Day 11 - Part 2

To see the photos from today's container loading experience, please see previous post (below).

But aside from that excitement, it was another busy day in the warehouse, with both vans out and about around Camberley and Aldershot. It was also the first time for a few new volunteers and we were happy to welcome one and all.



Jon Voice was one such volunteer who lost no time in helping with the container this morning. Here he is with another first time volunteer Danny in the final stages of loading.  Once that was done he then set about tackling the cartoners' packing puzzles in the afternoon.
John had planned to have a day's holiday to come and help, and it was a perfect match that it happened to be today. He had found out about the warehouse through his girlfriend's family and is more than happy to help the children who we know have so little.


Continuing with the filler ideas, how about this great game of pick-a-stick, ideal for 10-14 year old boys. Mike Grew made these sets very cheaply from painting BBQ skewers and then putting them in wrapped toothpaste cartons. Ingenious. To make the gift even better, he included a printed set of rules, handily translated into Russian (thanks to google).  It's amazing what inspiration can come from a summer BBQ!


and so to Ted, well having met Anne Milton MP earlier this month, he had no trouble be-friending  Jonathan Lord MP today. Talk about friends in high places!!

See you tomorrow!

Day11 - To Kyrgyzstan with love

Today was the day! Just under 8000 lovingly checked shoeboxes from the last 2 weeks, were loaded into the container for their long journey to children waiting unknowingly in Kyrgyzstan. With around 20 strong volunteers to hand the container was loaded incredibly quickly and all the hard work was rewarded when the last box was slid into place.
Here's the story of the morning in photos.

 The cab appears through the double doors and reverses into place.
Many of the volunteers continue checking as the container is ready to be loaded.

Ted checks out the space inside

                    The loading begins

Almost there !

 Everyone gathers as the cartons are blessed.

 Group Photo!

 Jonathan Lord, Woking MP packs the last box

 

No room for Ted -

he's going with the Distribution Team

 

 and they've gone.

From Guildford to Kyrgyzstan with love

For all of todays' photos, click on the link.

https://picasaweb.google.com/103588759400401245450/ContainerDay#

For the rest of today's stories see the next post.

Day10 and we've hit 10,000 shoeboxes!

The growing stacks of cartons

It started as an unusually quiet day in the warehouse, noticeable in comparison to the previous 3, but there was underlying excitement as the 10,000 checked shoebox milestone approached. At coffee time, the total was a few hundred under, at lunchtime is was about 50 under and then by tea time - we'd done it. But this is just a milestone and we definitely haven't finished yet. The two vans were picking up from another 9 locations today and there's 8 more tomorrow.



As the day was a little quieter, the Blog had the chance to ask some of the volunteers why they were coming, often day after day, to this large and airy warehouse. Here are some of the responses:

WHY?
"because I love children, it's a small drop in the ocean but at least it is something"

"because I can't not come now I know about it"

"because I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing"

"because I know I'm making a difference"

"because the shoeboxes mean Christmas"

" it gives me a really warm feeling inside knowing that I'm helping"

"because it gives Christmas a real meaning"

"I love the whole idea, even that I've giving to children who don't even know me"

"because it's addictive, I always want to do one more box- one more child"

and there's always one "because the wife says so" - you know who you are!


Sally Webb is one of our volunteers who came once at the beginning of the first week and has found herself coming back several times since. She is a member of Haslemere church and has packed shoeboxes for about 5 years. She was interested in the warehouse activities last year but did not have time to attend so she was really happy when she realised that she would be able to be part of the warehouse this year. She finds coming to the warehouse very addictive, and loves to know she's doing something worthwhile. She's interested in various areas of volunteer work and may even consider some overseas work to see the conditions for herself.

The sorting team in their "corner"

Todays' area in focus is the sorting area. This is the "goods in" area of the warehouse where all the donated filler items are stored and sorted before being put out on the "filler tables". The donations can arrive in a number of ways, some people have concentrated on one particular item, for example knitted items, and their bags arrive full of beautifully made hats, scarves or gloves. Other donations can contain a wide variety of items and these may need sorting into the different categories of shoebox fillers before they are put out on the tables. Often large multi-packs are donated with the intention of the contents being split up - if they're soap then the bars are individually wrapped in cling film before being put out; if they're sweets then small packs are made up. Colouring books can be split into packs of 6-8 pages and plain paper can be similarly bundled. Empty purses and bags can be paired with jewelry or hair accessories to make small gift packs.
Then, once the fillers are ready to be put out, the sorting team are kept busy keeping the stocks topped up on the filler tables. This can be a full time job in itself and it's a key part of the process as the team know the shoebox checkers will soon be quick to point out when the filler boxes run low. "We need more hats/paper/toothbrushes/toys/jewelry sets/ pencils" is a cry that the team work hard to avoid being heard.

