Hour, where she has been one of our most consistent befrienders.
  • £70 · Patrick, 47, of Aubourn. A mature student returning to study after eighteen years out of education, beginning a part-time access course in adult social care. We had not previously made a Summers award to a mature student. The trustees agreed unanimously, after discussion, that the donor's original intention — to help a parishioner take up a trade — sat well with a mid-career return to study.
The Summers fund was set up by a man we know almost nothing about, in a village we know everything about. We have spent it in the way he asked us to, in the village he asked us to spend it in. Julie Plackett-Smith, trustee · spring letter 2026

What we did not award, and why

Of the eleven applications we received, three were out of area — applicants who had attended a parish school but whose families had moved out of the area of benefit by the time of the application. We were sorry to turn these down. The 1979 scheme of administration is clear on geography and we are not at liberty to bend it. Two further applications were for purposes the Summers fund cannot pay for — university maintenance and a year-out gap-year programme. We pointed both applicants toward the relevant Lincolnshire Community Foundation funds. Three applications were strong but at full ranks; we have invited those applicants to apply again in autumn 2026.

A note on the application form

For three years we ran the Summers Bursaries on a long application form. From this autumn we will run them on a side of A4 in plain English with three short questions: what are you starting, what would the bursary buy, and who could write a short note for you. We piloted the shorter form with three applicants this year. The shorter form produced richer, more honest applications. We will not be going back to the long one.

How to give

The Summers fund is restricted by the original donor's intention. Donations specifically toward the Summers Bursaries can be marked 'Summers' in your reply to the donor receipt, or in the memo line of a standing order. If unmarked, donations are paid into the general fund and may end up in any of our four programmes.

I will write again in October, when the autumn applications open.

With every good wish from a kitchen in Aubourn,
Julie Plackett-Smith, trustee