Friday 29th …. All Change

All Change Today

Today was always going to be different… we had sent off our container to Kyrgyzstan with 8850 shoeboxes.

Now we are preparing for the Ukraine, we have a few collections of shoeboxes still to do which we will process and ensure they are the gift we strive for. To do that we need to keep by some of our fillers.

In addition the team are now deciding how we send our own shoeboxes off. We do raise a good deal of money from the sales table, teddy's name and other donations to send our own shoeboxes. For each £3.00 we get we can send a shoebox. This is a fine balance as we love to send our own boxes filled with love. However, we have still have to work to make sure shoeboxes that come into the warehouse are fair.

Then, all change!!! Our shoeboxes are not going to Ukraine by lorry but are going to Azerbaijan by container. How do we keep up with it all?

Can We Cope?
Yes, of course we can, all the principles are the same and our hearts are in it. We can switch as easy as pie. The thing we need to focus on is doing the best boxes, and we do. The container is being loaded at 10am on Tuesday. If you are strong and fit, come along to help. Loading should take about 2 hours, depending on how many helpers we have.


Hidden Team
Russ and Rose, not seen around too much this year. Rose has had a hip replacement but has not deserted us. Russ had been in daily to collect lots of individual toys and Rose has been making up bags of toys for us. Another good source of our fillers. Thanks to you both.







Thanks too to Roger Chandler, he is so quiet you may not have even noticed him sitting there wapping box after box. If you want to know how to wrap a shoebox ask Roger. Roger also makes sure we have tables and chairs. Most we do borrow but the rest has to be hired. Roger also orders our heaters and gas, you can thank him for being warm, so he's an important member of the team. Great job Roger, thanks.  



Back to "Our" Shoeboxes

Up to today we have raised enough money to make 300 boxes. Its £3.00 a box remember so this equals £900.00 raised from the sales table, ted's name, cards, sponsored boxes, Well done everyone who took part whatever way you contributed it all adds up and it's all so, so important. 

Euro Star Bid
Today we finished the Eurostar silent auction. We had 6 bids in total and the two highest bidders were Gill Tilburn and Andrew Piercey who will each receive 2 standard return Eurostar tickets to Paris or Brussels. This raised a total of £188.47, that is 62 more shoeboxes that can now be sent, providing we still have enough fillers. 



Teddy's Name, It's a Girl!
The other thing we did today was to reveal Ted's name and this year Ted is a girl. Her names are Charlotte, Amber, Freddie(?) and the winners were Linda Seabrook, Michael Grew and Sue Hockey. As the overall winner wasn't there Vanessa was happy to sit with Ted while she had her photo taken. Vanessa made the clothes for Ted and put a nice frill on the top plus a knitted rose on her jumper.




And More Visitors

Perhaps not such a quiet day... after making up all those boxes and starting to tidy up ready to move out, we also had visitors.  The Wavell School, Farnborough have been great supporters of OCC for a few years and are one of our champion shoebox donors, this year they did nearly 350 boxes and it's the pupils who drive the initiative. That's a fantastic achievement. However they have never visited us! Friday afternoon they did come and see us, they had a tour and really enjoyed it.