Beautifully crocheted cradles

One filler that flies off the filler tables whenever they are put out are these beautifully crocheted bags. A closer look reveals that when turned inside-out they become tiny cradles that each have a small toy or doll snuggled within and covered with its own little blanket. They are truly remarkable and will no doubt give absolute delight to the children who receive them.




So where was Ted on this milestone day? - well again he was hard at work, helping to cover more shoeboxes that are always needed. It looks like a tough job to do if you only have paws though.

Ted in a sticky situation!

See you tomorrow!

Day 9 & the Mayor of Guildford visits

Carolyn, Mayoress and Mayor

An early coffee break was required today, as the Mayor and Mayoress of Guildford were due to visit the warehouse at 11am. They arrived promptly and were met by Carolyn Gercke, Area Co-ordinator. The Mayor had brought a "car boot full" of  shoeboxes from the council offices which were eagerly taken into the checking area. Maureen Grew then gave the Mayor and Mayoress a tour of the warehouse operation and explained the important work that the volunteers do. The visit finished with the Mayor addressing all the volunteers, thanking them for their efforts and encouraging them to continue their good work for the remainder of the campaign. The Mayor's visit was captured on film by the Surrey Advertiser's photographer, so we hope to see some coverage of the campaign in their next edition.

Today's volunteers listening to the Mayor

These boxes, plus the others that were collected today from around the area, brought the total received into the warehouse to 9838, whilst the number in cartons stands at 9244. That's 9244 happy children, so far, who will receive a shoebox, and each shoebox is another needy child who realises that someone has thought of them with love.

Roger at work

And someone who has been involved in the packing of a vast number of those shoeboxes is Roger Chandler. Roger has been at the warehouse everyday this campaign and focuses on the cartonning process. He says he gets a wonderful sense of achievement from successfully packing the cartons, ensuring that all the shoeboxes are well packed and won't get damaged in transit. Roger has been involved with OCC for 4 years and although does a significant amount of other charity work, says that the OCC work is definitely the most practical and certainly keeps him fit! Roger's inspiration comes from all the stories that are relayed back from the distribution trips, and he is keen to keep spreading the word of the good work done by OCC. Thanks Roger, happy cartonning!


Following in their colleagues' footsteps, a second group of 8 volunteers from Royal Bank of Scotland arrived today to be trained and help check the shoeboxes. As is often the case, many of them had donated shoeboxes previously but this was the first time they had been to a warehouse.
Overall, the girls were impressed by the generosity of the donors as the majority of the boxes were very well filled. On the other hand, they despaired at how some people had obviously mis-read the leaflet and sent in poorly filled boxes. Well girls, that's why the checker's role is so important! By the end of the day, the majority opinion was that they would definitely come back tomorrow if possible. Unfortunately, RBS may not agree, but hopefully we'll see them next year.

Barbara with some fleece hats

One of the fillers that the volunteers had available today, were these colourful and very warm fleece hats that had been made by the craft group of St Saviour's Church. The group sources the fleece from suppliers nationally to get the best deal and over the year had produced over 500 hats. Wonderful!




Unfortunately, despite donations, we are still low on SOAP, COLOURED PENCILS, BIROS, FLANNELS and FIBRE TIP PENS. Any contacts / donations welcomed!!


So where was Ted today? Well he has really knuckled down to work over the last few days and today was busy sharpening pencils. It's a time consuming job but we feel it's really important to give the children something they can use immediately and the difference between an unsharpened and a sharpened pencil is just another gift of love. Excellent job Ted.

See you tomorrow!!

