Myself, Amy and Rose (who is our chief organiser for these missions, we cannot thank her enough!) had a good old chat and organised donations of food. Amy and Rose worked hard to date the items, and then I was on supermarket sweep duty - putting them into their allocated positions ready to go out to those in need.

We are hoping to return in a few weeks, potentially helping with the clothes bank again!

Today Amy and I helped out at the Sparkhill Summer Carnival organised by Narthex.

We met up with Bhavna from Narthex who had organised this great event which was set up around the bandstand in Sparkhill Park.

We got started with putting up some banners around trees, with Amy doing all the thinking whilst I just held up the banners.

After a bit of decorating, Amy and I started litter picking around the event and we filled up 5 large bin liners full of rubbish over the course of the 3 hours we were there. During the course of this, we found someone's phone and managed to return it to the owner, made friends with a squirrel and came across lots of bread/rolls, so it was a case of bready, steady go... and then we were on a roll, picking up as much litter as possible.

The weather was a little downcast at the beginning of the event, but Amy was prepared with her umbrella hooked on to her backpack in case it was needed, as shown in the photos.

The weather improved as the day went on and it was great to see people come out and enjoy the food, music and other stalls on offer. There was also a stall highlighting the great work and services offered by Narthex, including a food and clothes bank and advice service.

We tried some Gol Guppa snacks (water bombs) and even got some mocktails to enjoy. We were both also given lovely crowns to wear made out of the likes of branches and flowers, which had been very skillfully made and as can be seen in the photos.

It was a lovely event and we enjoyed ourselves.

The 3 Super Sorters (Rose, Amy and Amy helped out at Narthex's Sparkhill Clothes Bank.

During the shift, they cleared 2 york containers, as shown in the pics, and sorted through winter and summer clothes and also baby clothes. Rose also did some prep work for the upcoming sale.

A great shift by all, who managed to get lots done!

Tonight 5 GoodGymers undertook a super sorting shift at Narthex's Clothes Bank.

Rose was very organised and efficient and had a list of jobs for us to assist with upon arrival.

This included sorting through winter clothes and taking them upstairs. Miriam and Amy W were largely upstairs dealing with this and generally doing a fantastic job at organising this area, as can be seen in the photos.

Amy H did a great job at sorting through and hanging out clothes which are to be sold at the upcoming clothes sale, which will raise much needed funds for their foodbank and money advice service. This is taking place this Friday (11/08/23) and there is still time to assist with the sale itself - you can sign up at: https://www.goodgym.org/happenings/narthex-big-birmingham-vintage-pre-loved-charity-sale.

Rose and I sorted through some clothes, before later focusing on clearing some pallets which involved going through lots of empty cardboard boxes to decide whether to keep or discard them.

We were able to get through lots of work and, as they say, many hands make light work. We look forward to returning again soon.

Cycled up to the mission a bit rainy but mostly sunshine. Sorted lots of clothes then took some rails upstairs and tidied up all the coats to upstairs hanging in either children’s or adults section.

Rose, aka the queen of queen of sorting and cleaning, has continued attending Sparkhill clothes bank in the working week to provide them with some much needed assistance whilst they are in the process of moving premises and looking to take stock of and sort through their donations.

Rose has been undertaking various tasks, as seen in the photos, such as condensing stock down, ragging any damaged or dirty items, tidying and organisisng boxes/crates of clothes and ensuring these were safely stacked.

Rose has done a fantastic job, as shown in the photos, and hopefully there will be more missions to come.