Alright, so i'm on my way to pontypool - 20 Aug 2025 - (838 words) - Jaynes Baby Bank
Alright, so I'm on my way to Pontypool.
Caerphilly is closed today, Risker Roo is open.
It's not the best day today, is it?
It's still quite cold out there, I think.
So I'm on my way to Pontypool because we've had a massive influx of donations.
We've had an influx of donations.
We've had a look at one property, but it would be a shop and in a different area.
And I think they want 600 a month.
The cheaper we get the rent, see the more sustainable we can be at paying the rent.
And the more money we make for the food bank, which is the end goal, the food bank and the nappies and the formula and help families in the community and do all of our things, which I think everybody is focused on.
And I think the majority of our landlords are focused on that.
And they're fully aware that everybody is struggling, including them to get tenants that are going to be able to pay the rent.
So I think it's a community effort with some of our landlords as well.
Our landlords are fully aware that we are a community project and we are benefiting the community.
And that's why they give us the deals.
I've been to look at a looping van today, but the trouble is if you want, if I want a van, right, gonna have to pay quite a bit for the van to make sure it works.
Cause what we don't want to do is get a fixer upper because we haven't got the time.
And then we don't want to be piling money into a looping van to fix it up as well.
Um, to have driven about.
So we need a looping van because we need for manual handling to get the cages from the donation center to deliver the stock to the shops.
You see there's already priced and ready to go.
Um, and then we don't have these irregular pricing issues.
We don't have stock piled up in the shops or I could go to the shops now with a looping van with cages of donations.
Like I could be driving there now, drop off five cages of price donations that have been checked, pat tested, all the cleaned to the staff.
They can leave them in the cages while they work the stock like they would in somewhere like Tesco's, et cetera.
Um, and then I can pick up the donations that they've had to take back to the donation center.
So there isn't donations hanging around the shops in bulk either.
Um, because we do have a lot of trapped stock and something which we need to transform.
That is something that we need to transform.
And we don't want, I don't want to keep taking on shops, taking on shops, taking on shops, because we just fill them up and they just get full and we go to another area and then we get all the donations in that area and then they get that shop gets full.
And then that's another trap stock problem.
Um, and trap stock is the stock can deteriorate in value and quality, et cetera.
So in order to run a successful, not for profit business at the level that we're doing it, we need to rethink the current strategy that we've got, whereas we just get in another shop and move it in there.
Um, because a lot of our volunteers get excited when we move in there because they're like, Oh yes, I can empty my shop.
I'm like, no, you can't because this one is going to fill up within two to three weeks.
So it doesn't alleviate other shop problems either.
So we need a looting van.
We need this system in place to donation centers, looting van, everything's like we want the, we want like little hubs and what have you and another shop that I got my eye on.
Yes, yes to those.
But I think plan A is donation center and stock rotation and storage and delivery.
And plan B is carry on with shops and our success story.
And I think that's what we've got to look at there now today.
But I think I'm going to have to invest a little bit more of the baby bank money into a more expensive van so that we haven't got it breaking down and things like that.
Otherwise I'm going to end up with a fixer up and it's going to cost money to fix it up and time.
And the thing is we haven't got enough hours in the day to process everything at the moment but we're more quality rather than quantity of volunteers at the moment as well.
So it's about we've done it for five years, we've cracked on, we've literally just been out there winging it.
Now is the time to knuckle down and do the work for the next 15 to 20 years.
Caerphilly is closed today, Risker Roo is open.
It's not the best day today, is it?
It's still quite cold out there, I think.
So I'm on my way to Pontypool because we've had a massive influx of donations.
We've had an influx of donations.
We've had a look at one property, but it would be a shop and in a different area.
And I think they want 600 a month.
The cheaper we get the rent, see the more sustainable we can be at paying the rent.
And the more money we make for the food bank, which is the end goal, the food bank and the nappies and the formula and help families in the community and do all of our things, which I think everybody is focused on.
And I think the majority of our landlords are focused on that.
And they're fully aware that everybody is struggling, including them to get tenants that are going to be able to pay the rent.
So I think it's a community effort with some of our landlords as well.
Our landlords are fully aware that we are a community project and we are benefiting the community.
And that's why they give us the deals.
I've been to look at a looping van today, but the trouble is if you want, if I want a van, right, gonna have to pay quite a bit for the van to make sure it works.
Cause what we don't want to do is get a fixer upper because we haven't got the time.
And then we don't want to be piling money into a looping van to fix it up as well.
Um, to have driven about.
So we need a looping van because we need for manual handling to get the cages from the donation center to deliver the stock to the shops.
You see there's already priced and ready to go.
Um, and then we don't have these irregular pricing issues.
We don't have stock piled up in the shops or I could go to the shops now with a looping van with cages of donations.
Like I could be driving there now, drop off five cages of price donations that have been checked, pat tested, all the cleaned to the staff.
They can leave them in the cages while they work the stock like they would in somewhere like Tesco's, et cetera.
Um, and then I can pick up the donations that they've had to take back to the donation center.
So there isn't donations hanging around the shops in bulk either.
Um, because we do have a lot of trapped stock and something which we need to transform.
That is something that we need to transform.
And we don't want, I don't want to keep taking on shops, taking on shops, taking on shops, because we just fill them up and they just get full and we go to another area and then we get all the donations in that area and then they get that shop gets full.
And then that's another trap stock problem.
Um, and trap stock is the stock can deteriorate in value and quality, et cetera.
So in order to run a successful, not for profit business at the level that we're doing it, we need to rethink the current strategy that we've got, whereas we just get in another shop and move it in there.
Um, because a lot of our volunteers get excited when we move in there because they're like, Oh yes, I can empty my shop.
I'm like, no, you can't because this one is going to fill up within two to three weeks.
So it doesn't alleviate other shop problems either.
So we need a looting van.
We need this system in place to donation centers, looting van, everything's like we want the, we want like little hubs and what have you and another shop that I got my eye on.
Yes, yes to those.
But I think plan A is donation center and stock rotation and storage and delivery.
And plan B is carry on with shops and our success story.
And I think that's what we've got to look at there now today.
But I think I'm going to have to invest a little bit more of the baby bank money into a more expensive van so that we haven't got it breaking down and things like that.
Otherwise I'm going to end up with a fixer up and it's going to cost money to fix it up and time.
And the thing is we haven't got enough hours in the day to process everything at the moment but we're more quality rather than quantity of volunteers at the moment as well.
So it's about we've done it for five years, we've cracked on, we've literally just been out there winging it.
Now is the time to knuckle down and do the work for the next 15 to 20 years.