Day 8 - volunteer numbers up, fillers down

Lunchtime discussion and viewing

Just as yesterday was a record for the number of boxes received in a day, today was a record for the number of volunteers who came to help. At the end of the day 71 people had signed in, and it was definitely standing room only at coffee time. At both coffee and lunch time, Carolyn talked about how important these gifts of love are, and how much they mean to the children in the destination countries, many of whom live on rubbish tips and in sewers. At lunchtime, the 2011 OCC DVD was shown which highlighted this message very vividly.

Carolyn's reduced desk area

Given the number of volunteers now wanting to check, we needed a few extra tables. These were rounded up from the various support areas and no-one was spared, including Carolyn who managed extremely well considering her desk area was reduced by 50% - sorry! all in a good cause.

But as the volunteer and checked box numbers rose, the filler numbers declined and all too soon, the warehouse had run out of soap, biros, flannels, colouring pencils, and fibre tips. It is, of course, likely that we will have more donations of fillers, but with 8 more days of checking, we really do need as many donations as possible.

The RBS team

There were so many volunteers who could have told their stories today, but there was one group that had come thanks to their company's generosity of giving them a "charity day".  8 volunteers (Martyn, Julie, Felicity, Tina, Claire, Dawn, Kirsty, and Sarah) from the Private Banking department of Royal Bank of Scotland in Farnborough came this morning, were trained and joined in with checking, packing and even went out on the van. Most of them had donated boxes in the past, but for all of them, it was the first time to volunteer in the warehouse. They were all impressed by the scale and organisation of the operation and described their involvement as being very humbling and extremely worthwhile. Thanks everyone, we hope your office didn't miss you too much and we look forward to seeing you next year.

The House Captains of St Hilary's

Another group that came to visit today were from St Hilary's School in Godalming. Their four House Captains had been chosen to bring their boxes to the warehouse. The girls told the blog that they had each done a box at home and they had brought the boxes to school for a special assembly. Thanks girls - great job!

Different types of sewing kits

Today's filler is an ideal gift for a 10-14 year old girl. It can come in all shapes and sizes and contain a variety of items but each is practical and can give hours of pleasure. It's a sewing kit - the larger ones could be plastic boxes or small decorated jewelry boxes and can hold scissors, wool, buttons and small pieces of material. But amazingly even a film pot can hold small reels of cotton, needles, and a few buttons. The film pots are ideal for using up that space in a corner of a box.

And Ted? well today, he was hard at work, and could be found helping out in the cartoning area. Well done Ted - we've nearly enough cartons now for Kyrgyzstan!

Ted at work!

See you tomorrow!

Day 7 - records are smashed!

A record day!!!!!  One thousand seven hundred and six (!!) boxes were received into the warehouse today and 1300 were checked, both are records for this year and fantastic achievements for all concerned.  Here's the van as it arrived packed full with 566 boxes on board.

Steve and Ellie arriving with a few in the van

And fortunately as well as the boxes we also received many donations of filler items. The prize for the furthest travelled filler goes to the hats and gloves that came from a market in Dartmouth via Kate's husband. The stall holder apparently stocks the hats and gloves for people wanting them for boxes and was very generous by including many extra items. Thank you! We also gratefully received lots of stationery items, beautiful dolls with hand knitted clothes, clean and washed soft toys and £20 worth of flannels. In fact, soap and flannels are running low this year and so if anyone knows of a market trader or manufacturer of either of those items we would be very pleased to make their acquaintance!

The filler idea for today are these gorgeous finger puppets that are ideal for all ages. The detail is quite amazing and when displayed on a cutout paper hand they make a really lovely gift. Patterns are available from us if you would like them. Meanwhile, catch them now before they all go!





But it wasn't all boxes and fillers today, we also had a visit from the Alton Schools' Council.  This is a group of 5 church schools that work together in the Alton area to improve the community. The members of the council are generally from Year 6 and are elected by their peers. Today, we had representatives from St Mary's Bentworth, St Laurence and Andrews' Endowed schools although all the schools had been involved in doing the boxes. The group had a tour of the warehouse and then joined everyone else in the kitchen area for a well earned drink and a biscuit. (Photo to follow)

Amongst the many volunteers today were Tessa and Jenny. Tessa has been involved with shoeboxes for a long time and her daughter has even worked for OCC after a spell at the warehouse. For Jenny, it is her first time this year, but it's already her third day so I think it's safe to say she's hooked too!

