Summer News ‘22
A few quick notices to start with.
Save the Date: We have been invited to a thank you event, hosted by Fleur Anderson, in the Jubilee room in the Houses of Parliament on Thursday 22nd of September, from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. We are waiting on an EventBrite link for people to book, please contact Rosie for details. It is open to anyone who has volunteered with the Scrubbery, and we have room for 60 people. This has been in the works for over a year and has had numerous postponements so we are delighted it is happening now.
We need urgent help with the very large wellbeing bag request we are finalising. We have over 500 to prepare and we are looking for people to help write thank you notelets, and we also need individual fruit tea sachets to go in each bag. If you can help please be in touch.
Now the summer news. Phew what a scorcher! Even in soaring temperatures the crew have been industrious. The school is closed for the summer holidays, it is quieter now, so if you intend to come in you will need to make an appointment because the reception desk is closed. The Scrubbery phone number is 020 7884 6000 then you chose option 2 on week days, or at weekends dial 60018 immediately after the message, note that there is no voice prompt.
To contribute to our lovely new community we have been helping with some summer break tasks. Not only have all their high visibility jackets been washed, sorted and mended, thanks in great part to Hilary and Rosie, but also the clothing in the lost property has been washed and mended. Some will go straight back to the school for spares in the classrooms, and others will go in uniform packs for families who need a little extra help and assistance at the moment.
Rosie has also been going through the discarded items from the school and managed to retrieve and redirect stationery, clothes, toys, fabric, books, and paper. There was also a lovely ball pit, which went to Little Village.
Sorting rescued quilt squares, writing thank you notes, unpicking curtains. You never know what will be going on at The Scrubbery...
Another little side-line for us this month was making whiteboard cleaners for the children’s individual whiteboards – the school used to buy erasers but Rosie has designed and made 250 from recycled fleece and jersey material. Thus saving the school a decent chunk of money, as well as helping the planet and stopping landfill.
We have also cleaned and tidied up a lot of the chairs in the staff room and beyond - thanks to Suzy Johnston for loaning her steamer.
You will no doubt be delighted to hear that Rebecca Hughes has been confirmed as the new Head Teacher – we would like to offer her our congratulations on that well deserved promotion.
Action for Ukraine
Since the last newsletter we have produced a lot of items for our friends in Ukraine. We have sent:
184 scrub tops
33 patterned scrub sets
66 plain blue scrub sets
Camouflage netting
58 teddies
3 rabbits
85 children’s pyjamas
69 children’s procedure gowns
We have had an additional request from 3 Ukrainian district hospitals in Odessa, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. Theatre surgeons from these hospitals contacted us to say they have no scrubs at all and Kyiv also require more. Sourcing cloth for this request turned out to be extremely complicated as Brexit has made it prohibitively expensive, in both administration time and actual money, to import the cloth from Europe. We had to settle for what was available in warehouses in the UK already, which is slightly heavier than we normally use. There was also a 85p/metre additional surcharge for fuel. We bought 4 rolls of 130m to be able to fill these requests. One of the rolls was sponsored by a charity sending medical supplies to Ukraine.
Our scrubs at a field hospital outside Kharkiv
We are hoping to expand our network of machinists to include Ukrainian seamstresses in the UK, to get more kits worked on and scrubs into the hospitals who really need it. All this is being coordinated by Olga Proto and her network of volunteers.
Another project we are working on is one to supply baby blankets for those struggling in Ukraine. The school were disposing of a large curtain and the cotton curtain bump was perfect for this, so Rosie has designed and cut over 40 blankets, and they just await binding and decorative embroidery before being shipped.
Besides Ukraine we have also supplied
158 bags for the food bank which have been made from recycled cloth.
Scrubs for the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital
Scrubs for Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare Vaccination Team
All of which leads us to thank everyone for their help and in particular Hilary for continuing to work on the foodbank bags - she must have done hundreds by now. Thanks also to Christo for help getting everything delivered.
Interim lay using colourful ends of rolls while waiting for new fabric to arrive
University College London Hospital has put in a request for another 120 wellbeing bags which is another task we are working on currently – so if you have any spare time….
The Paediatric doctors are having a Survive and Thrive day soon and have asked Rosie to come along and speak at that event.
OUR THANKS as always go to the quiet industrious team that makes this all possible, but we are continually looking for more seamstresses if you know of any do spread the word!