Carol, Karen, Jane and Sheila all volunteered at the Baby Bank this morning. After settling into our normal routine of checking clothes and filling up the referral boxes from the overflow bags, the recycling van arrived to collect all of the textiles that had not passed the quality check. Fun was had forming a human chain to move the bin bags from upstairs, rolling them down the stairs and into the van. Sheila left the others to it, to join another volunteer to collect donations from a collection point in the shopping centre in Slough. What was supposed to be donated second hand uniform turned out to be a huge bin full of any old rubbish that people felt like putting on there - including dirty and damaged clothing, old curtains, a frying pan, household bills, drinks cans and even a bag of wet nappies. Yuk! We recovered very little that we could use, and an estate car full of bags for the tip and the textiles recyclers. Live and learn!

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.

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

5 GoodGymers gathered to help clear litter from some streets which Claire had noticed as a bit of a hotspot. We armed ourselves with bin bags, hoops and litter-pickers and set off in 2 groups to see what we could find. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the litter problem wasn't as bad as we had feared, but still managed to find quite a bit. Ed and Claire definitely came back with the fullest bags, but Carol, Tessa and Sheila weren't far behind. Down one alleyway it was obvious that someone had a thing about beef jerky, when we found half a dozen empty packets. We managed to stuff our bags into some handy litter bins, leaving the area cleaner than we found it. Thanks to Claire for suggesting the task and encouraging us out into the sunshine on a lovely autumn day

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