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!

The Baby Bank had put out a call to all their regular volunteers to come and help get the facility back on track. Donations had been coming in faster than they could be checked and sorted, and the floor had all but disappeared under the bags! Karen and Sheila joined several other volunteers, and the place was buzzing with activity as we sorted the clothes, and we made definite progress. We were so busy I forgot to take any photos, so I used a stock one instead!

Only one Good Gymer today, Sheila K, but two Duke of Edinburgh volunteers kept her company on today’s mammoth task. Customers who returned newly purchased clothing items to an overseas retailer would be blissfully unaware that these items did not actually go back overseas. Instead they have been gathered together and despatched in bulk to the Baby Bank. Today’s task was to open up the mountain of parcels and sort the contents into piles of underwear, tops, bottoms and swimwear. Further sorting will be needed as the Baby Bank will not be issuing out any of the more skimpy underwear to their clients!

With many regular volunteers away on holiday, it was a quiet morning at the Baby Bank. The piles of unsorted clothes had grown since last week, and the tables were once again stacked high, waiting for their second check.

Undeterred, Carol — the lone GoodGymer this week — spent the whole morning methodically checking each item and sorting it into the correct place. A solo effort, but a productive one — and another dent made in the ever-growing mountain of donations!

4 GoodGymers helped out at the Baby Bank this morning. Our first task was to unpack and store 25 staircases which had been delivered that morning. Once these had all been neatly packed away, we moved upstairs. Karen and Sheila K did secondary checking and putting away of donations that had already been checked once by a corporate team. Meanwhile Carol and Sheila A were let loose in the uniform room. At this time of year we get so many requests for school uniform, so we made a start on some of the requests. We quickly had to get up to speed with the colour requirements of all the different schools (why do so many still require logo-ed items???). And questions such as, what is the chest size of an average 10-year old? Unfortunately we could not fulfil all requested items, but anything we can provide will be a great help to families who can not afford such an outlay