Off the rails at Emmaus

A very mild evening saw another great turnout for our two tasks tonight. After a brisk warm-up and some newt herding, we parted company and while one group set off for the Emmaus warehouse, the remainder were escorted off to St Pauls Adventure Playground by our brand new run leader, Charlie. Thanks, Charlie!

Emmaus Warehouse

Emmaus helps previously homeless people get back into work by giving them longer term place to live and helping them develop new skills, including PAT testing for companies, performing house clearances and moving large items for elderly or vulnerable people. A couple of the companions also help to organize the warehouse that stores the goods for the Emmaus shops - including one located on the same site.

Now a large part of the current shop stock is womens clothing and the two male warehouse staff could use some assistance in sorting this stock into the correct sizes (some of it is unlabeled). So, it was quite handy that our Emmaus group was almost entirely made up of runners who could do just that. In just 30 minutes the two teams of 8 moved a large quantity of the clothing onto rails with consistent hangers and lovely clear sizing cubes - a task that would have taken much longer otherwise.

Meanwhile, another small group worked through the donated books to sort fiction from non-fiction. The usual debates over categorisation ensued. Is "Pooh's Workout Book" - fiction or non-fiction? And of course, trampoline engineer Kerry made a beeline for the clothes rail construction task, ably assisted by one of our new runners Tim - who also came up with tonights pun - please do come again, Tim :)

And to top it all, Abigail finally got her red laces.

Thanks for back marking, Kerry!

St Pauls Adventure Playground

A group of 10 runners merrily trotted over to St Paul's Adventure Playground. An amazing local play area that is being spruced up and ran by a group of volunteers.

On arrival we were met by Dug who had a long list of jobs for us to be getting on with. We quickly got to work forming a good old good gym chain to shift a lot of chip board up into the mezzanine attic. All to the beat of some great reggae music.

Still with time to spare we sanded wooden doors, washed metal shutters ready for painting, moved metals poles and sorted out tents/sleeping bags.

All in an evenings work. Great work everyone!

Thanks to Dave for back marking.