SUPER SATURDAY

By now you will all be aware of Black Friday, but if you know about Operation Christmas Child you can leave that madness to others and be part of our SUPER SATURDAY.

Yes, today really was super, we had 92 adult volunteers and lots of children in to help us continue to process shoeboxes, pack cartons but by far the big job of the day was to shift 1,763 cartons, on to the two enormous lorries that were waiting to be filled.

And as in true fashion we filled the first one at record breaking speed with 983 cartons, that is 9,931 shoeboxes. Off he went, driving the shoeboxes to the destination of Montenegro, a distance of just over 2,000 miles.








No sooner was he on his way when the second vehicle was backing into the warehouse, this time a container. The loaders did what can only be described as a fantastic job and without a hitch we were all outside in the Autumn sun blessing the second load and waving it goodbye on the start of its long journey by road and sea to Zimbabwe. On this container we sent 780 cartons containing 8039 shoeboxes.


The warehouse is now much clearer, in fact there is an echo we are not used to!

It was an historic day for us. We have to acknowledge all the people who have played a part in this operation. Big or small everything you have done counts towards nearly 35,000 shoeboxes going to children who are in critical need.

FAST APPROACHING THE END OF THE 2nd WEEK

Friday 28th and almost at the end of the 2nd week. The tide has turned on our vast body of shoeboxes, where they were creeping well towards the tables and covering our marked walkway we can actually see the pile has significantly reduced, bearing in mind we still have been doing collections and people have been bringing shoeboxes in.

This pile of shoeboxes is not nearly so big.

We will be collecting less shoeboxes in the coming days which will allow us to process what we have, get them into cartons and away to their destinations.

Thanks to people who have brought their shoeboxes in and thanks to the drivers who have been driving here, there and everywhere to collect all the boxes.

Michael and his crew of drivers











How many shoeboxes have we done so far?  Processed in our warehouse it is nearly 19,000. Congratulations to all our volunteers. Not just for all the checking but the packing and the fantastic team of ladies who continually keep our fillers tables topped up. This is not an easy job and we keep running out of items. So calling for

1) soft toys
2) toothpaste
3) flannels
4) soap
5) knitted hats, gloves, scarfs etc.

Please help us to fill the last shoeboxes to make each box a fair one.

Visitors today were Lloyds Bank and Cedar Court Care home who knit for us. They knit lots of items and have done for many years.

The MAYOR'S VISIT

Today we had yet another special guest, OCC GU and KT welcomed the Mayor of Guildford. Each year we are very happy to welcome the Mayor and this year is no exception.

The Mayor of Guildford, David, and his wife Wendy arrived at our warehouse not knowing what to expect. This year once again they were overwhelmed with our operation. They stayed for a tour of the office, had some tuition and processed some boxes for us.









During tea/coffee they spoke to everyone thanking them not only for the volunteering work they do here day by day to enable the children to get their shoebox but for the wider community in the GU and KT area work bringing people together throughout the year.








During the morning they spoke to several of our volunteers, Julia, one of our volunteers, showed them how the boxes are processed.

Another surprise today was a guy who walked into the office and tried to tell us in broken English his boss had sent him. We thought to help load the lorry on Saturday. "Hooray", we thought, but not until Saturday, so sent him off. Then later we went outside to see this huge lorry, with the same guy behind the wheel!! Help, "Oh my word" I think he is our driver for Saturday!"
Yes he was... so he is now camping out by the warehouse. Our neighbours are delighted!

OUR SECOND CONTAINER

What an inspirational day, a record number of volunteers, our second container and our mountain of shoeboxes starting to reduce.

Just over a week into our 2014 campaign and we have despatched our second container, this time to Kyrgyzstan. We have been sending shoeboxes there for a number of years now and three of our volunteers have been on distribution trips there too.

Do you know the way to Kyrgyzstan?

DONT WORRY!! Jenny isn't driving ..... much as she'd love to!  All the 873 cartons containing 8970 shoeboxes left the GU KT warehouse safely with a professional driver.

