St Leonard finished their plant sale and required help tidying up after the event. The fantastic five helped out and accomplished the following:

Cleaned the tables ✅ Cleared away the tables ✅ Ate some cake ✅ Stacked and tidied the chairs ✅ Moved unsold plants and trees ✅ Ate some doughnuts ✅ Picked up litter ✅ Ate some more cake ✅

Overall a success!

Five of us helped clear up at the end of St Leonard's Hospice plant sale. Some of the leftover plants were being displayed for people to collect at a later date and others sadly were destined for the compost. After sorting, displaying or composting all the leftover plants we helped take down the tables and gazebo before heading off a couple of us laden with plants and others wishing we were able to carry some.

This was a return visit to help Jill and her team get the new St Leonard's Hospice charity shop on Colliergate ready for the grand opening tomorrow at 11am. Our first task was to collect a load of crockery, glasses and a large picture from a local restaurant not too far away which was being refitted. If the items couldn't be collected today then they would be going in the skip so Jill was very pleased that we were there to save these items going to waste. It took several trips up and down the street to transport all the crockery and boxes of glassware to their new home (and we didn't break anything!).

Our next task was back inside, up on the top floor, measuring curtains (using the old units of feet and inches), bedding and other items such as napkins and throws (see Katie and Kate's "Game of Throws" photo!

With 10 minutes to go, Jill asked if we would kindly fetch even more items from their other nearby shop on Fossgate and we duly obliged. Just 2 trips this time, collecting heavy bags of books, pictures and some lovely sunflowers.

With that job done we just had time to pose with some of the sunflowers before departing our separate ways.

Pun credit to Katie (of course)!

Andrew was ready to greet us at the St Leonard's donation centre and gave us a quick tour of the warehouse and facilities and a safety briefing - all very organised.

We started on the mammoth pile of bags that had been donated, being careful to tip out the contents rather than put our hands into the bag (you never know what you mind find and it could be something sharp or broken). Andrew was quite strict about what clothes would pass as good enough quality to be hung on the rail for sending to the shop. Everything that wasn't deemed good enough (and there was a lot) was put into "rag bags" which are sold at £1 per bag. Myself and Laura were mainly sorting clothes, whilst Ellie and Katie also got a big bag of toys which they enjoyed playing with!

Andrew entertained us with a fantastically loud gold microphone which had been donated and said he used it to tell his volunteers to stop chatting and get back to work (in the nicest possible way)! We soon filled 2 rails full of clothes and added significantly to the mound of "rag bags". Just as we were getting to the bottom of the cage full of bags, more donations arrived so Andrew said he would be happy for us to return next week.

Four of us GG Yorkies returned to help Andrew at the St Leonard's Hospice donation centre. There wasn't as much to sort this week but we still managed to get through 2 half-filled cages of various items. We found a good selection of hats and Katie enjoyed dressing up French-style along with some very old French road maps!

Ellie spotted a funny label on one of the boxes:

This box is labelled Knickers and Booby Holders!

I also unpacked a box which was labelled "Boob discs"!! We are still wondering what they might be, but there definitely weren't any in the box - just clothes.

We were just about to leave when another delivery of items arrived, but Andrew said we could leave that to the volunteers tomorrow, otherwise they'd have nothing to do.

Thanks to Katie for the title pun.

St Leonard's Hospice are opening a bright and shiny new 3-floor charity shop in the centre of York on 31st January and needed some help getting all the stock ready for the big day.

We were warmly greeted by Jill who gave us a quick tour of each department in the shop and took us upstairs to show us our task. We were soon joined by Nikki, "fresh" (ie wet through and muddy) from an earlier task and Louise. There was quite a large pile of bedding, curtains, tablecloths and other bits of fabric that needed measuring and tagging then hanging on the rails, ready to be priced up and then put in the designated place in the new shop.

We had great fun measuring and tagging (checking carefully what size was a double or kingsize duvet cover) and discussing whether we should still measure the curtains in inches or metres.

Jill brought us hot drinks and more hangers as we soon used up the nice wooden ones. The rails were soon full of a wonderful selection of bedding, curtains, etc and a couple of items that we thought were scarves but had been mistaken for blankets!

I had to leave but the rest of the team stayed on, moving on to: "weird blankets, miscellaneous sheets and pairless curtains. Also some V-shaped pillowcases that we decided were fake boyfriend pillows!" - Nikki.

A lot was achieved in 2 hours but more help is needed so I'm sure we will be back to help again soon.