Tessa and Jenny with boxes to be checked

Both Tessa and Jenny enjoy the variety of checking all the boxes no matter what the age or gender. They said that doing the boxes really makes them appreciate how lucky they are, and how wonderful it is that they can do something to help those who have so little. Thanks girls, we hope to see you for a few more days this year.

Gerard directing Roger and Mike

So as Friday approaches, it is time to look at the work done by the cartonning crew. These are the guys who spend their time ensuring that as many shoeboxes as possible are transported in as little space as possible.  It's like doing 3D jigsaws all day! The minimum requirement is to have 10 boxes per cardboard carton, but if the boxes are slightly smaller than average, it is possible to pack them in such a way that 11 or even 12 will fit. Any carton under 10 boxes will be disallowed by the Cartonning Foreman Gerard who says that with so many boxes being processed it's just necessary to wait a few minutes to get the correct size. Once the carton is full, it is sealed and stored by age/gender to await the lorry. At this point a detailed tally is kept of the total number so that accurate figures can be relayed to Head Office.

It will fit!!

As well as doing these "jigsaws", the cartoners also need to be aware of the "tracked" boxes and the Shoezone labels. Tracked boxes are those where the donors have requested to know the destination of the box. The tracking labels remain with the boxes throughout the checking process, are attached to the carton and are only removed when the cartons are loaded onto the lorry. At this point, the destination country of the boxes is known and can be fed back to the donor via head office. Shoezone labels just need to be recorded so that the information can be reported back to Head Office.

So if anyone fancies the challenge of packing cartons, then I'm sure Gerard would welcome more volunteer packers to his team.



And on this record smashing day, was Ted hard at work on the checkers table?, supervising the unloading of the boxes? helping carton? 

Oh no, instead he was found in the kitchen with his paws on the chocolate brownies. Really Ted, coffee time finished hours ago!

See you tomorrow!

Collections catch up

Here are some news items from Steve Shurville who has been busy collecting from the Woking/ Aldershot area

Sheerwater Scout Group, Woking on Wednesday 16 November

Woking OCC volunteers Steve and Eleanor Shurville joined an evening meeting of the Sheerwater Scouts, Woking with Scout leader Kath Brown to talk about Operation Christmas Child. This year the emphasis was on putting together some good quality boxes which would really delight the children receiving them. Eleanor helped with the technicalities of covering the boxes. After showing the DVD, Stephen spoke about the situation of children in Central Asia who would be receiving them this year. At the end of a chaotically busy evening, the Scouts produced 23 thoughtfully filled shoeboxes, including those already prepared by the Cubs.


Woking High School on Friday 18 November

Once again, children in a whole upper year at Woking High School supported Operation Christmas Child with a colourful collection of 39 well prepared shoeboxes which were bound for Central Asia. Their operation was clearly well organised as most of the boxes were properly banded, in some cases with 2 bands each, to ensure safety. A team of students helped to load the car for local OCC volunteers, Stephen and Eleanor Shurville, before a brief photo call.



A morning shoebox service at St Peters Church, Hascombe on Sunday 20 November

Stephen and Eleanor Shurville, local OCC volunteers, were privileged to attend a shoebox service at St Peter's Church in Hascombe Village. The service was attended by members of a number of local churches and was led by Canon Paul Jenkins for whom this would be one of his last services before moving on to a new post in Somerset. The service marked the Sunday of Christ the King and the theme of the service was that of obedience to God through service and giving in His name. Over 100 shoeboxes were presented at the altar and Canon Paul clearly thought that their colours matched those of his vestments. As always, a warm welcome was given as well as help in loading the van afterwards.


An afternoon shoebox service at the Church of Michael the Archangel in Aldershot on Sunday 20 November

A joint churches shoebox service was held for families in the Aldershot area at the Church of Michael the Archangel. The service was led by Rev. Tom Moore and attended by OCC volunteers Stephen and Eleanor Shurville and Maureen Grew. The service was entirely centred on the biblical basis for giving and there were prayers for the work of Operation Christmas Child before the boxes were dedicated. Maureen gave an illustrated talk about her distribution visit to Central Asia where this year's boxes were bound. The families attending the service were clearly moved by the stories she told about the children and families she met during her visit. The service was followed by a traditional chain of children who helped load the van with a record number of 216 shoeboxes.

Thanks Steve, it's great to have a another reporter on the ground.