So who helped?..... Everyone! There was loads of muscle to load and thanks for that but all in all its a team effort and here is the team.... well, most of them.

Then we have to ensure the seal is on the closed doors of the container for the safe journey, this will not be opened until the container  arrives in Kyrgyzstan, passed by customs and then opened and despatched to all the different areas the shoeboxes need to travel to in order to reach the children who need them so much.

A VARIETY OF SOURCES

Our shoeboxes come from so many different sources to name a few.... schools, churches, various groups, businesses, families and individuals but now we have a pub on board and a Canal Boat Holiday firm.

Three cheers to The Swan in Walton on Thames a beautiful riverside pub who decided to see if they could get their customers to do shoeboxes and managed a staggering 126 in the first year. We will pop in for a refreshment and say thank you personally, if you are around the Walton area why not give them a try?

Three cheers to Le Boat located in Surbiton who did 74 shoeboxes. Le Boat is a company who rent out canal boats so if you fancy trip down the river, look them up too.

Overall we have lots of different people visiting our warehouse. Today Vera came. Vera as you may know was our treasurer in the past and still loves to come and lend a hand at the warehouse. She knits during the year and makes crafts to go into the shoeboxes too, that is in between celebrating her 90th birthday, holidays and a cruise this year.





Two V.I.P.s dropped into see us today too. Chris Roberts the South of England Cluster Manager from OCC came along with Greg who currently is Acting Director. They were really encouraging and praised everyone for the work, organisation, dedication , particularly since we have been handling more shoeboxes than usual.

School visits. So far we have had Eggars School,  St Hilary's School, Aldro School and Cranleigh School. They love doing shoeboxes as well as coming to the warehouse. It's a wonderful thing to see young people be so inspired to be kind, giving and generous. We see this as growing talent for the future of OCC.

 Cranleigh School, "Thanks for over 200 shoeboxes" and among them were these beautiful boxes ... all four of them

          St Hilary's School, thank you for all your boxes too

And as always we have some beautiful knitted hats and crafts, far too many to show them all but just look at these two photos as and example.

 Small cuddly toys in a knitted bag, thank you everyone for all you do.

IS IT HOT IN HERE?

It seems the temperature is going up every day....
Actually it isn't. We have a thermometer to inform us of the number of boxes we have processed and put into cartons, Gerard our number cruncher keeps us well informed.

If you can't see this it shows we have processed 10,356 shoeboxes last week, we have had 2609 unprocessed boxes from other offices outside of GU & KT. We have have handled 2069 full cartons and so far 8,020 shoeboxes have left our office.

We have just realised it's really handy in telling us what day it is too, after a few busy days we loose track. "Is it Wednesday or Thursday today?" I'll have to go and check the shoebox thermometer. "Oh it's Friday!" the days are flying past.








We do still have a mountain of boxes but it is starting to reduce however, don't relax as we still have lots to do....

No matter how much we have to do we still enjoy ourselves and all know how important the work we do is. However there is always time to have fun and pose for our blog. Here are some of our fillers team who keep the fillers area well-stocked - though we always seem to need more to feed all those boxes.....

SUCH A BUSY SATURDAY

Yes we are celebrating our first container load going on its long journey to all those children who will be made so happy by receiving a shoebox. 8020 children in fact and they live in Zambia, they may not know it yet but for those 8020 children a shoebox full of wonderful gifts are on the way to them right now.

 Unless you came to the warehouse you cannot imagine how many shoeboxes we have... and how many volunteers there are to help. Some loading, some unloading some packing, some checking shoeboxes, some replenishing the fillers, some driving and some counting the money. This couldn't be done without you all.


Everyone is special because you all play a part in the whole thing and sorry we cannot feature you all.  We try hard to include people in our blog and back in October when we had our launch I met Olivia from Tomlinscote School in Frimley. Olivia has been doing shoeboxes for sometime now and this year has made 20 shoeboxes and she funds all the contents and shipping fees out of her birthday, Christmas and pocket money. The boxes were beautifully wrapped and packed with fantastic things. To be fair she did 6 boys and 6 girl boxes. And gives up her time on Saturday to help us.

