4 GoodGymers helped out at the Baby Bank this morning, and were asked to do the clothes sorting upstairs. It was great to welcome Jane back for her second session, and she joined Carol and Karen doing a second check on clothes that already been through a first check by a corporate team. Meanwhile Sheila helped put together Referral packs. One was for a mother and her 3 daughters who had received clothes only last week. Unfortunately the flat below theirs had caught fire and they lost all of their possessions too. So tragic - they were left with only the clothes they were wearing. Some of the age groups we are short of clothes for anyway, but we put together what we could for them.

Sheila was asked to be on door duty at the Baby Bank this morning. each ring of the bell could be someone with clothes or toy donations. Or someone offering a pre-loved buggy or cot. All had to be checked for safety, age and cleanliness before being accepted. Or it could be a social worker collecting referrals for a local family. In-between calls, I added nappies, toiletries and other gear requested to referrals. A busy, busy morning

Carol and Sheila turned up at the Baby Bank and were faced with a huge number of donations in the entrance hall. While Carol went upstairs to start checking donations, Sheila and another volunteer were ferrying the donation bags upstairs. It was like the golden goose - as fast as we we could transport them upstairs, more appeared in their place! Eventually we got the entrance hall cleared and went upstairs to help with the sorting. Carol heroically took on sizing the large pile of hand-knitted cardigans and hats which have been lovingly.knitted by volunteers. It was a lovely chatty session with the other regular volunteers

Baby Bank regulars Carol and Sheila were joined by Jane for her seco d community mission. Our task was to unpackage donations which had been given by a clothing company, consisting of returns which it is presumably not worth their while to collect and re-sell. Each package had to be opened, the packing slip collected to be disposed of as confidential waste, and the items sorted according to size. Some of the skimpier underwear was deemed to be unsuitable for handing out to families, but there was some good quality stuff which will be nice to give out to teenagers. Jane left to do her bit at the Macmillan coffee morning, but Carol and Sheila were determined to empty the travel cot of its contents. We were delighted to reach the bottom at last, so filled sacks with each size of clothing and disposed of all the packaging in the recycling bin. It was goid to have made a difference but there us much left to do

Just Karen today at the Baby Bank but she got stuck in bringing multiple bags of donated clothing up the stairs to clear space in the entrance. The rest of the morning was spent checking and sorting school uniform into the appropriate boxes so it can be given out to needy families. There is currently a massive backlog of clothing which needs to be sorted so if anyone fancies giving a hand then please sign up on a Friday!

The two Sheilas made their way to the Baby Bank for another busy morning of clothes sorting. Despite the facility not accepting clothes donations at the moment, there is still a huge backlog to be sorted and tidied away. Towards the end of the session, Clean Conscience turned up with a pallet-full of clothing returns. Instead of taking returns back from customers, an organic clothing company gives them away to charity. A real eye-opener into the workings of online companies. Great for the Baby Bank, but the items are still in their packaging and we needed to find space to store it all until it can be sorted. The boxes and packages were transported upstairs and crammed into travel cots and sacks and put into all the spare spaces that we could find. And then half an hour later another pallet-load arrived. We were exhausted!