October News
October marches on, the weather has broken but remains warm, the 5th jab is becoming more available to more people, the prime minister has come and gone, but the Scrubbery remains a constant in an ever changing world – here is our latest update.
Ukraine support continues:
We have finished another camouflage net for Ukraine and are busy working on several others.
Thanks go to the Roehampton Club for their kind donation of some tennis nets. They have now been cleaned, had their tapes and eyelets removed, and are mounted on our frame ready for the next round of material tying. Thank you to Venetia Flint for collecting and organising the donation – it is much appreciated.
One of the camouflage nets — can you spot Rosie?
Anyone with spare time to come and tie some knots would be welcomed. John Clarke, who has been very active in supporting the Scrubbery, has kindly contributed two articles for this newsletter, the first of which is about how and why the camouflage nets are made:
What do the camouflage nets do? They save family Christmases.
Camouflage helps ensure that families can be all together. If each knot, each strand of coloured fabric, prevents a prying drone from finding a target there may be less need for anyone to put on scrubs, and there will be more families sharing laughter with loved ones come home.
The nets are gifts of strong used football or tennis nets from major local clubs. After checking for occasional repairs they are strung out on a wooden rig made to Rosie’s specification by the Roehampton Community Shed. The rig at Oasis Academy consists of two open frames about two metres by two metres in a structure with a space between them for storing the boxes of scrim.
Ah, scrim! Scrim is a strong coarse fabric, like hessian. In camouflage terms it is the various materials which are woven, or attached, to the supporting net. However, we use mostly cotton from household linen that has been dyed and cut or torn into strips about 5 centimetres wide by 30 centimetres long. Pure cotton is preferred because it takes a dye much better than polycotton. This texture is varied with similar strips of scrim from used hessian or jute coffee bags which are a gift from local coffee shops. One coffee shop exchanges coffee bags for my surplus roses!
The key idea is to avoid attracting attention. That means from both human eyes and from aerial observers such as drones which may be using algorithms to seek shape or patterns. As the human brain gravitates towards the reassurance of patterns it can be taxing to check whether our choices of colour or texture reflects the natural disarray of how leaves, bushes, branches and undergrowth may be seen. What could be a un-demanding routine task of attaching fabric is given purpose by the thought that each strip and group of stripe must pass the test of being un-noticed by hostile eyes.
We are always looking for more material, particularly bedding that is already in forest and grassland colours, to dye and use as scrim. Do, please, contact us about anything you have as well as your friends, family, and acquaintances. You may be surprised by what we can use, and prevent from going to landfill.
The frame for assembling the camouflage nets
Note for your Diary: 4th November 2022 at the Oasis Academy
We are setting up and hosting a collection of donations for Ukraine. On that Friday we will have several large collection bins in the foyer of the school, and we are looking for donations of new or clean clothing – but SPECIFIC items only. The bins will be taken direct to Ukraine so the donated items need to be usable immediately upon arrival there. This collection will only be happening on the 4th, please don’t bring anything afterwards.
The winter in Ukraine is predicted to be the coldest in 10 years. Many people have left their homes in what they stand up in and others are being evacuated from east to west to avoid the fighting.
They need warm clothing either in good condition or new for babies, children and adults.
All clothes will be sent out via The Scrubbery’s trusted transport route to a bonded warehouse in Lviv. The goods are released to the Catholic University Volunteer Corps who direct goods to where they are most needed.
If you would like to send a picture or letter of hope with your donation we will happily convey this with an accompanying translation.
The specific items we are looking for are:
Coats and jackets
Jumpers
Snow suits
Socks
New underwear
Hats and gloves
Long sleeved tops
Tracksuit trousers
Trainers
Any winter baby clothes and blankets
Foil blankets
Talking of Foil blankets please read about John Clarke’s brilliant idea – if you can help please do!
Before the battle-injured in Ukraine see the welcome sight of someone wearing the hospital scrubs which we are supplying to front-line field hospitals they may be grateful for something else which we are beginning to send out to help – foil blankets, also known as ‘space blankets’.
Foil blankets are the shiny sheets you see wrapped around marathon runners at the end of a race, or injured people waiting for an ambulance. They are made from the same tough plastic as fizzy drink bottles and have a metallic film which is highly reflective. These ‘space blankets’ are invaluable in countering the effects of serious injury – by reflecting back as much as 90% of the body heat they slow the effects of shock or trauma. On the front-line in Ukraine one of the IAs – Immediate Action – is to wrap the injured person in a foil blanket before getting them further back for treatment. It seemed a good idea to add some to the scrubs we send out.
This idea occurred shortly before the London Marathon. Over 40,000 runners, each of whom is offered a foil blanket at the finish line, to keep them warm. What happens to the blankets afterwards? Could we re-cycle them to the front-line in Ukraine?
Although it was too short notice to organise an official collaboration, I was able to collect twenty-five by just going to the finishing line at the Marathon and asking people if they wished to donate their blanket. Some, of course, wished to keep them as a souvenir but enough were willing to support this initiative to make it worth working with the race organisers next year, to reduce the number of foil blankets ending up in landfill. It looks as though Ukraine is going to be needing our help for some time to come. If you know anyone taking part in something like a marathon, do tell us so that we see whether we can work with them to recycle the blankets. Of course we clean the blankets before sending them on!
Some of the other news for the month:
We have just completed 479 wellbeing bags for the St Bartholomew’s Hospital Trust Maternity Services teams – this includes all the Doctors, Consultants, midwives, the nursing teams, and the admin assistants – everyone involved. These will be collected this week, many thanks to all who came and helped.
We need more people to sew masks please. The Scrubbery have been asked to supply eye masks to patients at Chelmsford Hospital who are finding it difficult to sleep on wards due to bright lighting. We have a template to follow so just need some folks to sew please. The charity “United in Kind” will distribute them to the needy once we have enough to send on.
We also need more scrubs to be sewn for Ukraine – they are desperately short of suitable scrubs over there, so if you could pick up a few kits when you are next in, it really would make a huge difference to the doctors and nurses in the middle of a war zone over there, just trying to do their jobs.
Donations of 100% wool jumpers
Do any of you have tired, brightly coloured 100% woollen plain knitted jumpers that you no longer wear? Perhaps they have been attacked by moth or the elbows have worn away? Don’t throw them away, we can use them. Following our upcycling theme, in our sewing club next term we are hoping to show our students how to repurpose fibres through felting which we will then make into a designer pincushion.
Thank you so much.
Thank you’s due this month include but are not limited to:
Fortnum and Mason for a lovely large donation of teas for the Wellbeing bags.
O’Mara books for a generous donation of adult colouring books for mental wellbeing and the perfect size for the bags – absolutely ideal!
Tina – for generating a large donation of toothpaste and brushes - again a very much appreciated gift in the bags from the feedback we have had in the past.
Putney Hill Dental Practice for a donation of toothpaste and to Hilary for collecting.
Our congratulations go to Evie Boettcher who is almost at the end of her volunteering with us, though not her Gold Duke of Edinburgh award, for which she is now learning to drive! She has been volunteering with us for a whole year now – regularly helping out at the Hub, and on her own initiative she organised a cake sale at Esher College to raise money for the Scrubbery. She has been a brilliant volunteer and we have loved having her. Evie has said she will continue to volunteer in the holidays as time permits. We wish her all the best with her studies.
Please recommend the Scrubbery to your friends, we need to find new machinists and volunteers to get these tasks finished and to spread the load. If you know anyone who might be interested, just bring them in to meet Rosie and the team and let’s see what happens – they don’t have to be master craftspeople – we all have skills that can be extremely useful at the Hub.
Stay warm, dry and healthy.