And EVERY box is special and EVERY box is different we find some wonderful things in boxes and sometimes a letter or card, Today we found a lovely note attached to the inside of a shoebox. Yet another example of how thoughtful and kind people are.

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ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Whilst it starts with the warehouse all set up and running, we now need some shoeboxes in there for people to work on.
So introducing Michael and his team of drivers who will take the vans out each day to collection points all around the GU & KT postcode area, collecting the thousands of shoeboxes that people have lovingly put together.

It's quite a task getting to all these sometimes hidden and remote places or battling with the traffic to ensure all the collections are met.
The vans have to be properly packed or the boxes may get damaged or fall open in transit and all the boxes have to be counted and numbers noted.

We must not forget that lots of people kindly use their own vehicles to collect boxes and bring them in. Stephen and Ellie Shurville do this each year, as do many of our KT people who we are just starting to get to know. These people also do a vital job in bringing the shoeboxes into the warehouse.
In addition to that, many people choose to deliver their boxes themselves, bringing them directly into the warehouse and often staying to help.
What would we do without all these willing volunteers?
Whilst most of us may be of the retired category ... and very proud of it too, we thankfully have some young muscle to help us. Alex has been here to give us the muscle we need, helping his Granddad (Gerard) to pack cartons. Marianne ensures lunch is on hand to keep him going.

Hunky or what? But off for a training session prior to his South African volunteering trip... clearly this volunteering runs in the family.

ALL OUR VOLUNTEERS

How many volunteers have we got? Any guesses?
Well last year and remember we were just GU we had over 300 in total.
Over the next few weeks we are going to meet some of them, sorry there are too many lovely people to feature but we will get to a good number of you. If you have a special story to tell and would like to share it please let us know so we can make sure you are part of our blog.
It is a busy place as you can see.....

Look at this lovely trio in their Christmas Jumpers.... Katrina, Marie and Audrey looking f.a.b. girls.

 As part of our fund raising, Lynne Luckey has made the most beautiful traditional Christmas cake. We are running a guess the weight of the cake competition. Please do have a go but you need to pick it up to try and judge...... but before you do, please make sure you read the lifting and handling advice sheet, its heavier than you may think. And if you are the skilled person who gets the nearest weight don't worry we will keep the pallet truck to help you get it into the car. This beautiful cake is really full of fruity goodness.

Also we have the sales table, which is a bit tucked away but as always it is full of wonderful things - handmade cards and sponsored boxes, which are fantastic value and great for a Christmas present, buy one or more of course, get them sent out in a shoebox consignment to a child and let the person know that their present this year is a shoebox(s) to a child in critical need. Actually come over to the sales table and do all your Christmas shopping.

OUR FIRST COLLECTIONS

On Sunday 2nd November 2014 we made our first collection of shoeboxes. A bit early you may say, and yes it is, as officially our collections don't start until 14th November and the warehouse doesn't open until 17th. However, when you have a church that has made up shoeboxes for some years, does not have room to store them and wants to celebrate them going on the first leg of their journey how can you say no?
Heather and Jenny were invited to St Andrew's in Cobham where, during the family service, they were invited up to the front to receive the boxes and afterwards the whole congregation made a human chain through the church, down the path and into the lane where the car was parked.
140 boxes later the car was bulging at the seams.

St. Andrew's church support many people, places and organisations, we are so happy we are one of them. Another one is Heart for Romania who were also there on the 2nd November selling some crafts handmade in Romania and one of the young Romanian boys called Lorand Stefan told us he had received a shoebox when he was young.

Lorand remembers at the age of 7 his school received shoeboxes, he said he was happy to get this gift and remembers it had come from Manchester.

Then we started in ernest with collections on 13th Nov so we would have a good bit of work to start with on Monday. We have also been asked to take shoeboxes from Eastleigh who have not been able to get a warehouse.

Well it's all history now as we have a mountain of shoeboxes all going to the children who need them most.

Ready, Steady, Go

Welcome, welcome, welcome ... to our 2014 Operation Christmas Child shoebox time. Yes after a busy year which made the time go incredibly fast, we arrived in October and had the Launch Event on the 13th. We were over the moon to see so many people attend the evening particularly when the clocks had not long changed so it was very dark and with the wet weather too, our loyal supporters and volunteers came up trumps yet again.
On that evening we would love to have been able to tell everyone that we had a warehouse, sadly we couldn't and it was still a while after that when we did secure one. But secure one we did and wonderful it is too.
October sped by and we find ourselves in November, a very busy spell for us all. So from an empty shell of a warehouse all is set out and ready for everyone to come and help check the 1000's of shoeboxes.

And yes it will be 1000's let's go through the past few weeks. Most people will know that we are now collecting and processing the shoeboxes from the KT postcode area as well as GU, approximately an extra 9,000. "Wow" we said, "That's great", and its super to know that lots of KT volunteers are going to join us, we are looking forward to meeting them and working together.
Then, and this made us really thankful that we have a warehouse, we learnt that quite a number of areas have not been able to get one, not only is this a huge disappointment for them but leaves them with the problem of what do they do with all the shoeboxes that people will still do.
Come in GU and KT warehouse...... yes we were set a challenge.
Question: Can we take unprocessed shoeboxes from Eastleigh?
Answer: Yes we can, it could be around 5,000.
Question: Can we take processed boxes in cartons from Croydon?
Answer: Yes we can, it will be 100's.
Question: Can we take processed boxes in cartons from Basingstoke, Reading and Maidenhead?
Answer: Well we had to think about this one..... but hey! This could have been us without a warehouse, so naturally with some planning we said yes.
We are ready to go and have been taking in boxes from other offices and doing our own collection this is what we have so far....

So come and enjoy what is going to be the busiest year EVER from this Monday 17th November at 9.30am. We are here and looking forward to the challenges.

SOME UNSUNG HEROS

You see all of us buzzing around checking boxes, packing cartons, driving, ensuring the filler tables are well stocked, etc. etc. However, lots of things go on behind the scenes to make this operation all tick. Let's meet a few of our unsung heroes.

The Warehouse: Without it we couldn't do what we do, thank you to Marianne and Gerard who work so hard to get us here. Sadly this year they have both decided to give up their posts. Please come along to our thank you event to celebrate all the years they have given to make such a fantastic project.

Number of boxes: It's crucial we need to know this so when the shoeboxes arrive at their destination the right number of children are there to receive them. How sad to overestimate and have children waiting for a shoebox and there not be enough. Thank you Gerard for getting it right.
Rejects: Sadly we do have to take some items out of the boxes during checking. Marianne has looked after those too, ensuring everything is used. Giving items to Guildford Action, the food bank, a local school for the books, playing cards to troops, bubbles to a local school for the disabled... we could go on, but everything is used.



The Collections: Thank you Heather, actually a big thank you Heather as this is probably the most complex and time consuming job of all to arrange with all our donors with 50+ shoeboxes a collection time and date. Naturally the shoeboxes have to be ready but of course they need to be coordinated so the pick ups in one area are done on the same date wherever possible or we would be wasting time and money running around all over the area. Heather is on the left, Jenny is just getting in on the act!




Tea, Coffee and Cleaning the Loos. This is coordinated by Wendy Hoare and Barbara Wilson who must know everyone. So much so they can encourage people to pop their name on the list to wash up mugs etc and give the loos a quick clean. This was an easier job this year as there were less mugs than usual to wash up, though the lack of kitchen facilities still made it a challenge!

Finance: Where does all the money go? We take all the donations out of the shoeboxes and pop them into the dish on the table. But guess what? This all has to be counted and this is another huge job. Thank you to Colin and Sue and their deputies, Sue and Roy, for doing such an admirable job. We now know it is not just the counting of the money but it all has be separated into cash and cheques, then again into Gift Aided and not Gift Aided.






Please don't desert us yet..... a final blog tomorrow with our final numbers......... lots of amazing figures and final photos.... get ready to be wowed, amazed and very pleased with all your hard work